Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 21:48:35 -0500 From: "illoai@gmail.com" <illoai@gmail.com> To: John Johnstone <jjohnstone@tridentusa.com> Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Requiring list subscriptions (was Re: [Fwd: Gain Organic Traffic: Freebsdish.Org :PS]) Message-ID: <CAHHBGkqk7Lr1o=QXwkND9zqgVJAiMhm%2BMxQ2AFjcoAVMEyi9_w@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <53168B33.9050602@tridentusa.com> References: <65506.128.135.70.2.1393967584.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> <53168B33.9050602@tridentusa.com>
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On 4 March 2014 21:25, John Johnstone <jjohnstone@tridentusa.com> wrote: > On 3/4/2014 4:13 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote: >> >> Dear mail list owner, > I've been subscribed to mailing lists for quite a few years but only to just > a few lists so perhaps my experience overall is quite limited. The FreeBSD > mailing lists are the only ones I've come across that have the policy of > "anyone can post". I was stunned to discover that you could post to the > FreeBSD mailing lists without being subscribed. All other lists I've > encountered have the policy of "only subscribers can post" with the obvious > intent of keeping out spam. Their thinking is also "ask here" and "get an > answer here". I'm curious to know what percentage of mailing lists today > allow posting by non-subscribers. > > Although I've only been subscribed to this list for about a year I don't > recall ever seeing spam that wouldn't have been stopped by requiring > subscription to post. Has there ever been any spam to this list that used a > forged subscriber address? Hi! Sorry, I hope not. This list (freebsd-questions@freebsd.org) has been this way for a long time, despite the spam problem. It is a newbie list, and most spammers are rejected soon enough (generally after one post) that it hardly matters, so the requirement to subscribe seems a tad onerous to some barely-hatched FreeBSD-er who wants to ask a question without having to sort through a veritable fire-hose (okay, the lists have slowed down significantly since the late 1990s & early 2000s, but there's still plenty of traffic). In any case, not all of the lists are like this. It has been discussed a great many times in the last couple of decades, as well, so I am adding an apology for adding to the noise level here: sorry. I doubt the official policy will be changing soon. Tertiarily (point-wise), I get more spam from having my address harvested from the archives than I get on-list. It's annoying, but it's part of the non- obvious price of otherwise free tech support. -- --
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