Relatively good news about student email

Mr. CooL ICE

Since im working in the ITD on co-op, i usually get the gist of anything half-interesting thats going to happen. This made me slightly happy because i hate all the emails i get saying 'Ooh, i lost my watch in the lodge', or 'UL DJ Soc mix mix bla bla'. These things have to be sent, but they still annoy the hell outta me.

Basically, a new system is being introduced where there are six categories of emails so far, e.g. Lost And Found or Clubs/Socs being two of them, and only a select group of people can actually send emails throughout the college, e.g. class reps or people in prominent positions in clubs/socs. So, if a student loses a zip disk, they can get their class rep to send an email throughout the college, or clubs and socs can advertise themselves through the president of each. All this wont cut down on all these ad emails, but theres something else.

For the six categories, each student can choose which ones they want to receive. If a student wants to receive emails about Accommodation and Gigs/Events, a basic web-based interface can let them tick and untick boxes to make this happen. If they dont want to get anything, they wont get anything. So this can basically eliminate most of the internal spam emails going around.

Needless to say, it will still be possible to manually send emails around the college, and there are gobsheits out there that will, but they will receive a penalty, be it a fine or account suspension. I personally want to see that account that advertises for Nevada Smiths to go explode, cos im violent.

I think this will be handy if/when it comes in. Opinions?

kodute

It still sucks that people can send around emails at all, i think there should be a brain teaser or riddle pop-up just before it allows you to send an email, if you get it wrong then it wont send. Also maybe a mild electric shock to train the stupid people not to send emails. that way we can round them up and put them in hamster cages...
Sorry just had a bad day recieving bad emails from stupid people..:rolleyes:

IceHawk

Cool idea. Stupid spam has increased over the last couple of weeks.
If an email is sent from a class rep's account, say, will it still list every address in the college before getting to the message? Or will there just be one 'college' mailing list?
Everyone will deselect lost and found and accommodation, though. Nobody will ever be able to find the jacket they lost outside the lodge last Thursday now.
What are the six categories exactly? Will students who circumvent the measures by emailing everyone individually be penalised?

That is all... for now...

Mr. CooL ICE

IceHawk wrote:

If an email is sent from a class rep's account, say, will it still list every address in the college before getting to the message? Or will there just be one 'college' mailing list?

I dunno what you mean in the first part, but there already exists a group of distribution lists, which should be available to whoever is allowed to use them, which will be specified by someone (dunno yet, might be ITD). The group of lists includes modules, courses, and the whole college.

IceHawk wrote:

Everyone will deselect lost and found and accommodation, though. Nobody will ever be able to find the jacket they lost outside the lodge last Thursday now

That is a downside that I highlighted to my boss, but thats just tough. If people lose something, they probably have lost/found turned off themselves, and that would be ironic. But you could block out all accommodation until you actually need it, which is handy.

IceHawk wrote:

What are the six categories exactly?

I don't have a list of the six, but i mentioned four in my first post, being Lost/Found, Accommodation, Gigs/Events and Clubs/Socs, aswell as Help (for extra tutorials and ads for typists, etc) and another which I can't remember. The six is not a definite list, more like a draft. But if you have any suggestions, please post them here or PM me. All that myself and my boss did was look through the junk mail in my student email account and categorise what was there.

IceHawk wrote:

Will students who circumvent the measures by emailing everyone individually be penalised?

LordChessington wrote:

Needless to say, it will still be possible to manually send emails around the college, and there are gobsheits out there that will, but they will receive a penalty, be it a fine or account suspension.

kaimera

can the two ****wits who replied to the whole college mailing list about the god damn bmw have their email accounts closed for a week?

jesus ****ing christ. assholes. 04 id numbers. they should know better.

kaimera

and the 3rd retrard about the bmw aswell.

C'MON ITD :v:

440Hz

ah the joys of a staff account!!

altho.. i think we get more spam than you lot so... maybe i should shut up

Mr. CooL ICE

Is that the ITD Subscriber youre talking about 440Hz? Unfortunately, thats legal spam. But yeah, its annoying alright. Theres no talk of introducing the same measures, but if there is, ill let you know. Pity its only relevant to me until February

Why are you named after A?

440Hz

LordChessington wrote:

Is that the ITD Subscriber youre talking about 440Hz? Unfortunately, thats legal spam.

Yup, talking bout the Subscriber alright... seriously annoying, ah well. It is always something stupid... never anything that actually helps in anyway.

LordChessington wrote:

Why are you named after A?

??? sinewave? If thats what you mean, then the answer is I couldn't think of anything at the time. I was in the middle of coding so imagination was at an all time low when I signed up, and well I just happened to be coding something that needed a 440 sinewave. Boring I know! That answer your question, are were you on about something totally different and I have just added some meaningless waffle to your life?? :rolleyes:

Mr. CooL ICE

Uh, yes. From what I know, 440Hz is the musical note, A, but i could be wrong.

About a month ago, i went to hamburg on holidays for 4 days, and when i came back, i had 63 new emails - 56 of them being the ITD Subscriber. If thats not spam, i dunno what is.

440Hz

LordChessington wrote:

Uh, yes. From what I know, 440Hz is the musical note, A, but i could be wrong.

You are correct!

# A440 is the 440 Hz tone that serves as the internationally recognized standard for musical pitch. A440 is the musical note A above middle C. Since 1939, it has served as the audio frequency reference for the calibration of pianos, violins, and other musical instruments.

