Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 13:10:55 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG, "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: windows 98 Message-ID: <19980702131055.21136@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <19980702084032.L10452@freebie.lemis.com>; from Greg Lehey on Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 08:40:32AM %2B0930 References: <199807011757.MAA19802@plains.NoDak.edu> <4458.899321082@north.lcs.mit.edu> <19980702084032.L10452@freebie.lemis.com>
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On Thu, Jul 02, 1998 at 08:40:32AM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Wednesday, 1 July 1998 at 15:24:42 -0400, Mark Handley wrote:
> >
> >> Joe User uses their web browser to search one of the many web search engine
> >> for the card they have a problem with...up comes a FreeBSD page that talks
> >> about the driver written for FreeBSD. Joe User sees (in Charlie Brown style)
> >> WAA, WAA, WAA, (his card), WAA, WAA, WAA, WAA (mailing list name).
> >> Joe User send message to mailling list.
> >>
> >> It is annoying to see M$ questions, but Joe User is not informed enough to
> >> know that your web page is not close enough to what he wants to know. I get
> >> them all the time.
> >
> > The technological solution to this problem would be to only allow
> > postings from members of the list. Non-members would get a reply that
> > politely explains what the mailing list is for, what FreeBSD is, and
> > that if they're still interested and try again, their mail _will_ be
> > forwarded to the list. The list server would keep a cache of
> > non-members that mailed in the last 48 hrs, and allow them to post to
> > the list without being a member.
> >
> > It would also serve as a simple spam filter as most spammers don't
> > read the replies or use a fake reply-to address.
>
> On -questions, at any rate, we certainly *don't* want this. But I
> suppose we could have different policies for different lists. jmb?
What makes -multimedia so special? If this change is available, people
will want every other list (except perhaps -questions) to be a closed
list too :-) and each will generate a long discussion. Majordomo is
enough of a mess as it is, the kind of mess that's safer to add to than
change.
For the closed lists I run, non-subscribers' messages are forwarded
to the list-owner. It might be possible to change this to forward
these messages (and no other bad messages) to another address, perhaps
another list or an auto-responder or some whiz-bang script.
But is it really worth it? Considering the number of subscribers and
volume of mail, mistakes don't occur much and will not increase rapidly.
It could be argued that mistakes from list members are more frequent
than mistakes from outsiders, depending on one's pet annoyances.
Spam *will* increase, and IMHO spam is what any changes should target.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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