Brittle communication channels

tl;dr:  It's a bad idea to make it impossible to tell you your site or
mailing list is broken.


I maintain the Linux User Group HOWTO for the Linux Documentation
Project.  My last few updates haven't made it out to tldp.org because
their publishing toolchain is broken -- but at least they know this and
are working on it.  (Meanwhile, see http://linuxmafia.com/lug/ .)

So... someone suggested last year that I take over
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/User_Groups/North_America/United_States/California/
, which was drastically out of date.  I did so, which lead to my
investigating the state of Southern California LUGs, which in turn lead
me to central information site http://www.lalugs.org/ -- whose LUG
listings are dreadfully outdated and mostly very broken.   I made a list
of suggested updates, and sent it where it say at page bottom:  'Send
updates to [email protected]'

Guess what?

---<begin forwarded mail>---

 Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 23:00:56 -0700
 From: Rick Moen <rick-IyCrq+X4Fdq2oZ/[email protected]>
 To: [email protected]
 Subject: Update for http://www.lalugs.org/

Greetings.  I'm volunteer editor of the DMOZ category for Linux user
groups in California
(http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/User_Groups/Nort
h_America/United_States/California),
and also maintain the Linux User Group HOWTO for Linux Documentation
Project.

In updating the DMOZ page, I've been running down the
http://www.lalugs.org/#meetings entries .  Here is news you may wish to
use in updating that page section:

1.  Antelope Valley LUG (AVLUG) dropped off the Internet in 2011-2013.
Evidence:  See the GMane archive of their mailing list, which cuts off
in 2011:
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-group.linux.avlug/month=20110801
Internet Archive's last snapshot of their Web site was 2013:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130326045100/http://www.avlug.org/

2.  BurbankLUG is claimed to be at http://www.meetup.com/burbanklug/,
but Meetup says this group doesn't exist.  (This happens frequently with
LUGs that move to Meetup, because their Meetup sponsor eventually
decides to stop paying the fees, and Meetup removes the group.)

3.  'Linux at LAX (LiLAX)' is claimed to be at http://www.lilax.net/ 
DNS still resolves, but there's no Web server at that IP.  Internet
Archive's last snapshot was July 2013.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130727141558/http://www.lilax.net/

4.  'Linux Users, Los Angeles (LULA)':  Group is gone.  Clay Claiborne 
has a placeholder page there saying he'll sell the domain.

5.  'Linux Users Group of the Inland Empire (LUGIE)' is listed with URL
http://www.rdfoerster.com/LUGIE/ , which indeed has a page saying LUGIE 
has a new site at http://www.lugie.org/ .  But there is no DNS for that
domain from its authoritative nameservers.  Most recent Internet Archive
snapshot was Jan. 2014:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140112131548/http://www.lugie.org/

_However_, their Google Group remains active:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/linux_inland_empire

6.  'Orange County LUG (OCLUG)' is active.  I'm on its mailing list.

7.  'SFVLUG - San Fernando Valley Linux Users Group' is active.  I'm on
its mailing list.  

  [RM: meant to mention here that San Gabriel Valley LUG (SGVLUG) 
  is also robust and has an active mailing list.]

8.  'Santa Barbara Linux User Group (SBLUG)' is active, though you'd
hardly know it from that group's Web site.  Signs of life are on the
announce-only mailing list, which bizarrely is privately archived.
(WTF?)

9.  'Santa Clarita Valley LUG (SCVLUG)' is listed with URL
http://www.scvlug.org/ , which is an empty Drupal site.  Judging by the
Internet Archive snapshots, they had a real Web site from 2001 to 2010, 
when something blew it away, and the empty Drupal site replaced that in
2014.  I see no sign of the group anywhere else.

10.  'SCLUG - Simi-Conejo Linux Users Group' is listed with URL
http://www.sclug.org/pages/home/meetings.php, which is a 404 page, but
can be corrected to http://www.sclug.org/ .  Group is active and has
announcements and discussion mailing lists (which bizarrely are both
privately archived and require listadmin approval to join).

11.  UCLALUG is active.  Yay.

12.  'Southwest Riverside County Linux Enthusiasts' is listed with URL
http://www.srcle.org/ .  Domain is not registered, and I find no sign of
the group anywhere else.

13.  'Ventura County Linux User Group' is active.  Yay.

Hope this helps.  And of course, any tips and corrections for the DMOZ
page are most welcome.  (I've just started bringing it up to date.)
And of course, any tips and corrections for the DMOZ page are most
welcome.  (I've just started bringing it up to date.)

-- 
Cheers,                  QA engineer walks into a bar.  Orders a beer.
Rick Moen                Orders 0 beers.  Orders 999999999 beers.  Orders
rick-IyCrq+X4Fdq2oZ/[email protected]      a lizard.  Orders -1 beers.  Orders a sfdeljknesv.
McQ! (4x80)              -- @sempf, https://www.sempf.net/post/On-Testing1.aspx

---<end forwarded mail>---


So, you send mail to that moderated Yahoo Group, and get a notice that
an admin will approve it (or not).  And then a couple of weeks later,
you get a notice that your posting has expired out of the admin queue,
unapproved.  And you check
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/lalugs/info ('Mailing list for
coordinating between the various Los Angeles Linux User Groups') and
find that no traffic's been approved since 2008.


Intermission.  Begin act two.  Four months pass.


A guy on the OCLUG (Orange County LUG) Mailman mailing list notices I've
posted there and asks me offlist if I'd be interested in UUASC (used to
post there, might join again), have heard of SCALE (attend every year),
and might be interested in the information on http://www.lalugs.org/ .
I say, funny that -- and recount how I tried and failed a few months ago
to get that page updated, with results I gathered while fixing
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/User_Groups/Nort
h_America/United_States/California .

So, the two of us thought:  Hey, let's forward my [email protected]
would-be posting to the OCLUG mailing list.  Maybe somebody there will
know who has rights to push updates to the www.lalugs.org site.

I post.  Nothing goes through (i.e., no copy comes back to me).  Odd,
that mailing list was working OK yesterday.  I go to check the Mailman
archive.  Hmm.  Mailman go 'splodey!

I try to let them know:

---<begin forwarded mail>---

Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 16:12:43 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick-IyCrq+X4Fdq2oZ/[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Mailman breakage on mailman.oclug.org

http://mailman.oclug.org/mailman/listinfo/oclug is returning:

  Bug in Mailman version 2.1.9

  We're sorry, we hit a bug!

  Please inform the webmaster for this site of this problem. Printing of
  traceback and other system information has been explicitly inhibited,
  but the webmaster can find this information in the Mailman error logs.

If you receive this mail, then probably only the Web portion of Mailman
is broken.  If you don't, then that's an excellent demonstration of why
it's a bad idea to give no better contact information on
http://www.oclug.org/ than 'Send updates, comments to oclug-owner at
oclug dot org'.

(Adding CC to your domain Registrant for oclug.org, in hopes that
reaches someone human and relevant -- though I have my doubts.)

---<end forwarded mail>---

Why send mail to (specifically) '[email protected]' to tell them
Mailman's broken?  Because http://www.oclug.org/ says at the bottom:
'Send updates, comments to oclug-owner at oclug dot org'.  And there's
_no other contact information_.

Gee, maybe it's not a good idea to make the only means of telling you
'Dude, you broke Mailman' be routed through Mailman.  ([email protected],
their domain Registrant, Admin Contact, and Technical Contact, looks
supiciously like a managed service provider NOC contact that has no
particular concern for OCLUG.)

Gee, maybe you shouldn't use an inert outsourced NOC contact for your
domain information.

Gee, maybe you shouldn't use the _same_ contact for all of your domain
contact fields.


On the Internet, everyone knows your systems are broken -- except you,
if you have made sure everyone else cannot tell you.