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<div>Dear All, and especially Aidan:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>As the present tech person for Korean Studies list (I am not
participating in moderation anymore), please allow me to reply back to
the list -- since Aidan posted this to the list (in addition to
earlier inquiries about similar technical problems):</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Basically, neither the moderators nor I can give you a satisfying
answer. There are just too many components involved. But let me at
least give you an idea.</div>
<div>We are using a piece of software called "Mailman" (home
page: http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/). This resides on a CentOS
Linux server. This server runs "cPanel" (home page
http://cpanel.net) as a hosting platform. cPanel has integrated
Mailman as one of its free 3rd party programs. We therefore have no
need to upgrade Mailman by itself but have cPanel upgrade Mailman when
cPanel is upgraded (about once a month) -- a very convenient way to do
this, given that Mailman is a really complicated piece of software.
The list archives you mention are also part of Mailman software; only
the search engine for searching KS archives (lower 3rd of main KS List
home page: http://koreaweb.ws/ks/, index updated once a week) is an
external program.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>What we have here is the most popular listserv program running on
the most popular server OS under the most popular hosting platform.
The program is highly automated. This means that anyone can
automatically subscribe, unsubscribe, and do other specific
customizations once subscribed from the web interface at:
http://koreaweb.ws/mailman/listinfo/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/</div>
<div>The list owners, on the other hand, have the power to decide on
many administrative options -- among others that subscribers where
messages seem to bounce back to the list (e.g. because their mailbox
is full, the email address does not exist anymore, or because they
have set a vacation autoresponder) will be put to "sleep mode"
after 5 or 7 such bounces. The moderators, and especially poor Rob,
have gotten **many** inquiries relating to this issue. Please note
that the moderators cannot "research" this in every case,
and that this is also not a moderator's task. SEE BELOW -- NEXT
PARAGRAPH! There are just too many different possible causes. These
causes can be on both ends, the receiver and the Mailman software
interacting with the receiving email server. It really is an
interaction -- that is, the sending server, our server, is checking
out various things even before a message is being send, e.g. if the
email domain exists, or if that domain's IP is SPAM blacklisted in one
of 50 SPAM databases that are queried each time before a message gets
send out, or if the receiving mailserver is set up correct, and so
forth and so forth. Servers do these more and more complicated
pre-message tests mostly because of the world wide SPAM problem. On
the receiver end are similar checks for incoming mails, may it be some
sophisticated anti-SPAM and anti-virus software or other similar tests
as just listed. All this is now interplaying with each other, and the
combination of this just allows an absolutely amazing variety of
causes for not receiving mails, especially if from a listserv source.
To really figure out what is going on one would in many cases have to
have access to both systems (sender and receiver server). For $180 an
hour we are happy to have a technician look into your problems. (Just
joking ... it's $240, no discounts today.) Otherwise, please follow my
short do-it-yourself list below to fix any possible problem in
receiving mails.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I would therefore suggest to KS list subscribers having problems
receiving mails from the list to check the following for
yourself:</div>
<div>(a) See if your KS list account is set to sleep mode:</div>
<div>
http://koreaweb.ws/mailman/listinfo/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/</div>
<div> If so, reactivate it yourself from above web
interface.</div>
<div>(b) Check if your email box on the server is full (only you
will</div>
<div> know where to do this).</div>
<div>(c) Check if you have set up an autoresponder that replies
to</div>
<div> incoming messages with the same subject line
that was received.</div>
<div> If so, Mailman might disable your account
after a short while</div>
<div> because it "misunderstands" this as
bounced messages.</div>
<div>(d) Is your SPAM filter for the receiving email account
blocking</div>
<div> messages that were sent to more than 3 or 5
receivers</div>
<div> (mass mail protection)? If so, that could be
blocking incoming</div>
<div> mails from Mailman.</div>
<div>(e) Are you auto-forwarding mails from the KS list? This may
also</div>
<div> be a cause ... all depends on the receiver
system.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If you are not sure that you have received all posted messages --
check out the Web interface for the list at:</div>
<div>http://koreaweb.ws/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/</div>
<div>Easiest is to click the "DATE" link for whatever month
on above INDEX page.</div>
<div>(Note: Other than what Aidan says I do see Kevin's message there
-- or which message where you referring to, Aidan?)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div>Frank Hoffmann</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Times New Roman"
color="#000000">Could I also note a few glitches in transmission:<br>
<br>
A. Fellow AOL-ers, be warned:<i> Not all messages from the list may
reach you,<br>
</i>thanks to AOL's wonky spam filters. I received neither Frank's nor
Kevin's,<br>
nor the first 4 of the fan death thread. This tiresome problem comes
and goes.<br>
Best to check the archive.<br>
<br>
B. For this reason I have a backup Yahoo eddress too. I subscribed to
the list<br>
on this also on Sep 14, in Digest mode; got a reply, and
confirmed.<br>
However nothing more has yet reached me via Yahoo, while AOL is
now<br>
deigning to work. Perhaps I failed to confirm properly.<br>
<br>
C. Separately, the KS archive continues to scrub some messages -
including Kevin's.<br>
See below. It can be retrieved by delicately stitching the KS stem to
the URL ending given,<br>
but this is tiresome and risks error.<br>
<br>
Can anything be done about this? Though rare, it obviously impairs the
Archive's utility.<br>
<br>
Is it a compatibility problem with Hotmail? Someone else who
complained<br>
about this before, suspecting censorship, also had a Hotmail
eddress.<br>
It must be some kind of automatic glitch. Any suggestions?<br>
<br>
<br>
Best wishes<br>
Aidan</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Times New Roman"
color="#000000"><br>
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER<br>
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds
University<br>
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY,
UK<br>
tel: +44(0) 1274
588586 (alt) +44(0)
1264 737634
mobile: +44(0) 7970 741307<br>
fax: +44(0) 1274
773663 ISDN:
+44(0) 1274 589280<br>
Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt)
afostercarter@yahoo.com website:
www.aidanfc.net</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Times New Roman"
color="#000000">[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try
@yahoo too - and let me know, so I can chide AOL]</font></blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</div>
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