<quote who="Jon Biddell">
> Which is a prime example of why the list should be changed to "subscribers
> only can post" - it would LESSEN the workload on our overworked list
> admins...:-)
I disagree - not only is this a bad example of the point, but changing the
list to subscribers-only would not lessen the administrative workload.
It's a bad example because it's exactly the sort of activity that would get
around the subscriber-only restriction. If a spammer subscribes, then
there's nothing stopping them from posting.
It will not necessarily lessen the admin workload because not only will we
have bad mail to moderate (currently stuff caught by the internal Mailman
spam filter, the SpamAssassin plugin, the many regexp filters that we have
built up over time, size and recipient restrictions, our MTA restrictions,
etc), but we will have good mail to moderate (people posting with alternate
addresses, genuine non-subscriber posts, etc). So, I doubt that would double
the workload, but it would certainly increase it.
There are also many positive reasons to keep the list open to non-subscriber
open posting, which have been hashed over time and time again.
We get *very* little spam compared to other lists, and every time this comes
up, the general consensus concludes that it's far more effective to squeeze
out the little spam we do get through ever-improving methods, than it would
be to crank up the work involved (and reduce the 'nice-ness' of how the list
works) in perpetuity.
There's no 'hard' list policy, and there's definitely scope for change in
the future, but right now we're doing really well... I can't see much reason
to change.
Thanks,
- Jeff
--
"I'm just mucking round down the shallow end of the literary pool, I
suppose." - Mick Molloy
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
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