Re: Please moderate the SPI mailing lists

After trying to use the web archive to read the SPI mailing lists, I
realise this is a very painful experience due to the amount of spam
sent to the lists.

Please change the list configuration to only allow subscribers direct
access to the lists, and send the rest of the postings for moderation.

If the moderation is done using the listadmin package (available in
Debian Sarge/Sid), the script will take care of filtering out most
spam (assuming spamassassin is used on incoming email), and the job of
moderating the lists will only take a few seconds.

<URL:http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~kjetilho/hacks/>

(I'm not talking about sensoring the list. I'm talking about
rejecting spam and allowing real messages into the list.)

Petter Reinholdtsen writes:
> Please change the list configuration to only allow subscribers direct
> access to the lists, and send the rest of the postings for moderation.

Excellent idea. Who is going to do the moderation?
--
John Hasler
Nothing I've written in this message is private.

Previously John Hasler wrote:
> Excellent idea. Who is going to do the moderation?

We've had the discussion before; nobody is willing to do that. I'll add
some greylisting to the SPI mailservers, that should help.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.

I wrote:
> Excellent idea. Who is going to do the moderation?

Wichert writes:
> We've had the discussion before; nobody is willing to do that.

My point exactly.
--
John Hasler

[Regarding, moderation of posted from non-subscribed addresses].

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, John Hasler wrote:

> I wrote:
>> Excellent idea. Who is going to do the moderation?
>
> Wichert writes:
>> We've had the discussion before; nobody is willing to do that.
>
> My point exactly.

I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.
This is a discussion list so I think it is fair to require those posting
to be part of the discussion. Mailman allows a person to subscribe
multiple addresses while only receiving mail at one so those people with
multiple addresses they may post from have options too.

Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway(at)opentrend(dot)net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (www.spi-inc.org)

Rob writes:
> I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.

Neither do I, but the proposal was for moderation.
--
John Hasler

Robert Brockway writes ("Re: Please moderate the SPI mailing lists"):
> I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.

Mailman (at least the one in woody) does not support that.

Ian.

Taral writes ("Re: Please moderate the SPI mailing lists"):
> I have a patch that adds support.

That would solve the problem very nicely. Where can I find the patch,
please ? Have you made source and binary packages for woody, or would
the SPI webmasters like me to do so ?

Ian.

Previously Ian Jackson wrote:
> That would solve the problem very nicely. Where can I find the patch,
> please ? Have you made source and binary packages for woody, or would
> the SPI webmasters like me to do so ?

Lists are scheduled to be moved to a box running sarge actually, so a
woody backport should not be necessary.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.

You shouldn't have to be a subscriber in order to make a suggestion to the
list. Many people read these lists through GMANE or some other channel
without a direct subscription.

It would be better to put DSPAM or CRM114 on the list to clean the spam out.

On Wednesday 19 January 2005 9:02 am, Robert Brockway wrote:
> I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.
> This is a discussion list so I think it is fair to require those posting
> to be part of the discussion. Mailman allows a person to subscribe
> multiple addresses while only receiving mail at one so those people with
> multiple addresses they may post from have options too.

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

Let's revive this old thread... but notice Reply-To:.

On Fri, Feb 11, 2005 at 10:17:09AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> On Wednesday 19 January 2005 9:02 am, Robert Brockway wrote:
> > I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.
>
> You shouldn't have to be a subscriber in order to make a suggestion to the
> list.

Both of these valid ideas can be integrated, for example with the holding
mechanism that Mailman has. However, before that, it would be useful if
someone counted how much spam there was and how much valid mail was from
non-subscribed addresses. Then it would be easier to decide whether it's
worth the effort to hold all posts from non-subscribers, or if it's better
to reject them, or to lower SA scores, or do nothing or something fifth.

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

[Josip Rodin]
> Both of these valid ideas can be integrated, for example with the
> holding mechanism that Mailman has. However, before that, it would
> be useful if someone counted how much spam there was and how much
> valid mail was from non-subscribed addresses. Then it would be
> easier to decide whether it's worth the effort to hold all posts
> from non-subscribers, or if it's better to reject them, or to lower
> SA scores, or do nothing or something fifth.

Even if the number of posts from non-subscribers is very low, it
should still be possible for them to post to spi-general, and because
of this I believe the only option is to hold such messages for
moderation instead of rejecting them.

