> I subscribed to bblisa-announce yesterday, and majordomo responded to > my subscription request by welcoming me to the list. I was never > asked to confirm the subscription. It's dangerous to set up a list to > subscribe people without positively verifying their email address. It > opens up the list to be used as an unwitting third party in > mailbombing attacks, to be accused of spamming, and also makes it > easier for people to accidentally subscribe from the wrong address and > not notice.
cos, Welcome to BBLISA! Your concerns above are noted. Our subscriber policies date back from before majordomo (or other popular listserv agents) handled 'confirmed' addresses; and we have seen no real need to change them to this point. Additionally, but we also have open-posting policies that do not require you to be a member to post, so confirmed-addresses really will not assist in spam reduction. We have Majordomo configured in a way that requires matching of your subscriber address to your actual sent-address (alleviating the "accidentally subscribe from wrong address" problem), with exceptions requiring approval from an administrator. We also have some very aggressive anti-spam code in place thanks to our sysadmin, Theo Van Dinter, that catches well over 95% of attempted spam postings to the list. We have entertained changing list policies at several meetings, but to date the general consensus has been "it's working and it's convenient"; especially the ability to post to the list from a variety of email addresses. I am certainly open to making changes in the policy and configuration, but I would like an open discussion amongst the membership before doing so. I will not be able to attend tonight's meeting, so I am CCing the general membership on this note to discuss. -- Justin S. Peavey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Back Bay LISA" List Administrator http://www.bblisa.org --- Send mail for the `bblisa' mailing list to `[EMAIL PROTECTED]'. Mail administrative requests to `[EMAIL PROTECTED]'.
