List Spam Filtering

[Jerry]

On Sun, 12 May 2013 07:39:31 +0100
Steve O'Hara-Smith articulated:

> On Sat, 11 May 2013 19:44:46 +0200
> "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at berklix.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > "Steve O'Hara-Smith" wrote:
> > > On Thu, 09 May 2013 02:26:26 +0200
> > > "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at berklix.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > If list write access was changed to Subscribers Only:
> > > >   - List could silently discard such spam.
> > > >   - Postmaster@  (& webmaster@ weeding web archives) would have
> > > > less work.
> > > >   - Less individual need to select spam phrases to copy to
> > > > personal filters (& less time searching WTF dialect American
> > > > above meant in English ;-).
> > > 
> > > 	The downside is that it would require people to subscribe
> > > in order to ask a question, 
> > 
> > True.  I suggest the up side outweighs the down side though.
> 
> 	From the point of view of subscribers perhaps, however from
> the point of view of users who don't wish to subscribe in order to
> ask a single question it is the other way round.

I am not really a big fan of paying for a hunting license since I only
hunt once a year; however, they still make me do it. As a POC earlier
this year, I subscribed to this list under a different name & address,
returned to my MUA and the responding message from this list was
waiting. I replied to it and was there upon subscribed. Total time,
less than 1-1/2 minutes. And that included me taking a sip of coffee.
The time to remove myself from the list was similar. Hell, it takes me
longer than that to gather all of the info I might need to either ask
or respond to a question on this list.

> > > this is also the reason for the convention of using
> > > "Reply to all" in FreeBSD mailing lists. It's been a convention
> > > for a *long* time, at least since FreeBSD 1.1 was shiny and new
> > > in 1993.
> > 
> > I'm not intending to question or suggest any change re CC behaviour.
> >   (Maybe you mis-read or mis-infered what I intended, 
> 
> 	Not at all, just pointing out that the two things have a
> common reason in the FreeBSD lists. Personally I doubt that either
> will change any time soon.
> 
> >    or maybe I mis-wrote, or mis-implied, whatever, please forget
> > that bit, though as background I'd observe:
> > 	Questions@ didn't exist for quite a while after FreeBSD
> > started, Hackers@ & some others preceded it.
> 
> 	A good many others indeed - but all the "user" lists have
> always had the same conventions.
> 
> > 	Various people prune CC when they get littered with too
> > many CC. )

I never respond to CC'ers. If they cannot take the time to subscribe, I
cannot afford the time to respond.
 
> 	True enough - and occasionally this loses the unsubscribed OP.

Perhaps our list should include a disclaimer (I hate them) that states:

	WARNING: CC ARE YOUR OWN RISK 

Actually, I think this is kind of funn:

From: Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve at sohara.org>
To: "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at berklix.com>
Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org

Technically, I am responding to a CC'er who happens to be the list
operator/owner or whatever terminology turns you on. My sieve filters
are designed to filter out an CC messages; however, they are also
designed to accept any mail from FreeBSD*. Since I was not in the CC
address (directly), I ended up getting a CC'd mesage. I really have to
rework my filters.

-- 
Jerry ♔

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