Peter Losher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But the dillema faced by some of us of which I haven't seen discussed is
> one where you have public mailing list archives (like in support of a
> software product, as in my case). Our organization uses those mailing
> lists as a form of support ("Check the archives, as your question may have
> already been asked, before subscribing/posting to the list itself") The
> problem lies in that we just can't restrict access to these archives to
> subscribers; that negates a valuable resource to the user that
> may be able to get a quick answer to his question via the archives
> rather than spend time subscribing to the list, and then searching
> (or to ask the question on the list itself).
That's right, but "what was that fellow's email address" is not one of the
questions that you have a responsibility to answer as part of your software
product support.
You should never show addresses in a publicly accessible mailing list
archive if you can help it. Leave the names (where possible) but hide the
addresses. You can even do this in message bodies if you want to try to
protect signatures.
If someone is signed in as an authenticated user, then you can show them
everything.
I would also warn people joining the support list that their postings will
be archived for public view, and that they should watch what they post, or
use a spamproofed email account, or both.
