On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 06:00:01PM -0500, Russ Kay wrote:
> Honestly Rob, please do not just take a snippet from my email. If you are
> going to send that out, you might as well send out my last paragraph. I
> apologized for it being a bit lengthy, but it gives my opinion on the
> matter. The top is more of going through "what ifs". As stated later on, I
> feel that it should be left as it is.
Totally my bad -- I read the mail at the same time as doing something
else, and I didn't properly respond to all of the points. That said,
I do not believe that the list should remain as is.. rather, I like the
idea of only allowing member posts - with the caveat that non-member
posts don't get dropped silently. Spam filters can only do so much
(I still get 80% spam, even though I have a very aggressive spamassasin
ruleset), and it is my experience that the level spam drops when going
to a members-only posting policy.
Let me try again for the rest of your mail.
> That leaves the next point open to
> discussion. What happens if an incoming freshman hears about the LUG, finds
> out the email address but didn't sign up? Simply wanted to ask the LUG a
> question? Or another LUG queries this LUG without signing up? Those are just
> a few of the many possibilities out there. They send something but it
> doesn't go through? Maybe we can have it to (a) see if the address really
> exists (b) if it does then send them a polite message explaining that only
> LUG members may email the LUG (c) give an email address (spam free format)
> where they can send email to if they have any questions (ie, the pres'
> email). The problem always occurs is that if we give info in the bounce
> backs and if someone is spamming us (versus a bot) then that person gets the
> info (ie, how to join the list, email one of us, etc). If we just drop
> non-member sent emails or spam emails, then someone inquiring about the LUG
> can't ask questions without knowing the web site.
The standard way to handle this is the mail gets bounced to the list owner
to be moderated (even if the list itself is unmoderated). The moderator
can then allow the mail to go on to the list or get a nice message, etc,
depending on how legit the message looks. This is much less work than
full moderation, b/c non-member posts are (usually) relatively uncommon.
The reason I mentioned 'mailman' is that it gives you a nice set of
options of how to handle this exact case - one can easily pick between
a) hold to moderate
b) polite message
c) drop
d) just allow through
Which I know from experience with majordomo is a PITA...
Also, I'm not sure that I believe you when you say that it is a problem
that a polite "you need to subcribe to post" mail include directions
for how to sign up to the list -- those directions are already (and
should remain) public, so it's not like we are giving spammers any
new information.
> Umm...sorry if that was a bit long. What I'm trying to say is that how it is
> is the way that makes most sense. If you personally have a problem with the
> spam, then set some custom spam filters to look what is after the
> [UM-LINUX]. But ignoring non-members just doesn't seem practical.
It's my experience (I can't tell you the number of mailing lists I've
setup and moderated - 40?) that the members-only posting policy is a
much better spam filter than actual spam filters.
- Rob
.
