[MLton] mailing list issues

[Matthew Fluet]

Just a note to clarify some issues that regular readers and new 
subscribers may be wondering about:

  * The 'mlton at mlton.org' and 'mlton-user at mlton.org' administrative e-mails
    are routed to my GMail account.  For mysterious reasons, since
    Dec. 2008, GMail has decided that all such admin e-mails are spam, and
    therefore I haven't been noticing when they arrive.

  * Both mailing lists are protected by the same whitelist, which explains
    why first-time posters often have a delay before their message appears
    on the list.  (Similarly, first-time post from a new e-mail address may
    also have a delay).

  * There are filters in place on the mailing list that hold "Re: [MLton]"
    messages sent to mlton-user at mlton.org for administrator approval (and
    vice versa) to cut down on unnecessary cross-posting.

  * Any non-whitelisted post is sent to the list administrators.  This lets
    us add new entries to the whitelist and bounce legitimate messages back
    to the lists.  On the other hand, it means that there is a ton of spam
    coming at the list administrators, which explains why I can't simply
    include a GMail filter that accepts everything from @mlton.org as
    not-spam.

I think I've caught up with all outstanding administrator requests (at 
least as far as my 30-days of GMail spam is concerned).  I sincerely 
apologize to the subscription requests from Dec. and Jan. that just now 
got processed.  I will attempt to fine tune some filters to avoid these 
issues in the future.

-Matthew