[Tweeters] What occurred with some Tweeters subscriptions in March (hopefully, the only 2022 snafu)

[Elaine Chuang]

It was a painful week.5, and the why remains a bit unclear.  As some of you Gmail folks experienced, something of a wrench landed beneath the UW hood (on Sunday, March 6, to be exact), triggering the UW Mailman (a program) system to start sending out notifications, inexplicably.  A few days later, loads of legitimate Tweeters subscriber addresses were removed (unsubscribed), including those belonging to two collating sites (ABA and Bird List Digest) which are used by many.  

As soon as we became aware of all of this a few days after it started to unfold, we were able to point the UW-IT mechanics at it.  In week two, a few days ago, those heroes managed to batch restore 190 cancelled Tweeters subscriptions.  Etiology: was it related in some fashion to new UW software, possibly interacting with some type of Gmail change?  It’s a mystery.  But it can be pointed out that all who were affected seem to have been Gmail users, yet the latest clue pointing to the fallibility of many free email programs.  Ah, the thorns along the digital superhighway that we course along!

Stay safe, all - thank you for using this listserv.  We will continue to try to Do The Right Thing here at Tweeters, which if my math is correct, turns 30 years of age this year.

    - Elaine C, List Administrator … along with Hal O and Dan V, the original masterminds of Tweeters (est. 1992)