[Mailman-Users] User List

[AerosmithFanClub.com List Admin]

At 12:35 AM 5/16/2002 -0700, you wrote:
 >On Thu, May 16, 2002 at 03:25:53AM -0400, AerosmithFanClub.com List Admin
 >wrote:
 >> Does not work in a shared environment.  PERMISSION DENIED every time!
 >
 >Uh?
 >You gotta be part of the group mailman to have permissions on the db.

Damn this really sucks.  I imagine this software just was not designed to 
run in a shared environment.


 >> BTW if any of the programmers are here can I ask why a .db format was used
 >
 >Because you don't want to a access a 10,000+ membership list linearly.
 >That's programming 101.

I serious doubt even a SMALL percent of lists have that many users.  But 
never mind, thats not the point.


 >> and not the much simpler ASCII file?  I mean this software is really great
 >> at what it does.  The problem is (like I have mentioned before) that it is
 >> not very flexible at all and you have to go through a lot of screens and
 >> steps to do things.  I want to try to make this work on my server.  Please
 >
 >Not really,  you just try to  do all the  things it wasn't designed  for and
 >then complain that there isn't a front end of it.

You make my point.  IT WASNT DESIGNED to be used but in a single manner.  I 
know I am not the only one who has made request like these.  I have gotten 
a lot of private responses asking that if I get a way to fix the problems 
to let them know as well.  Also it is NOT complaining to ask for help or 
request knowledge.  The fact that the program cannot do what a person asks 
does not mean that the person is complaining.  The product really isnt as 
flexible as it could be.  Thats not kicking anyone's cat it is simply 
stating a point of fact.


 >
 >If you needed to list the membership, you could do it with
 >~mailman/bin/list_members.
 >If you want a raw dump of the DB, you can get it with ~mailman/bin/dumpdb
 >
 >What else do you want?
 >If you're missing the glue for what you want, you get to write it, the base
 >tools are there.
 >
 >> give me help getting all of the excessive overhead turned off that we 
don't
 >> need.
 >
 >Eh, don't complain to  us if you need to shave the conners  off your cube as
 >you're hammering it into a round hole.
 >It's open source, you can do that if you want, but you get to shave the said
 >corners off, not us.
 >(Well, Barry & Zope.com take monetary bribes, but that's a different matter
 >:-p)

Again it was a request.  I ask not to remove corners but to not have to use 
all kinds of extraneous layers and levels of control freak features.  I 
made a request to learn how to edit the standard message returned when the 
HELP command is issued because I dont use the web interface pages for my 
lists.  I want to remove the reference to them.  Thats a really simple 
request.  I don't know what file to work with so I asked.  I asked how to 
not have to force users to have passwords and all I get is people giving me 
crap about "what you want your subscribers mass unsubscribed by other 
people".  Obviously I do not consider that to be a risk worth going to all 
the hassle of passwords over.  In my previous 8 years of running lists I 
had ZERO instances of this.  Of course these lists were set up that one 
could only unsubscribe a given address from that address.  Gee no need for 
passwords!  Point is that every request made that does not have an already 
defined fix, etc seems to be treated as a complaint or an attack on 
someone.  It would be better for the list as a whole if the folks who have 
nothing better to say than "if you don't like it write the code yourself", 
"Hey its not my problem",  or "quitcher bitchin" would just move on to the 
next email and help with what they have a constructive solution 
for.  Although I guess that is what makes some folks happy, just sitting 
there and pissing and moaning at everyone else.

Thanks!