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Date:      Fri, 5 Apr 2002 03:52:46 -0800
From:      "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com>
To:        Questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Cc:        Ceri <setantae@submonkey.net>
Subject:   Re: hub.freebsd.org spam policy
Message-ID:  <20020405115245614.AAA428@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020405105408.GA17235@submonkey.net>
References:  <20020405102702321.AAA393@empty1.ekahuna.com@pc02.ekahuna.com>

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On 5 Apr 2002, at 11:54, Ceri boldly uttered: 

> On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 02:27:02AM -0800, Philip J. Koenig wrote:
> > 
> > I notice a lot of people are cc'ing the original poster in their 
> > responses, but that is not just a hassle when replying, it's also a 
> > courtesy that I'd hate to have to rely on if I had a problem I was 
> > trying to solve.
> 
> It's standard practice on this list, and isn't hard to do at all : you
> just press G instead of R in mutt, or use Reply All if you're using
> some gui mailer.
> In addition, people who aren't subscribed often say "I'm not subscribed,
> so please CC me".


Well I have never been on a list where people were posting that 
weren't subscribers except this one, so I guess I'm just not used to 
it. (reply to all is not convenient in my mailer because it also 
replies to myself.  This may have to do with the fact that I use 
multiple return addresses so it may not be able to easily identify 
and remove the local one from the group)

 
> > I stand by my contention that allowing anyone to post is just an 
> > invitation to spamming the list. (or an invitation to draconian anti-
> > spam filters to mitigate the spam, with the result that innocent 
> > users get their traffic bounced)
> 
> Allowing anyone to post is a good thing, both for people who are trying
> to get help when (say) their incoming mail is broken (yes, this sounds
> stupid, but you can read a good archive like marc.theaimsgroup.com to get
> your replies).


Yanno I had a problem with the search engine on that archive a couple 
weeks ago (I was trying to use it to find an answer to the problem 
which I couldn't post to the freebsd lists about) but there was some 
really aggravating aspect about it that I can't quite remember, like 
not being able to limit the search so you had to scroll through 
mountains of unrelated posts.  I tried contacting the site operator 
but no one ever responded.

And for some reason the www.freebsd.org list archive has not been 
able to display posts from -questions for at least a couple weeks now 
too.  None of that bodes well for non-subscribed list users using an 
external archive to read replies to their questions.


> Also, I have posted to this list in the past from at least 4 different
> addresses, and I don't see why I should have to subscribe with each one.


You mean like almost every other email list on earth?  C'mon now, I 
think we're grasping at straws here.  

It used to be that we expected many MTA's to relay mail from anyone 
to anywhere, so we could just relay a message through someone else 
temporarily if our local MTA went on the fritz. (did it a few times 
myself, back in "the olden days")  We can't assume that any more, so 
we plan ahead now and it's really not that big a deal. (you can thank 
the spammers for that too, though)


> You also should bear in mind that developers have @FreeBSD.org addresses,
> so the policies currently in place work for them too, whereas using a
> subscription option as you suggest wouldn't.


Well I'm not sure what that proves.  I do however know that I had to 
email the freebsd postmaster at his own personal domain in order for 
him to receive any email from me until we found out what rule was 
blocking me.  I'm sure it's not the first time such an independent 
mail account became necessary.

I also know that there are a plethora of local user measures that can 
be used to address the spam problem, and I really don't think one 
should assume that there can be no distinction between how list 
traffic is dealt with and how personal addresses are dealt with.


> And I know other lists that have the same policies (nom-steer, for one).


Oh I'm sure there are a few.  But if I had to make a wild assumption, 
I suspect the percentage setup that way are a small fraction of 1% of 
all public lists.



--
Philip J. Koenig                                       pjklist@ekahuna.com
Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium


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