unsubscribed user managed to post?

[Matthew Dowle]

Hello,

In the data.table sub-forum of R,  user "Ruser007" posted topic "Dataset
election.2008" on August 07 at 06:36am.

However, this user was not subscribed to datatable-help, so the post did
not make it to the datatable-help list (as managed by mailman). The post
only exists on nabble.

How was this possible?  I thought that nabble sends posts via the list
address ([e-mail]) and therefore only
posts that mailman accepts would make it back on to nabble. It seems that
the subscription list policy has not been respected?

The link is :

http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/datatable-help-f2315188.html

and the thread in question is the most recent one.

Thanks for looking into this,
Matthew

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Matthew,

Nabble can't check if a user is subscribed or not before letting him/her post a message. So we have to let people post and the mailing list should block non-subscribers, like in that case. When a user posts a message on the forum archive, the system sends an email on his/her behalf to the mailing list and listens for an ack email to confirm that it went through the list. So we can't prevent problems like this and the forum administrator (you) should guide or ban users that don't follow the rules.

Regards,
Hugo Teixeira
Nabble.com

[Matthew Dowle]

Hi Hugo,

Thanks for the quick reply. This is how I thought it worked when an unsubscribed user uses Nabble to post :

1. Nabble sends their post to "datatable-help at lists.r-forge.r-project.org" on their behalf (ok so far, I understand Nabble has no way to know at this stage)
2. Mailman rejects their post because they are not subscribed (ok, thats the config option I chose).
3. Mailman doesn't forward the post to the subscribers (ok, good).
4. The Nabble user "lists+12nnnnnnnnnnn98-2nnnnn8 at n4.nabble.com", who *is* subscribed to the list doesn't receive the post (ok)
5. The post doesn't get put up on Nabble because "lists+1nnnnnnnnnnn8-2nnnnn8 at n4.nabble.com" didn't receive it (not what happened,  it did get put up on Nabble).

If Nabble only puts up posts that it receives via the "lists+1nnnnnnnnnnn8-2nnnnn8 at n4.nabble.com" user, would it solve this problem ?   In other words, why not just wait until the post is received via the special Nabble user subscribed to the list,  in the normal way?

Thanks again, Matthew

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Matthew Dowle wrote

If Nabble only puts up posts that it receives via the "lists+1nnnnnnnnnnn8-2nnnnn8 at n4.nabble.com" user, would it solve this problem ?   In other words, why not just wait until the post is received via the special Nabble user subscribed to the list,  in the normal way?

I understand your concern, but I think this would be confusing to users. For example, a user would go to the forum archive and reply to a given post. After saving the post, the user would be very confused because he/she can't find the post where it should be. Even if the user interface explains what is going to happen, the user would have to remember what he wrote, etc. So we would have to create other interfaces to let users find their pending posts and this starts to complicate the experience.

[Matthew Dowle]

I don't see the confusion. When you post to a list using email there is a short delay of a few seconds before it appears on the gmane newsgroup, or on the mailman html archive.  Wheres the problem?

The 'post message' button on nabble could cc the user. That way, if the post is rejected by mailman (because they are not subscribed) then the user has a copy so they can copy and paste it into a repeat post, after subscribing correctly.

This is not just concern that problems could happen, it has happened ... twice on the list I admin. The Nabble archive is already out of kilter with the true archive.

More confusing (and frustrating) to the user is why they got no replies!  They got no replies because nobody saw their question.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Matthew,

Matthew Dowle wrote

I don't see the confusion. When you post to a list using email there is a short delay of a few seconds before it appears on the gmane newsgroup, or on the mailman html archive.  Wheres the problem?

If the user is posting through Nabble, then he/she will probably check the Nabble archive first, not gmane's or mailman's.

Matthew Dowle wrote

The 'post message' button on nabble could cc the user.

I discussed this with other Nabble members. Your idea is interesting, but the "forum interface" idea for the mailing list would look broken or at least strange, since posts wouldn't be archived immediately. There would be no difference between sending the post through Nabble or through the user's email client. This will certainly upset hundreds of users and open source owners that like the forum interface for their mailing lists.

Matthew Dowle wrote

This is not just concern that problems could happen, it has happened ... twice on the list I admin. The Nabble archive is already out of kilter with the true archive.

One solution is to make your archive read-only (Options > Users > Who can view & post?). This would ensure that the archive is 100% compatible with the mailing list discussions.

Matthew Dowle wrote

More confusing (and frustrating) to the user is why they got no replies!  They got no replies because nobody saw their question.

This is not true. Nabble sends an email to the user about this problem and also shows a warning above the pending posts. Users do get notified about the issue.

[Matthew Dowle]

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

If the user is posting through Nabble, then he/she will probably check the Nabble archive first, not gmane's or mailman's.

Agreed - they would just wait a few seconds for their post to appear on Nabble. I doubt they'd look at gmane or mailman at all.

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

I discussed this with other Nabble members. Your idea is interesting, but the "forum interface" idea for the mailing list would look broken or at least strange, since posts wouldn't be archived immediately. There would be no difference between sending the post through Nabble or through the user's email client. This will certainly upset hundreds of users and open source owners that like the forum interface for their mailing lists.

I use the Forum 'application type' for my list; the default I think.  Is "forum interface" something different because I just don't see why 'hundreds of users' would be upset. I like it to! I like the ability to post from Nabble, I like it a lot.

There's a world of difference between posting from Nabble vs via an email client:  i)  people often mess up threading via email clients by taking old posts, hitting reply, and changing the subject (Nabble solves that issue)   ii) its much easier to reply into the correct part of an existing thread using Nabble (how would you even do that from an email client?)  iii) since Nabble is a much better viewer its faster to post from there all in one place rather than switch over to yet another app (the email client).

I really don't see the avantage of immediate posting,  unless there is some sort of "chat" interface in Nabble that I'm not aware of. That wouldn't be an option I'd choose, but I can see others might.

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

One solution is to make your archive read-only (Options > Users > Who can view & post?). This would ensure that the archive is 100% compatible with the mailing list discussions.

But then I can't post using Nabble, and the user's can't post using Nabble. We want to post using Nabble.

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

This is not true. Nabble sends an email to the user about this problem and also shows a warning above the pending posts. Users do get notified about the issue.

Ok, one option could be that Nabble could delete the post in this case then?  If Nabble knows there was a problem,  it could remove the user's post. It seems like the logic already exists in Nabble (to know) so an extra step could be to remove that post.  However, I still think it would be cleaner to wait for the post to be received back by the Nabble user subscribed to the list in the usual way (a few seconds). Nabble must be receiving successful posts like that anyway, detecting and discarding them somehow at the moment, otherwise all successful posts using Nabble would appear duplicated, if I understand correctly.

At least, how about making this an option so the list owner can choose ?