FROM ADMIN: SPAM, SPAM, SPAM eggs and SPAM

[Bill Fink]

... (continuing from previous message).

Hi Nathan,

On Fri, 28 Feb 2003, nathan r. hruby wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Feb 2003, Bill Fink wrote:
> 
> > This seems to be major overkill and a bad policy.  I count only 3 spam
> > messages this month out of a couple hundred or more total messages.
> 
> Some would say 3 is too many.

Some would.  You can generally tell from the subject line that it's
spam and just ignore or delete it.

> > The yellowdog-general list should be an open list.  I for one read it
> > via the web e-mail archive as I have time, and this new policy will
> > prevent me from helping other YDL users or posting my own questions.
> > I can't even directly e-mail a person posting a question since the
> > web archive doesn't divulge e-mail addresses, which I understand is
> > to prevent them from being harvested by spammers, and I agree that
> > that policy is an unfortunately necessary evil.  However, making the
> > yellowdog-general list a closed list is unnecessary and is totally
> > contrary to the open Linux philosophy and hurts its community.
> 
> It's not closed, anyone can subscribe and then post.  Really, if you 
> wanted to read the Web Based archives, but still post to the list, just 
> subscribe to the lsit and then set the 'nomail' option for the address you 
> subscribed.  You won't get lots of email, but you'll still be able to 
> post.  

Thanks a ton for this idea!  That's what I just did.  This way I get the
best of both worlds.

> Many many many lists have moved to a 'members-only-posting' rule due to
> spam, it really is that bad.  The worst part is that it will only get
> worse.  3 this month mean 6-10 next month.  Addtionally, the spam causes
> more work for the people of Yellowdag from trigger happy users forwarding 
> the spam to places like spamcop who then blacklist the domain or others 
> who then proble the hell out of the lists machine.

I haven't seen any increase in spam over the last year.  There seem to
be 2 or 3 a month.

> Does the current rule make it more difficult to psot to the list?  Yes.  
> Is is a needed measure?  Yes.  When we get rid of spam (and the stupid 
> people who buy the advertixed crap) will the list open back up to anyone 
> posting?  Proably.

We'll agree to disagree on the necessary part, but thanks again for
your workaround.

On a tangentially related matter, does anyone know how to get sylpheed
to actually automatically delete selected messages (via a filter).  The
best I have managed is to route the selected messages to a Null folder.
I could use a cron job to rm the files in the Null folder periodically,
but it would be nicer if I could just get sylpheed to do this directly.

						-Thanks

						-Bill