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Date:      Sun, 22 Apr 2001 20:12:32 -0500
From:      Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx>
To:        ben hubbard <ben@eproduct.org>
Cc:        Juha Saarinen <juha@saarinen.org>, Chris Byrnes <chris@jeah.net>, "freebsd-stable@freebsd.org" <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Click on to meet someone you Click with
Message-ID:  <20010422201232.A93750@cec.wustl.edu>
In-Reply-To: <3AE3753C.E82BCB03@eproduct.org>; from ben@eproduct.org on Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 07:20:13PM -0500
References:  <Pine.LNX.4.33.0104230750240.5047-100000@vimfuego.saarinen.org> <3AE3753C.E82BCB03@eproduct.org>

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On Sun, Apr 22, 2001 at 07:20:13PM -0500, ben hubbard wrote:
> This may be way out of left field, but I was thinking about it last night....
> 
> Would it be possible to filter the mail in anyway with the mail list software
> at freebsd.org based on the subject lines? For example,  for this message, the
> subject line would be
> 
> Subject: [freebsd-stable] Re: Click on to meet someone you Click with
> 
> or some variant. If it didn't have the [freebsd-stable] (change for whatever
> the list address was) then the the reply bounces with a polite "you need to
> put xxxx in your subject line" message to the original sender.  This would
> stop the spam (since they usually have specific subject lines) and it would
> also (added bonus) make it easier for those of us that filter the incoming
> traffic from multiple lists to plop it all in the right folders.
> 
> the flip side is that this adds complication. But is it really all that bad?
> If someone has to go find out the list address already anyway, they can read
> another line about the subject line, or worse, they just get the bounce back
> and get to send it again. Might also stop the various subscribe messages that
> end up in the list, too ;-)
> 
> Of course, this may not be possible with the lsitserv software - it's not
> something I've ever worked with to any great extent before.

With mutt, to reply to this message, I press "g", hit enter, hit enter
again, press "y", then type my response. 

In order to get a "[freebsd-stable] Re: ..." subject, I would have to
press "g", hit enter, hold down the arrow keys until it reaches the
front of the subject line, type "[freebsd-stable]", hit enter, press
"y", then type my response. The arrows and addition more than quadruple
the time it takes me to start typing a response.

Plus, I would have to clean up old subjects, lest to get
"[freebsd-stable] Re: [freebsd-stable] Re: [freebsd-stable] ..." ad
nauseum.

What you would find after a short time is that the most helpful
people--the people who answer many questions every day--will stop
responding as frequently. The overall usefulness of the list will
decline.

Also remember that a great deal of spam (at least most of the stuff that
comes to me) has my name as a greeting in the body, or in the subject
line. It would be trivial to automate the process of adding
[freebsd-stable] to the front of the subject line when the message is
sent to freebsd-stable@freebsd.org. This would have us all working extra
for no reason.

-- 
Andrew Hesford
ajh3@chmod.ath.cx

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