Re: List membership

[Andrew C Aitchison <a.c.aitchison@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2005, William M. Quarles wrote:

> OK, I am told to go to hell basically because I don't like the spam on 
> this list that makes it through XFree86's Spam Assasin, my ISP's filter, 
> and my personal Mozilla filter. 

If you thought I said that I am sorry; I certainly didn't mean to.

> I propose making the list members-only 
> posts and I get told why it can't be that way.

I'm sorry if my confusion misled you.
It seems that the list is neither open nor closed, but has a 
machine-controlled middle way of some sort.
 
> I decide to sign off from the list and send a message through Gmane.  I 
> get a message back saying that my post was not allowed because I am a 
> non-member.  So I guess all of the spammers are members?  Nice.

The list appears to be automatic signup; as I suggested in my previous 
mail, the spam merchants know how to sign up to such email lists.
Automatic signup seems appropriate to me for a list where we are
interested comments from "non-members"
(I'm thinking of the gui/window-manager/desktop environment people
who were originally the people who had a different take on where we
should be heading). Having a person approving list membership
asks for delays (they do need to sleep and have a day or two away
from email) and could leave us open to charges of censorship.

However, given the lack of response from anyone running the list
(and thus capable of upgrading spamassassin) we are wasting our time
discussing this.

The list has had no content (I see this as meta-content) for a year
or two, so I propose that we just close it down. Since the managers
don't read the list I don't expect this to happen.

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison					Cambridge
			A.C.Aitchison@xxxxxxxxxxxx


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