News.Admin.Net-Abuse.Blocklisting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - About News.Admin.Net-Abuse.Blocklisting - Q. What is news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting? A. news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting (often abbreviated "n.a.n-a.blocklisting" or simply "NANABl") is a moderated Usenet newsgroup, formed for the purpose of discussing issues related to blocklisting. NANABl is a neutral forum. It is not operated by, nor does it represent, any blocklist operation(s). n.a.n-a.blocklisting's purpose and posting guidelines are fully set forth in the Charter for news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting. (You can also find it here.) New posters to NANABl are strongly advised to read it before posting. If you're unfamiliar with Usenet, perhaps the single most important thing to understand is this: When you post to Usenet, your comments are sent to thousands of privately-owned news servers and archiving sites all over the world. Due to the way Usenet works, it is impossible to remove or alter them on all Usenet sites. Q. Why won't you remove me from your list? A. Whatever blocklist you're on, it isn't "our" blocklist. "We" maintain no blocklists. News.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting is a Usenet newsgroup--a public forum for discussing issues related to blocklisting. It is not associated with, nor is it a formal communications channel for, any particular blocklist. When you post to NANABl, you're inviting public comment from whomever cares to do so. In most cases: People that reply to your posts have absolutely no control over the blocklist in question. You need to contact the maintainer(s) of whatever blocklist upon which you're listed. (See the section entitled "If You're Blocklisted" for more.) Q. Why is news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting moderated? A. Manual moderation is employed in an attempt to keep discourse as civil and on-topic as possible. Please search Google Groups™ for articles with the subjects "RFD: news.admin.net-abuse.email.blocklists" and "RFD: news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting" for the discussions surrounding NANABl's formation and Charter. Q. What is blocklisting.com? A. Blocklisting.com is a domain that was set up to support the moderation system for news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting, and for a web site to host this FAQ and a copy of the newsgroup's Charter. That's all. Q. What is nanab.org? A. Nanab.org serves much the same purpose as blocklisting.com - Posting Issues - Q. Why was my post rejected? A. If you provided a valid email address when you posted, you should have received an emailed rejection notice explaining why. In general terms: If your submission meets the posting guidelines in NANABl's Charter, it'll likely be approved. The posting guidelines are purposefully somewhat vague. They were written to give the moderation team wide latitude, but in such a manner so as to bias the process toward approving posts, rather than rejecting them. A good rule-of-thumb to follow, when posting to NANABl, is "When in doubt: Don't." Q. But I've seen other posts worse than mine appear! A. The moderation team is only human. Different moderators may have different ideas as to what's acceptable and what's not. We do strive for consistency. Often a moderator will poll the entire team for an opinion if he or she is in doubt regarding a "marginal" submission. The moderation team does tend to grant somewhat more latitude to first-time posters--particularly those complaining of being blocklisted. This isn't a "pro-spammer" bias on the moderation team's part, it's simply an acknowledgment of two facts: 1. First-time posters complaining of being blocklisted can reasonably be excused for being a bit... emotional. 2. Experienced posters should know better, and be able to handle themselves in a more professional manner. Q. I followed up to a cross-posted message; why was it accepted and mine rejected? A. As a general rule: Cross-posted articles will not be approved for NANABl. There are exceptions. (A policy change announcement by a major DNSbl operator, for example.) Other times it's simply a mistake on the moderation team's part. Q. You approved a post that's nothing but lies/slander/liable! It's your fault! You're responsible! Delete those slanderous lies! A. Comments posted to news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting are solely the responsibility of their author. The moderation team's sole responsibility is to insure that submitted articles abide by the newsgroup's Charter. The Charter does not oblige moderators to embark upon laborious fact-finding missions. Indeed: The Charter explicitly discourages moderators from evaluating an article submission on anything other than whether its content meets the Charter's posting guidelines. Once an article is approved and propagated, we have no way to "take it back" or delete it. The article will be propagated to thousands of privately-operated Usenet news servers all over the world as well as Google Groups™. Q. To whom do I complain about a NANABl moderation decision? A. Email board-at-blocklisting-dot-com Q. Where can I protest/discuss NANABl's moderation policies, as set forth in the Charter? A.The Usenet newsgroup news.groups is the appropriate forum for such discussions. A heads-up notice to NANABl that such a discussion is taking place there would be nice. Q. Why does it take so long for articles to show up in NANABl? A. If you're reading from Google Groups™, be aware that there may be some lag between the time articles are posted and when they show up there. Lags as long as 24 hours have been noted from time-to-time. Other delays could be due to a delay in moderation action, (we have to eat, sleep and work too, you know), hiccups in the moderation system or speed-bumps in Usenet article propagation. Who knows? Q. My posts aren't showing up in news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting! A. If you're reading NANABl via Google Groups™, see above. If you are not getting a Received Acknowledgment when you submit an article, and your "From:" address is valid, then you might want to confirm with whomever provides your Usenet news access that they've set things up properly for NANABl being a moderated newsgroup. Most service providers provide support groups and/or support email addresses that you can contact. If you can find no other reason for the problem, you might try contacting the moderation team at board-at-blocklisting-dot-com for assistance. If all else fails, you can try submitting articles by email directly to ins-at-nanab-dot-org, but this method suffers from the disadvantage that article relationships in a thread may not be kept intact. Q. Why don't I get auto-acks from my posts to NANABl? A. There are almost uncountable reasons as to why this might be. For starters: Are you supplying a valid, deliverable email address in the "From:" field of your newsgroup submissions? See above. Q. Why do I keep getting auto-acks from my posts to NANABl, despite the fact that I've carefully, repeatedly followed the instructions on how to make them stop? A. Is it auto-acks you're receiving (the ones that start with "This is an automatic acknowledgment that your message has been RECEIVED..."), or article approved/rejected notifications? You can suppress the auto-acks, but not the approved/rejected notifications. Q. News.