There is heaps of spam on spi-general@, and almost no real messages.
I suspect the latter is an effect of the former.

I am still willing to moderate the list as long as it will work with
the listadmin script, and believe spi-general should be set up to
allow direct posting by all subscribers and hold all messages from
non-subscribers for approval. It is possible to add the few regular
non-subscriber posters to a whitelist and thus make sure their posts
make it directly to the list.

But at least one of the mailman admins were negative to doing this
right away. Not sure if he changed his mind.

It would also help a lot to have the spi-general mailing list
available on gmane.org. It is best when the list administrators
request the list to be added using <URL:http://gmane.org/subscribe.php>.

Friendly,
--
Petter Reinholdtsen

All,

> There is heaps of spam on spi-general@, and almost no real messages.
> I suspect the latter is an effect of the former.

FYI: I have very aggressive anti-spam filtering. These are the first two
messages I've received from spi-general in the last month or more.

Personally, I don't see why we need to help any non-subscribed addresses
getting through to this list. Can anyone point me to the archives on why we
do this?

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 08:26:49AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> > There is heaps of spam on spi-general@, and almost no real messages.
> > I suspect the latter is an effect of the former.
>
> FYI: I have very aggressive anti-spam filtering. These are the first two
> messages I've received from spi-general in the last month or more.
>
> Personally, I don't see why we need to help any non-subscribed addresses
> getting through to this list. Can anyone point me to the archives on why we
> do this?

Because subscribers sometimes use non-subscribed addresses, because
some discussion include some third-party, etc.

Cheers,
Bill.

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 05:58:22PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 08:26:49AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > > There is heaps of spam on spi-general@, and almost no real messages.
> > > I suspect the latter is an effect of the former.
> >
> > FYI: I have very aggressive anti-spam filtering. These are the first two
> > messages I've received from spi-general in the last month or more.
> >
> > Personally, I don't see why we need to help any non-subscribed addresses
> > getting through to this list. Can anyone point me to the archives on why we
> > do this?
>
> Because subscribers sometimes use non-subscribed addresses, because
> some discussion include some third-party, etc.

Speaking of that, I received:

Your mail to 'Spi-general' with the subject

Re: [Spi-private] Re: Please moderate the SPI mailing lists

Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.

The reason it is being held:

Post by non-member to a members-only list

so it seems Spi-general is actually moderated now ?

Cheers,
Bill.

Bill,

> Because subscribers sometimes use non-subscribed addresses, because
> some discussion include some third-party, etc.

This doesn't seem like an adequate reason to leave the list wide open to
spammers, especially since Mailman has a 2-click interface to add extra
addresses at moderation time.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Tuesday 06 June 2006 03:22, Josip Rodin wrote:
> Let's revive this old thread... but notice Reply-To:.
>
> On Fri, Feb 11, 2005 at 10:17:09AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > On Wednesday 19 January 2005 9:02 am, Robert Brockway wrote:
> > > I don't see a problem with rejecting non-subscribed addresses outright.
> >
> > You shouldn't have to be a subscriber in order to make a suggestion to
> > the list.
>
> Both of these valid ideas can be integrated, for example with the holding
> mechanism that Mailman has. However, before that, it would be useful if
> someone counted how much spam there was and how much valid mail was from
> non-subscribed addresses. Then it would be easier to decide whether it's
> worth the effort to hold all posts from non-subscribers, or if it's better
> to reject them, or to lower SA scores, or do nothing or something fifth.

What I suggest is "subscription without recieving". A user could subscribe to
a list and specify that they recieve no messages. That subscription would
still require a response to a verification mail. We should also have a web
control panel where users can see all their lists and twiddle their status.

If someone can't take the time to go through an address verification process
then we shouldn't waste time reading their message.

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

Ean Schuessler writes ("Re: [Spi-private] Re: Please moderate the SPI mailing lists"):
> What I suggest is "subscription without recieving". A user could
> subscribe to a list and specify that they recieve no messages. That
> subscription would still require a response to a verification
> mail. We should also have a web control panel where users can see
> all their lists and twiddle their status.

We already have such a thing; Mailman may be awful in many ways but
this isn't one of them.

For example, the only reason this mail will make it through to the
list is exactly because I have subscribed as ijackson(at)chiark; and I
have edited my options to disable mail delivery here so that I can
filter the list traffic more easily and reliably.

Ian.