On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 09:51:08AM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > I'd like to implore you to, instead of taking the time to complain, > take the time to look at the source and propose a fix! You will not > only fix a problem, but you'll come away with feeling good about > helping things out!
Ordinarily I'd agree with that sentiment, except for one thing: There's nothing to be done, except to upgrade. You're running mailman already; the latest version has (fixed) the ability to obscure e-mail addresses. I've already pointed this out. You need only run it and enable that feature. I can't do that for you; I don't have access, and I'm litterally just about as far from any GNHLUG chapter as I can be and still be on planet Earth... In any event, as Ben has pointed out, I've solved the problem for myself. So do it or don't; it no longer affects me. But I still think it's the right thing to do for the user community. Several other people have stated a preference that their addresses not be posted. Personally, I think the "damage" to those who do care about this issue is far greater than that to those who feel that our addresses should be available. Their argument is basically that, if for example we should post some patch, and then disappear from the list, that the public should be able to get our addresses from the archives so that people can contact us about the patch. This is fine as far as it goes, but ignores (IMO) an extremely important point: I DON'T WANT TO BE CONTACTED. But that's just my opinion, and I'm only one guy. > For those who use emacs for their mailer, the following snippet might > be useful: (it removes email addresses from citations, like above) Kevin, as usual you've provided a useful solution. Thanks. > > ... but I'm getting upset by people who complain and yet do nothing to > > help the situation. > > Well, FWIW, Bruce, I don't think anyone here is complaining about the > server, at least in this thread. I think this is a behavioral thing. Agreed, though as I mention above, making modifications to the server /can/ solve the problem. [For those who see it as a problem, of course.] > > And yet we just sit around and complain. > > I'm starting to think that is part of the human condition, and not just > limited to this list, or Open Source, or even IT. Agreed, but sometimes, that's all we actually /can/ do... On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 10:35:46AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, at 3:57pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Some people seem to feel that the benefit to the public of quoting your > > e-mail address is more important than your explicitly stated wish that the > > public should not have it. > > <FLAME LEVEL=HIGH> > > [insert profanity here] No, thanks, I'd prefer to keep things polite... ;-) > And some people feel that by broadcasting your email address to the world, > you're pretty much giving up any hope of keeping it contained, and blaming > other people for that is freaking retarded. We've had this discussion already. If I post with X-no-archive, I have not broadcast my e-mail address to the world. I have broadcast it only to the actual recipients of mail from this list. I think anyone technical enough to want to be on this list can see the difference between that set of people, and the whole world. It's pretty darned substantial. Only if one of those people decides to post my address in a public forum does it become broadcast to the world, and then it was not me that did it. It was the person who posted it against my wishes. If you don't see that, there's really nothing else I can say to make you see it. But it seems bloody obvious to me... > Here's a concept: If you don't want people to know your email address, > don't f**king broadcast it in a public forum. I maintain, as I have all along, that a mailing list is not inherently a public forum. I will not bother to rehash this argument. > This is like the whole "security through obscurity" thing. You think you > can keep something that is reasonably obvious and easy to obtain a secret, > you solve your problems. Problem is, all it takes is one time, and the > cat's out of the bag. Perhaps so; though I disagree. Very few people have my address, because I don't give it out. The only people who've gotten my address through means other than having been given it directly by me are people who've harvested it from web archives or usenet where it was posted by a third party against my wishes. I do not give my e-mail address out to businesses. Ever. But even if you're right, I think those of us who are on this list who are concerned about this issue would thank YOU to not be the one who provides that one time... There are enough unscrupulous people in the world who will sell even the most useless atom of private information about us, that we should not have to concern ourselves with hiding our contact information from those with whom we actually WANT to associate. You applaud my use of [EMAIL PROTECTED], but I think it's a sad day when such tactics become necessary (in some sense of the word "necessary" which I won't bother to define)... > I notice that you've set your headers to list From as > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, obviously an invalid address. That makes a huge > amount of sense to me. Now you're not broadcasting your email address. > Much better! In fact, when I first saw it, I thought, "Wow. What a good > idea. Why didn't I think of that?" I think that was a compliment... Thanks Ben! ;-) I agree it's a good solution, but it doesn't work in all cases. Mailman happens to have a couple of features which, when combined, make it work. I've hacked up something that sorta works for other cases, but it's really not ideal. And I still maintain that I should not be needed at all... On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 10:52:32AM -0400, Travis Roy wrote: > I know people here don't like topposts but whatever... If you know people don't like it, then why do you insist on doing it? > Get a spam filter (spam assassin works nicely) My GOD I am sick of that argument. Spam filters do not prevent spam from being delivered to you. If you're fetching your e-mail via POP, spam filters don't save you from having to download all that spam. Now, if you're on a slow link, in one of the many places or on one of the many services where bandwidth is billed by connection time, you're actually paying to download all that spam. To put it bluntly, that sucks. This is unacceptable. It is NOT a solution. It is at best a hackish work-around for those whose situation happens to make it somewhat useful. > Set up whitelists > Set up those autoresponder things to prove that a real person is sending you > email to auto-add them to your whitelist These are both too much hastle, not only for most users, but more importantly for legitimate users who want to send them e-mail. Basically, these are (IMO) extremely rude and should not EVER be used. Again this is just my opinion, and I'm now done giving it. As I've now repeatedly said, I have a solution that works for me; so even if the rest of you (though it's only a handful in reality) insist on disregarding the concerns of (admittedly only a handful of) your fellow list members, it no longer affects me. Do what you will. Still, I hope I've managed to convince at least a few of you who previously disagreed with me. And now back to our regularly scheduled Linuxing... -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers.
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