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting isn't on my Usenet news server. A. You need to talk to your ISP or Usenet news service provider about that. Q. News.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting is on my news server, but it has little to no content. A. You need to talk to your ISP or Usenet news service provider about that. Q. Unmoderated posts are showing up in news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting on my news server! A. You need to talk to your ISP or Usenet news service provider about that. They probably failed to specify that NANABl is a moderated newsgroup in their news server's configuration. - If You're Blocklisted - Q. How do I contact a blocklist maintainer to get removed from their blocklist? A. Most blocklisting systems have an associated web site with instructions on how one might go about contacting them to get ones self de-listed. We suggest you check there. One notable exception to this is SPEWS. There is no known way to contact SPEWS directly. Instead, the SPEWS FAQ directs readers to the Usenet newsgroups news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting and news.admin.net-abuse.email. But note carefully the wording! The reader is directed to these newsgroups for discussion. There is no promise that posting to them will necessarily result in SPEWS changing its listings. Above all, keep this in mind: SPEWS' FAQ directing you to these newsgroups does not mean SPEWS will communicate with you in them. Even if it does, it's almost a certainty it will do so anonymously--not identifying itself *as* SPEWS. Naturally, one should make sure the reason for which they found themselves blocklisted has been resolved before requesting to be removed. In any event, one should not rely on posting to NANABl as a means to get removed from a blocklist. There are several reasons for this: As noted: The people that participate in NANABl don't necessarily have any relationship with, or control over, any particular blocklist. NANABl is an open discussion forum, where all who desire may participate. There is no guarantee that whomever is responsible for a particular blocklist even reads NANABl, much less that they read it with any regularity. There is no guarantee that an article you post to NANABl will actually make it to the news servers. Q. Hey! I'm not a spammer! How come I'm listed in SPEWS, and how do I get off of it? A. This is the single most frequently asked question to date in n.a.n-a.blocklisting, and the most frequent answer is apparently difficult for many to grasp. Please read the following carefully: If you've read the SPEWS evidence file, and it does not mention your organization or IP address specifically, then no, you're not a spammer. The SPEWS listing that affects you is not directed at you personally, but at your provider, who SPEWS apparently feels is failing to act to keep spam off of their network. SPEWS initially listed that spammer, and then broadened that listing to affect more of that provider, and that's why suddenly you're upset to find that some of your mail is bouncing. You have one or more of the following options open to you: Contact your provider and ask that they first address their SPEWS listings and then post here when that has been completed. They may do this, or they may not. Contact the mail administrators at sites who are blocking your mail based on this SPEWS listing and ask that they either whitelist you or stop using SPEWS entirely. They may do this, or they may not. Smarthost your outgoing mail through a machine not affected by DNSBL listings. If you choose this option, it is probably best to choose a different provider for your outgoing smarthost, in order to prevent your new outgoing mailserver from encountering the same problems your current mailserver is experiencing. There is also no guarantee that whatever new provider you choose may not eventually run afoul of a SPEWS listing, but it may be a better choice than staying with one that has already had demonstrated problems with SPEWS. Change providers. If contractual obligations make this impossible in the short term, SPEWS has been known to punch holes in listings for a few weeks or months for sites that have stated they will be leaving their current provider as soon as possible. However, there is no guarantee that this will happen either, or that whatever new provider you choose may not eventually run afoul of a SPEWS listing. Give up trying to send mail to sites that block based on SPEWS listings. Q. Isn't it illegal for those guys to block my email? A. In a word: No. Disclaimer: Some portions of the following discussion verge dangerously close to legal opinion. Please note that the author is not a lawyer, nor a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore: It's written from the perspective of a U.S. citizen. Some comments may have no validity in other parts of the world. First of all: No blocklist literally "blocks your email." All a blocklist does is list what its maintainers feel to be (potential?) sources of network abuse. (Well, usually. See the relevant blocklist's web site for its listing policies and criteria.) It is network and mail server operators that consult the information published by a blocklist that actually block network traffic. In other words: The blocklist is publishing an opinion or advisory. The users of that blocklist, a network's owners, operators and administrators, may choose to block network traffic based on that. (Some only "tag" email based on blocklist information, by the way.) Granted, it may clearly appear to be the intent of of a particular blocklist that its listings result in blocking network traffic, but that doesn't change the fact that the blocklist itself doesn't actually block anything. Secondly: Understand that the Internet is not a "public" network, per se. The Internet is a network of inter-connected private networks. No private network is required to carry any network traffic it doesn't wish to. Your Internet service provider is probably bound by a contractual agreement with you to provide a certain level of service. The other private networks on the Internet are under no such obligation to you. Put simply: Your ISP may be required to see that your email is sent. Other networks are under no obligation to receive it. If they choose to base (some of) their network policies on the opinions of a third party, so be it. - Miscellaneous - Q. What does "RTFM" mean? A. Please see RTFM in the Jargon File. Posters please note: Moderators are unlikely to approve follow-ups that consist solely of "RTFM". Q. What does "RTFF" mean? A. Read The Fine FAQ, a variant of RTFM. Also RTFAQ Posters please note: Moderators are unlikely to approve follow-ups that consist solely of "RTFF". This moderation business is harder than I expected it would be. -- Anonymous NANABl Moderator Related Links Charter for news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting (blocklisting.com) Charter for news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting (nanab.org) news.admin.net-abuse home page   Page Created: Dec. 28, 2003. Last Updated: Dec. 28, 2003 -[news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting Charter]-