answer back on web space

For what it's worth... I guess we're still looking for someone willing to
take up the Webmaster hat...

Rick

LAUGHING SQUID'S RESPONSE:
________________________
We are looking into Mailman, but it is currently not something we support.
We're not sure if we want to add email list services because of the
potential spam problems that they may create as well as the increased load
on our servers. Maintaining excellent server performance is one of our main
priorities.

The whole email list issue has been around since we first started and we
are still undecided if we are ever going to go down that path. One option
might be to find some to host just the list for you and then we can create
an A record to their server, ie lists.yourdomain.com.

In-Reply-To: <200110232348.TAA16477@...>
Rick wrote:

> For what it's worth... I guess we're still looking for someone willing
> to take up the Webmaster hat...

I'm always on the lookout for a new home for microtonal.co.uk. Laughing
Squid looks fine, as I'd get a lot more web space and the ability to run
CGI scripts than with my current ISP. If it were possible to add mailing
lists as part of the deal, I could do that. I don't know how much the
bandwidth would cost.

> LAUGHING SQUID'S RESPONSE:
> ________________________
> We are looking into Mailman, but it is currently not something we
> support. We're not sure if we want to add email list services because
> of the potential spam problems that they may create as well as the
> increased load on our servers. Maintaining excellent server
> performance is one of our main priorities.

They mention CGI mailing list products. I don't know what these are like.
I found Mailman as another site had the logo for using it. It's Free
(GPL) and has a feature-ful web space. It's written mostly in Python,
which is good for me because it's a language I like and am therefore
familiar with. As I want to run Python scripts anyway (for example to
turn my temperament finder into a CGI) it might be worth trying to get
this working.

I do see some problems. It expects cron jobs to run which you couldn't do
with pure CGI. Also some of it is written in C. I don't know if you'd be
allowed to run C code on the server for security reasons. And there was
something in the Laughing Squid documentation about not being able to read
mail from a terminal, I don't know how important that would be.

I'm hoping spam could be deterred by only allowing subscribers to post,
and ensuring all subscribers have a valid e-mail address. I know Yahoo
does some clever stuff with the IP addresses, or something, because of my
failure in the past to forge headers. That might be harder to copy. But
then again, a few independent mailing lists wouldn't be a big target for
spammers.

> The whole email list issue has been around since we first started and
> we are still undecided if we are ever going to go down that path. One
> option might be to find some to host just the list for you and then we
> can create an A record to their server, ie lists.yourdomain.com.

We moved to Yahoo (well, originally OneList) on the understanding that the
adverts would be discreet. That's no longer the case, so it is worth
looking if we can move. Although, as it's only the web interface that
seems to be a problem, so moving somewhere we don't get a web interface
would be somewhat pointless.

Unless there's no way of setting to text-only e-mail. I don't know how
many people have noticed this, but when you join a new group you're
automatically set to have all e-mail converted to HTML format. The reason
is that they can insert banner ads, web bugs, cookies and the like.

There's another free mailing list site that Laughing Squid linked to.
First thing when I visited the home page, a new browser window appeared.
So much for them ...

If we really don't want the pop-ups, there are plenty of alternatives that
some of us can afford to subsidise:

<http://www.lsoft.com/products/default.asp?item=ease_home>
Listserv mailing list hosting. Priced by number of subscribers, up to $34
a month for 251-300.

<http://www.hosting4less.com/descriptions.html#mailing>
from $15 a month, supports mailing lists and Perl/Python CGI

<http://home.iwc.net/website.htm>
$30 a month, majordomo mailing list (does that include a web interface??)
and Perl/Python CGI.

<http://www.icdsoft.com/master.html>
<http://www.oneplanhost.com/cgi-bin/esp?PAGE=plan.esp>
Perl/Python/C++ CGI, only $6 or $7 per month respectively. No mailing
lists.

Price comparisons aren't fair because bandwidth and likely uptimes will
vary. Still, the cheap ones are tempting. My inclinations is to go with
the one I have a personal recommendation for (Laughing Squid) but I could
get a similar service with the mailing lists for about the same price.

Here's how you start a newsgroup:
<http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/creating-newsgroups/part1/>. Crunch is
you need 100 net votes in favour. So how about rec.music.microtonal? I
think that would be an advantage for the main list, because it makes it
easier to filter, and means you don't get a load of messages you don't
want in your inbox.

I still think this discussion should be on metatuning ...

Graham