Re: I know you're tired of hearing this, but ... re FAQs

"Blammo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 01 Jul 2005 WazoO entered spamcop.help and left
> news:[email protected]:
>
> OK, well I was a little concerned that you might expect us here to link to
> the forum FAQ to answer FAQs here, I can't do that only because we may
> never hear from them again; they may start using the forum which isn't
much
> help to use here. I would rather say "here is your answer [answer] ... you
> could try the forum as well", which would let them decide.

I expect nothing.  And as stated in an eatlier response to Mike,
I have to suspect that you've not followed the link yet.  While
waiting for the (hoped for) helpful suggestions, I'd gone ahead
and started populating the FAQ coulmn with what I had.  I'll
repeat again, this isn't a "Forum page" ... it's hosted on the
same server, thus the driving URL, yes, it is a set of scripts
written by the folks that developed the Forum, yes, it does
pull in data from the Forum, but .... it is your garden variety
web-page.  I'm not pushing Forum / newsgroup issues, this
is all about providing an accessible FAQ.  To keep things
on track, please take a look at the web-page found at
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?act=home

> Now, for first time visitors, I see four types...

Thanks for time and effort in this response.  Copied off
for more research, will snip a bit as I've not got
answers for a few items ...

> (1) Got the "blocked by Spamcop" message.

Miss Betsy's "Why am I Blocked?" entry

> (2) Looking for help with their spam problem.

Complicated there, but there are a number of items
already in place for both Admin and end-user types.

> (3) Want to use the Spamcop block list.

Some entries there, even causing some controversy.  Instructions
on how to add/use BLs for blocking, but (last time I looked)
nothing on how to set things up for the recommended Tagging
action.

> (4) Abuse report recipient (mail admins)

At the moment, first item on the FAQ list on the
referenced web-page.

> So I think the most important item would be "What is Spamcop?" in general,
> since this applies to those three. I don't know how I would organize that,
> but it should probably keep those three types in mind.

Interesting in that the first link on the Forum FAQ went to a
www.spamcop.net FAQ entry that listed all the sevices
available, a bit of description on all .. someone killed that
FAQ entry, I eventually changed the Forum FAQ link to
something close.

> 4 is probably a special case, I think they should have their own page,
> actually they do, don't they? I often forget about them, but they probably
> do need a special FAQ entry. However the report itself can supply the
> necessary info or links, there are those can't can't seem to read very
> well, they miss the link, that should be considered.

Yes, there is an Admin/ISP section.  But, just as in the normal
user scenario, you've got those that "ain't got the time" .. get
frustrated chasing one link after another, on and on ... There's
a current discussion started by an "Admin" of a hosting site in
receipt of a forwarded SpamCop complaint .. this Admin followed
the link to the "report action center" - select from a dropdown to
indicate the status of the issue (spammer nuked, under investifation,
innocent bystander, etc ...) ... this Admin couldn't figure anything
out from that screen, as all this Admin wanted to know was how
to track down the complainer (and this wasn't in the disposition
drop down list)  There is a link "how this got tracked to you" which
then takes you to the Tracking URL of the parse ... but no links
back to any FAQ/explanation of the process ... Your suggestion is
great, but .... outside the scope of this thread and anything I
can do ....

>It would probably be a
> good idea to have translations as well. I don't know how involved you can
> get into that, it seems like a special area, but still you probably need a
> special FAQ section to help keep them from asking stupid questions in the
> forums, regulars often aren't very nice to these guys and we don't want
> them rejecting reports.

Translation requests have been made for years.  Some have been
attempted/offered.  I think the issue boiled down to a block of
text is offered, someone looks at it and says "I have no idea what
it says ... so there's no way I'm going to put this in a public place."

> More details on how Spamcop works:
> (a) Reporting service

It's possible that one of my major points has been skipped
again.  The www.spamcop.net FAQ has been around for
ages (the last "new look" revamp also caused the entry dates
to disappear) ... yet this seemingly simple request still causes
complaints.  The Forum FAQ was one attempt at trying to
fill in the blanks, the creation of the "How to Use ..." Forum
section was another.  Recall that the only person that "really"
knows what's going on is Julian, and he rarely makes data
public.  More than once, I've tinkered around enough to
make some guesses, write something up, only to find that
the program changed a bit while I was typing <g>

> (b) Mail filtering service
>
> I don't know much about the mail reporting service, so I have to skip
that,
> but I think much of the spam reporting info applies to mail members as
> well.

Thankfully, there are some folks that have made major
contributions to flushing out that section of the FAQ (the
Forum version again) ... no access to the www.pamcop.net
version and the current staffing issues in making changes
there these days.

<section snipped, again thinking that a visit to the referenced web-page
actually puts light on that most of this is already covered>

> Also there is at least one section I failed to mention, the Spamassassin
> section. This should probably be under (3) Want to use the Spamcop block
> list. (maybe that should end with a ?). That subject should cover that,
and
> a subsection under that...
> (a) For mail administrators
> (b) For end users

There is a www.spamcop.net FAQ entry for some SpamAssassin
settings.  However, there is also a recent Forum Discussion from
someone taking exceptions to that list of settings ....
FAQ - http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/331.html
Topic -http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4410

> Now I think this is a logical order, but some may not like so many clicks,
> some expect one click to answer their question (dream on). I think a good
> way to deal with this is to include all links on one page in a list
format,
> then use DHTML to colapse it. This is actually quite easy to do, if you
> want some code I can supply it, though I generally ignore browsers that
> don't support CSS2 and Javascript 1.5, so for them the list don't colapse
> or just stays colapsed depending on several things. For example I have a
> menu that is colapsed in Communicator, in IE5.0 the first item is expanded
> (I don't know why), and in non-css browsers the list is expanded. Anyway I
> designed it so that you can get to every page without expanding the list,
> if you can't do that then the list can just be expanded by default, only
> using Javascript to colapse it. Also you can use server-side script or
> Javascript to expand the members section for members that are logged in
> (or have a cookie set).

Thanks for the offer.  I also do web-page development, but .... I'm
also working under a number of constraints here.  Not my server, not
my service, not my code .... some of my learning curve on this app
might be best explained here
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4387&view=findpost&p=29884

Again, thanks for the time and effort.  Much appreciated.