I've been getting another round of panic mail about USAK not responding
to mail, which is unusual since it is on the same server as diplom.org
right now. Since I've already written this twice, I might as well
organize it and get a few eyes on it to get it in shape for general
consumption.
Chris
-----------------------------------------
I don't think the judge is working. What do I do?
Go to "http://diplom.org/openings/openings.html".
If your judge uses this
service, it will be polled every hour for open games. At 5 to 10 minutes
after the hour, the list is updated. If it is not responding this page
will tell you if the judge is down or delayed. You may also be able to
find out the status of the judge by checking the rec.games.diplomacy
newsgroup or the judge's homepage if it has one.
The judge is working, but I'm not getting mail. What do I do?
Don't panic. Check your bulk items and trash folders for mail from the
judge. Check your sent items to be sure you are sending things to the
right address. If you are using the right address to contact the judge and
you do not have any mail from the judge going into any obvious places in
your mail client then it's time to send a test message.
How do I send a test message?
First clean up any place where you could lose the reply - deleted items
and so forth. Then write an email to the judge. It could be anything, but
the best thing is either a blank sign on to your game or a press message
to yourself. Which you use depends on whether you are more concerned with
whether your orders were received or whether you are receiving press from
other players. Either method will show you your pending orders. Sending a
press message to yourself generates more mail, but doing so stresses spam
filters slightly and may reveal intermittent mail stoppages due to varying
spam scoring systems. Add the judge to your address book. Some mail clients
use your address book as a "whitelist" to bypass spam filters. Mail clients
that do this will often prompt you to add a recipient when you send mail.
What should I expect when I send a test message?
If you send a blank signon, you should get one reply from the judge. If
you send a press message to yourself, you'll get the press message as well
as a confirmation that it was sent, or at least you should...
What if I don't get a response to the test message?
Panic. No, just kidding. Check all of those mail folders that you cleaned
out earlier. See if it wound up there. With processing time from the
judge, transmission time in both directions and most mail clients polling
for new mail at ten minute intervals you should give it 20 minutes before
you start getting too nervous about it.
I've waited and still nothing. Now what?
OK, I know you want to do something other than wait, so try this... make
up a unique phrase to include as the subject line of a second test
message. Send it out then spend the next 20 minutes learning how to use
the "find" function in your mail client to search for messages whose
subject line *contains* your phrase.
I still can't haven't gotten anything from the judge. NOW what?
Go do something else for at least 5 hours. Seriously. Then check your mail
again, searching every folder for a reply. The reason is that mail servers
will try again to send a message if it receives no response from the
destination or for many error messages. Sometimes a destination mailserver
will respond with an error message to suspected spam to see if the sender
behaves as a proper mail server rather than a spam bot. A proper mail
server will retry the message, usually in 4 hours.
I've waited and waited. What do I do now?
Contact the master of your game. Go ahead and use email this time. It's
why you have it. Look up your game on http://www.floc.net
if you didn't
save any mail with the address on it. Contact the game master rather than
the judgekeeper. He will often know already if there is a problem. The JK,
if a different person than the GM, will usually be busy trying to fix a
problem to respond to everyone who expresses a concern about the operation
of the judge.
Is there anything that I should *not* do?
Don't use "press to m" to send a test message. Use your own power for your
test message. You'll get a quicker reply if it works. Don't send a
broadcast for a test message, either. Neither will tell you if something
doesn't work. Broadcasts make especially annoying test messages in novice
games as few people seem capable of refraining from joining in the chorus
once one player has already replied. If there is a problem with the
judge's mail server, the situation will not be helped by 20 games
generating up to 50 emails each.
Is there anything so totally obvious that it mentioned above?
Yes. Try using a second email account. You can send orders, including
press from any account and the responses always go to the address of
record. You'll get a receipt at the apparent source as well. You can
either use the "set address" command to send all game mail to both
addresses or you can just use the alternate account for testing. In
most clients, you can insert the alternate account as the "reply-to"
address. This has the virtue of testing outbound bound mail from the
same account you are trying to use while providing multiple
destinations for the reply. By comparing the responses to each account
from the judge, you improve your chances of being able to diagnose the
problem yourself.
|
