[NCSG-EC] Mailing list issues

[Pedro de Perdigão Lana]

Hi Tapani,

I'd go with solving the spam filter issue ASAP - quite a lot of important
messages are being filtered (for me, especially those from Farzi, Tomslin
and Rafik, which is a real problem) and this may generate a bigger problem
in the near future :\

Cordially,

*Pedro de Perdigão Lana*
Lawyer <https://www.nic.br/>, GEDAI/UFPR <https://www.gedai.com.br/>
Researcher
PhD Candidate (UFPR), LLM in Business Law (UCoimbra)
Coordination/Board/EC @ ISOC Brazil <https://www.isoc.org.br/>, NCUC
<https://www.ncuc.org/> & NCSG
<https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Home>(ICANN) and CC
Brazil <https://br.creativecommons.net/>.
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Em sex., 11 de jul. de 2025 às 04:35, Tapani Tarvainen via NCSG-EC <
ncsg-ec at lists.ncsg.is> escreveu:

> Dear all,
>
> As you may recall we talked briefly about NCSG's mailing list problems
> in Prague. There are two distinct issues we should address:
>
> First, NCSG-DISCUSS messages tend to be eaten by spam filters,
> especially by Google.
>
> Second, having NCSG's mailing lists hosted on a volunteer basis
> is not ideal in the long term, as there's no guarantee of
> continuity.
>
> The first is more urgent. The problem there is that Google
> (and some others) have tightened their spam filters in a way
> that's somewhat difficult for mailing lists to handle.
>
> For the technically inclined, Google wants incoming mail
> to have either SPF or DKIM set up. For some reason, Syracuse
> university (where ncsg-discuss is hosted) has not set up
> DKIM at all and their SPF setting seems to be broken.
>
> I have not contacted Syracuse support yet. I am a bit wary
> of doing so given that we have contract or indeed any relation
> with them, so they might just tell us to move our list away.
> At least I'd like to have a backup plan ready if that happens.
>
> Indeed given what I've seen at some other universities I fear
> Syracuse may run the service down at some point. So a backup
> plan would be good in any case.
>
> Anyway, I can see three options here:
>
> (1) Wait and hope Syracuse will at least fix their SPF setup.
>     This is reasonably likely to happen sooner or later, but
>     it's not guaranteed and may take some time. Also Google &co
>     may start insisting on both SPF and DKIM some day.
>
> (2) Contact Syracuse support. That might get them to fix their
>     SPF sooner or maybe even set up DKIM. Or it might not.
>
> (3) Move ncsg-discuss somewhere else. The obvious choice would be
>     lists.ncsg.is, which is hosted by Electronic Frontier Finland
>     (Effi) and where all other ncsg lists are. In the long term,
>     however, it would be better to have ncsg lists somewhere under
>     ncsg's own control.
>
> If we go for (3), we could either first move ncsg-discuss to Effi and
> later all ncsg lists when we find a good long-term solution, or leave
> it where it is until we have the long-term solution decided.
>
> On the face of it the latter would seem to be less work, but the
> difference may not be all that big: moving all lists from one place to
> another will be just about as hard whether there's one list more or
> less, the extra work caused by different software at Syracuse will be
> similar in either case. And the spam filter problems at Syracuse will
> probably persist while we're looking for the long-term solution, and
> that may take surprisingly long time.
>
> One point to consider: moving ncsg-discuss away from Syracuse will
> change the list's address and our members will have to learn to use
> the new one. It should be possible, however, to set up temporary
> forwarder from the old list to mitigate this. Moving the lists
> away from Effi would not have this issue because (presumably)
> we'd move the address lists.ncsg.is as well.
>
> Some considerations when looking for new mailing list hosting:
>
> * We need to keep old archives.
>
> * We would like to have a reasonably easy way to remove messages
>   or parts of them (like attachments) from archives if need be.
>
> * We would like to keep our own domain (lists.ncsg.is) in the
>   list addresses.
>
> * It would be nice to have a solution that synchronizes
>   (semi)automatically with our member database, whatever that
>   will be in the future.
>
> * It would be ideal to have a solution for both member database
>   and mailing lists as one package. (CiviCRM theoretically could.
>   In practice... well.)
>
> * We want to have a solution that is sustainable and doesn't
>   depend too much on volunteers and avoids key person dependency
>   problems.
>
> * We want a solution that generally works well. That is, spam
>   protection and the like are (and are kept) up to data, good list
>   management interface &c.
>
> * We want something reasonably cheap. Like, something we can get
>   ICANN to pay for.
>
> I've probably missed something but I trust you all feel free
> to add things that come to your mind.
>
> Finding a good solution may not be easy and implementation may also
> take a fairly long time, especially if we try to move the member
> database at the same time.
>
> So, question: Do we want to fix the spam filter issue ASAP or leave it
> until we have a comprehensive long-term solution?
>
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
> _______________________________________________
> NCSG-EC mailing list
> NCSG-EC at lists.ncsg.is
> https://lists.ncsg.is/mailman/listinfo/ncsg-ec
>
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