:v:

IceHawk

WTF just happened? I'm on coop so I don't check my UL email very often, but is mine the only inbox that was filled with crap over the last three days?
I got four mails from a Roisin O' Sullivan, all spam, and a couple more forwarding the same message. Does UL not already have measures in place to prevent misuse of the student email?
People who do this should have sending email disabled for the rest of the semester.

kaimera

yea, sent to the whole damn college.

forwarding on ****e that she got in her damn hotmail a/c ffs. dumbass.

Mr. CooL ICE

If there was a software package to prevent stupid people from using email, Im pretty sure it would be in place. Btw, how did someone as stupid as Roisin O' Sullivan get into college?

Its probably against forum rules to mention someones name on this forum, but everyone knows her name. If she is reading this, remember: ITD are watching you

Mr. CooL ICE

Ooh, ooh, ooh, another feature which is being introduced (not email related). The payprint system is being combined with the photocopying system, so no longer will you have to go up to the shop to break a tenner because the change machine in the library is out of change and go back down to the library and buy a card and then queue for the photocopier (whew).

Instead, you just log into your account on the photocopier (new ones will be introduced with touch-screen), select what you want copied, and voila.

kaimera

ooh ohh ohh! will they start making me toast in the mornings?! :v:

kaimera

this is bollocks. can you guys do anything AT ALL about the pure tripe sent around via the college email in the last 2 days?
jesus christ; a few ****ing mates thought it would be great to spam the system with ****e replies to each other's emails.

:mad:

Peteee

kaimera wrote:

ooh ohh ohh! will they start making me toast in the mornings?! :v:

And does it run linux?

On a serious note, I think stuff that goes around the whole college should have to be passed off as 'good' by the powers that be before it gets sent on to the whole populace, to stop crap like whats going on today.

Mr. CooL ICE

Peteee wrote:

On a serious note, I think stuff that goes around the whole college should have to be passed off as 'good' by the powers that be before it gets sent on to the whole populace, to stop crap like whats going on today.

Hence the new email system coming into place. I dont think the ITD know about these mass emails going around until someone reports it. But to who, i dont know.

Nukem

Ha ha never pi$$ off a mechanical Engineer. One of the lads missed a very important FYP meeting due to his outlook crashing all the time cause of the spam at the moment (one main silly girl). He wants to get her ID,get her timetable wait outside her class and find her and drag her to security and call ITD to do away wit her rights.

*LOL* so funny if he does.

Vuk

I thought penile enlargement* and some muppet wanting to my bank details as I'm the sole beneficiary of some other muppet who croaked it, to cut-price drugs angered me.
These fuppin idiots are either so thick as to hit "reply to all" or take joy in the knowledge that someone will get angry enough to track them down and hurt them bad, real bad**.
UL campus unsafe after dark?
Damn straight, when your pounced upon by an anti spammer*** wielding a baseball bat with a rusty nail in the end.

*I'm quietly content
** I don't condone violence(but the images re-assure me)
*** Hope this doesn't constitute spam:)

Looking forward to new email system

IceHawk

Just looking at my inbox, I can see a list of names of people who should be lined up against a wall and shot.

In the nuts.

If loads of students email ITD complaining about misuse of the system, is it likely that anything could be done about the miscreants? Or is something already in effect? It's fairly easy, within the college, to find the course of a person who sends an email. If we were to complain to the dean of the relevant college, he/she could definitely do something about it.

kaimera

is there a contact email for iTD?

might get in touch with Norah tomorrow and see if she'll look into it

Vuk

kaimera wrote:

is there a contact email for iTD?

might get in touch with Norah tomorrow and see if she'll look into it

I tried the contact link on the ITD page earlier, to explain in a more rational manner the situation, but the link doesn't work

kaimera

bah; of course it doesn't.

itd@ul.ie doesn't work does it?! :v:

Mr. CooL ICE

From what I hear, there has been a lot of complaints. I don't know who has been complained to, but it has reached some top heads and something is being done about it.

About improvements, nothing can be introduced immediately because of testing, etc, etc. The new ULSU site is up, and there is a forum which will hopefully deal with accommodation and lost/found, etc, but the ULSU (afaik) are not obliged to take up responsibility for hosting these ads. Due to regulations, the college is required to host such services (again afaik), so Im in the process of setting up and testing a forum due to be hosted on the UL website, and if it works accordingly, i will probably administrate it (woohoo!). There are also ideas floating around for some sort of public folders, but tbh, i dont know enough about public folders to comment.

kaimera

any more news on this? had another 1/2 dozen again today.

Nukem

Com'ere ITD are having a laugh. To hell with goin through official channels get a nice bit of wood - line up all the idiot senders and comence a beating.
Got 18 crap e-mails today........18!
I know they are doin there best but f*ck im getting annoyed at these little pr!cks.

Another rant pending:mad:

sceptre

Isn't there an AUP that should cover this sort of crapola already?

rmacm

sceptre wrote:

Isn't there an AUP that should cover this sort of crapola already?

If so does the AUP involve the beating that Nukem mentioned for transgression of said AUP? I'll be willing to supply the implements used to give the beating I'm in favour of a hammer or baseball bat with rusty nail (joking just incase anyone thinks I'm planning on cracking them over the head with a hammer)

Cheers
Rory

IceHawk

I would have thought that the obvious solution was to get as many people as possible to reply to the mail. Not 'reply all', just reply to the one person who sent it. If every student in the college who got bothered by these idiots sent one email to each of them, it would clog their inboxes within minutes.

A couple of hundred replies every time they did it would make them recosider the humour of their actions. It's got a sort of poetic justice to it that I like. In response to one person stupidly annoying thousands, it's thousands specifically and deliberately targeting that person.

Also, there's nothing, as far as I know, in the rules about one student deciding to reply to an email he/she received. The fact that a thousand students spontaneously decided to email one particular student is just an unfortunate coincidence.