RE: [cobalt-users] Who is the admin?

[Erica Douglass <corky@xxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Dom wrote:
> Thom said:
>
> > >  Wow...and some of us may have been under the impression that it was an
> > > unmoderated list.
> >
> >  My *understanding* is that the list *is* unmoderated, but if for 
instance
> > you post from a non-subscribed email address, it gets put on the to-be-
> > approved pile. But I could be wrong.
> Hopefully someone from Sun will let us know either way. If this list is
> moderated, it certainly could explain the delays we've seen from time to
> time and the complaints from some users that certain posts from them on
> certain subjects never make it to the list.
> Thom

First of all, the cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx email address points 
to cobaltusers@xxxxxxxxxx, which is a full mailbox (I have to assume that 
it is full because no one is checking it.) I went ahead and temporarily 
changed that address to my Sun address so at least messages to the "admin" 
will be received and replied to in a timely manner.

I called some people at Cobalt yesterday. Here is what I found out:

-- Since this is a support list, it was supposed to have been maintained by 
Cobalt Support, who apparently passed it on to someone else when Cobalt got 
bought out by Sun. The person they passed it on to has not since done 
anything to the list, and does not show up as a subscriber. So, the best I 
can figure out is that either he has delegated authority to someone else 
who has not taken responsibility, or that he has forgotten about it. I 
called him yesterday and left voicemail. I am out of the office today, but 
I'll be back on Tuesday after the holiday (hopefully, assuming my wisdom 
teeth removal scheduled for this morning goes okay. ;)
-- The cobalt-announce and cobalt-security lists ARE actively moderated by 
Jeff Lovell, who is also maintaining the physical box "list.cobalt.com".

In the past, the list has been unmoderated as far as requiring approval for 
subscriber posts, etc. The reason I jumped into all of this is because 
there have been a couple of prominent cases where someone needed to step in 
and say, "Okay, this is how it is going to be." The two that come to mind 
are the debate about selling RaQs through the list and the "Out of Office" 
fiasco which could have been prevented. I am not yet willing to claim 
"admin" for myself -- first of all, I want to see who the admin is supposed 
to be and why no one has yet taken responsibility for this list, and I will 
work with the Cobalt people from there. I do promise you that there will be 
an admin in the future.

To address your concern about comments never making it to the list, the 
list has a setting about users who are not subscribed to this list. All 
users who are not subscribed require approval before their post makes it to 
the list. Since no one has been maintaining the list, the posts never got 
approved. I approved several a couple of days ago and set the list to 
notify me whenever there are new ones, so that problem should be 
alleviated, if only temporarily.

I will keep the list notified as to what is going on. :)

Erica
web developer, Sun.com