Can't you stop

[Jonathan Hayward -- http://JonathansCorner.com]

> >>>>> "Werner" == Werner Koch  writes:
>                   Werner> Sorry, some spam slips through the filters. There are two
>                   Werner> ways I can see to prevent this:
>                   Werner> * Defer posts to the ML so that someone has a chance to cancel
>                   Werner> them
>                   Werner> * Close the ML, so that only subscribers can post. I'd do
>                   Werner> that but the task of the listmaster (me!) will get harder as
>                   Werner> he has to do approvals several times a day.
>                   Werner> I'd prefer to implement the latter option but unless there is
>                   Werner> no way to do the administration tasks by email it does not
>                   Werner> make much sense as it takes quite some time to do this over
>                   Werner> the web interface.
>
>                   Isn't the quite limited amount of spam an acceptable price for an open
>                   list? Sure, it's annoying, but when it's no more of a problem, then
>                   I think that most people should be able to live with it. Certainly
>                   rather than than making the list closed, or, ghasp, moderating it.
>

I'd second the basic statement.

I'm trying to spend a month not slamming spam and MicroSoft, because the
mental energy I use to detest them could be put to better use. One thing
I've realized in not making anti-spam jokes is that spam is not the Evil
Beyond All Other Evils. It's a pain in the neck, it wastes time, blah
blah blah, and spamhunters make the web a better place, but *some* spam
isn't all *that* bad.

One other possibility--comments, list owners?--is to autopost messages
from list members and send non-member messages to a moderator. That
seems a happy compromise of letting next to no spam get through, while
not requiring moderators to read most normal traffic (given that 90+% of
list traffic is from members, the moderator wouldn't have much to do).

--
Jonathan Hayward
jshayward@pobox.com
http://JonathansCorner.com
(A four dimensional maze, stories, essays, artwork, and other things...)