Talk:Feedback loop (email)

Abuse Reporting Format deserves its own page
The section Abuse Feedback Reporting Format (ARF) is named like that after the title at mipassoc's ARF page. Should its name have been Abuse Reporting Format? Actually, Abuse Reporting Format should be the name of the Wikipedia page describing the ARF format, which currently redirects to that section. This has been noted by Steve Atkins, who chairs the Abuse Reporting Standards Subgroup of ASRG, among other things:

Mmm. ARF != Feedback loop. The ARF content should be pulled out and put on the Abuse Reporting Format page (which is linked to, but doesn't exist yet) and the Feedback loop page should reference it. Then the remaining content should talk about feedback loops in more general terms, without referencing ARF. Cheers, Steve

While that is formally correct, I refrain to do it immediately because (my knowledge of) the subject is not yet detailed enough. The ARF is the only part of it that has a specification, albeit a draft. The feedback loop and the report spam button are faded around that format, and I don't feel that describing either of them on its own would convey the same understanding of the subject as on a single page. However, things are moving, and putting that section on its own page cannot and will not be procrastinated beyond ARF standardization. Thus,  links to it should use the redirect page .

ale (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

For some reasone there seem to be some underscore missing in the example, while they seem to be visible when looking at the source of the page. --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary and they are even present when copy pasting....

Eventually moved it ale (talk) 14:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

No pro con list, removing procon template
A was added by AnomieBOT at 14:26, 1 May 2014‎. I remove it because there is no pro con list on this page.

It may seem there is one, because there are sections titled Advantages and Criticism. They don't meet the Pro and con lists criticism and defenses criteria, though. Feedback loops are a relatively new feature of email, proposing a cooperative way to mitigate spam. The advantage sections explain how that is a win-win move in most cases. There is no NPOV problem with this subject. However, there are problems in the specific way that FBL have been introduced, unilaterally by large mailbox providers, as if email were a feature reserved to them. The lack of review by different kinds of operators resulted in weaknesses that are exposed in the criticism section. I don't think anybody denies those facts. They are just not enough to build an alternative mechanism.

ale (talk) 08:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the premise (if you have a section on positive stuff, and a separate section on negative stuff, then it by definition falls under the category of problematic pages in that essay), but in this case it shouldn't be too hard to fix the underlying problem and so I'll see if I can give it a quick go. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've started on this, but more work is needed to dismantle the criticism section. This article is build largely on conjecture and unsourced assertion, and stripping that has helped identify what needs to go where, but it's still lacking all the basic structural elements it needs to properly house what needs moved. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Forcing criticisms, which originated after deployment, into the deployment itself sounds misleading, though. For example, a section of RFC 6650 addressed the lack of a discovery mechanism, but it is not commonly implemented (yet).  On the other hand, further text aimed at explaining in what circumstances auto-subscription can be expected will undoubtedly look like original research. ale (talk) 08:37, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Feedback loop links for some email providers
User:Thumperward removed the Feedback loop links for some email providers from the article. He described that action as (tidy, WP:EL). The list had been nicely maintained in alphabetic order by various people during the few years it remained on this wiki. However, I have to agree that Wikipedia Policy is rather clear when it says "Long lists of links are not acceptable." On the other hand, the WP:NOTDIR policy rules out starting a new page having the title of this section. So, I recovered the old content and saved it on the ASRG wiki, placing an external link to a site that contains "neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to amount of detail", according to WP:ELYES. As the ASRG endeavored FBL standardization, it seems to be a "natural" host for that content.

The list is obviously useful to postmasters at large. Email users who want to learn whether the report spam button at their mailbox provider's might be related to a feedback loop need to consult that list too. So much for encyclopedic understanding.

I hope the people who used to maintain the list will continue to do so. The new host is not for profit, is not seeking traffic, and would never had wanted to host that list if it hadn't been deleted.

ale (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, a single link isn't nearly as bad, though we do generally discourage linking to open wikis. I don't quite agree that we're obliged to be "useful" here, but if it stops people using Wikipedia itself to grow this resource list then so be it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)