[Peace] emails

[Randall Cotton]

We've rarely had significant problems with "spam" (unsolicited junk e-mail) on
the peace and peace-discuss lists. That's what these messages are from addresses
like "Abraham Barlow", "Lew Cain", and so on (you can be nearly certain they're
all fictional names, by the way). There is software running on the mailing list
server that normally stops nearly all spam effectively. However, there has been
a bit of a spate of spam getting through recently (a dozen or so in the last few
days). It may be a temporary thing, but if it continues, it may be sensible to
take some counter-measure.

I've been volunteering as mailing list administrator for the peace and
peace-discuss lists for a couple years or so (additional volunteers for this
task are always welcome, by the way 8-). In summary, there is one easy thing I
could do to help the situation (and it may or not help, see below). There are
other options, but they each entail drawbacks that may not be worth it,
especially if this surge in spam is just temporary. Because of the drawbacks, I
feel it would be best that I only go forward with such options if they've been
discussed and approved at an AWARE meeting.

Full details for those who care:

Here are several ways we could counter the SPAM, in increasing order of
difficulty

1. Appeal to the administrator(s) of the IMC server to improve or adjust their
spam-blocking software to reduce or eliminate the spam messages we're getting.

This is easy to do, no drawbacks. So I'll go ahead with it.

2. Close off the peace and/or peace-discuss lists to postings from people who
aren't subscribed to the list.

This is easy to configure, but has the significant drawback of, well, closing
off the list to folks. Many people who attempt to post, say, a timely
announcement or call to action regarding local peace and justice issues will be
thwarted from doing so. If they're force to jump through the hoop of having to
figure out how to subscribe to our list, they may not (and often, in practice,
will not) bother to try to navigate that obstacle and as a result, we are
deprived of some important postings.

In addition, this also forces all current subscribers to explicitly re-subscribe
from *all* the e-mail addresses they might send from. Often, folks send from
more than one different e-mail address (say one from work and one from home).
Once the list is closed off, any post from an address that hasn't been
explicitly subscribed will be flat out rejected. This in itself will be a
confusing inconvenience to many.

3. Moderate peace and/or peace-discuss lists postings from non-subscribed
addresses.

This is just like number 2 above except that instead of posts being flat out
rejected, they are "held for moderation". This requires ongoing, dedicated
attention by one person (preferably several people) who will frequently check
their e-mail for messages from the mailing list server indicating that messages
are being held (upon which the moderator(s) check out each individual message
and judges whether they should send it on through to the list).

While this prevents the lists from being deprived of important postings that
would otherwise be rejected, it does require daily, time-consuming, ongoing work
by some lucky volunteer and even given that, all such postings will be delayed
by whatever time it takes for the moderator to attend to the "held" messages.

4. Full moderation of the peace and/or peace-discuss lists.

This is a foolproof way of eliminating any kind of junk postings, but it means
that *each and every posting* to the lists would have to be explicitly approved
by volunteer moderators who frequently check their e-mail every day, constantly
watching for new posting notifications from the mailing list server. For a list
like peace-discuss, in particular, this would be quite demanding and would
require multiple dedicated volunteers constantly on watch.

In addition, troublesome delays are unavoidable with this measure, particularly
regarding crucial or emergency short-notice announcements. Also, postings on hot
topics are hampered by delays. Delays in approving posts on a hot topic
sometimes causes several others to post messages that they wouldn't otherwise
have posted (or that they would have worded differently) if they saw the
messages that were being queued up for moderation at the time.

So there are counter-measures that can be taken, but all of them (save one) also
come with drawbacks. As list administrator, I don't feel I should implement any
change that entails a drawback without explicit approval at an AWARE meeting. So
I will send a request to the mailing list server administrator to try and
improve the spam-blocking mechanisms and hope that the problem is either fixed
that way or otherwise subsides on its own.

If the spate of spam continues, perhaps someone will suggest one of the above
counter-measures at an AWARE meeting (or a different solution I haven't thought
of 8-)
R

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wendy Edwards" <wedwards at uiuc.edu>
To: "linda f weber" <lweber0311 at insightbb.com>
Cc: <peace at ucimc.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 12:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace] emails


: The lists probably need to be moderated like many of the IMC ones are.
:
: On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 12:34:06AM -0600, linda f  weber wrote:
: > I don't want to receive emails such as those from Rudolph Wright, Roger
Butts, Lew Cain, Pen King, and others.  Where are they coming from?  I don't
want to drop the Peace list, but I don't want such stuff.
: >
: > linda
: > _______________________________________________
: > Peace mailing list
: > Peace at lists.chambana.net
: > http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace
:
: _______________________________________________
: Peace mailing list
: Peace at lists.chambana.net
: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace