[Mailman-Developers] Interesting study -- spam onpostedaddresses...

[Chuq Von Rospach]

On 2/19/02 7:48 AM, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:

> To be precise, it's not the subscriber list; only about 1 in 5 posts,
> ever.

And if you're that one, you don't really care that it's only 20%, do you?

> I don't know.  The people who post are a pretty public-spirited bunch,
> and they might very well volunteer for the abuse if that means that
> non-subscriber XEmacs users get better service.

Ask them! If they say yes, your situation is resolved. But those that say no
are likely to drop off the list. But -- shouldn't they be given a chance to
make an informed decision?

God, I think I sound like I'm beating on you again. I'm sorry. I'm not
saying "the archives have to be protected" but "the users deserve to know
what is going on and have some say in the use of their addresses". It's more
informed consent issues. And this is an issue that I'm harping on because
it's a piece of the net-reality that's changed over the last couple of
years, from "standard practice/safe" to "jesus, not at all safe any more"
and we're just getting visibility into what this means. And I'm doing it
HERE because Mailman is one of those tools that is going to set default
policy on how the non-savvy mail-list admins and sites are going to build
and manage archives for the next five years -- so I feel we need to make
sure Mailman does it in a way that does things "right", whatever that is.

So as Jay talks about enablers, one of the things I'm doing here overtly is
trying to act as one on this topic, because if I can help make Mailman do it
right, and educate the folks here, that'll make a positive difference in a
way few other things can. I can't shut down open relays in Malaysia, but
maybe, I can help educate folks on how to better limit access for the
spammers in a tool that's becoming defacto-standard on the net as it
supplants majordomo...

And with any luck, that's the last time I'll ever use the word "enabler"...
(grin)

> But once again, I'd like to point out that _I didn't explicitly ask
> for this job_.  I'm doing it because the mailing list is an essential
> service to XEmacs users, and the archives are too.  Since the guy who
> was list admin ran out of volunteer time, leaving things in this
> state, I'm "it". 

Understood. The joys of volunteerism. You don't know what's under the carpet
until you pull out the broom. You only hope the broom will kill it...

> If a conscientious expert sets things up this way, how was I supposed
> to know?  I certainly hope Mailman will _by default_ make it easy for
> people in my position to do the right thing.

You weren't. Hell, a year ago, NOBODY really knew about this issue. As I
say, this is something we're just starting to really get a handle on. It's
not something you should have known about -- it's a new monster under the
bed. Or maybe an old one we just got a photo of for the first time...

I apologize -- I'm trying not ot beat on you or your mail list. I'm beating
on a situation. Of course, since you're currently the drum, that's probably
not making you feel better... (really. I'm sorry)


-- 
Chuq Von Rospach (chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/)
Will Geek for hardware.