[offtopic] Re: Recent spam surge...

[Simon Ward]

On 8 April 2015 21:50:01 BST, Alan Milewczyk <alan at soulman1949.com> wrote:

>>> I've been a member of quite a few lists over my 20+ years on the net
>>> and
>>> all lists I've ever been on required you to be a member to be able
>to
>>> post to it.
>> Are these the lists of the cabals, the elite and the brotherhoods? ;)
>Uh? I take it that's an attempt at humour?

In my experience most of these lists have been for "closed" groups, or those that have some issue with outsiders, hence the snarky remark.

> Anyway, I see no problem with 
>requiring posters to be members.

I do. As someone else said it lowers the barrier to entry, and this is largely a support list. Why should everyone who ever uses get_iplayer, which is free software, be required to subscribe to the list just to ask a question? I know one retort for that, but I consider it off-putting to users and harmful to a community, which is "if you want help from us you must join in and participate and give back". That can be intimidating and unwelcoming for the uninitiated, regardless of its benign intention.

Granted, Mailman allows you to subscribe then configure it not to send you any mail, but I wonder how many are aware of that and so I still consider it a barrier.

>I'm not on any lists that moderate, although I'm a moderator on a Yahoo
>
>Group where we moderate new members, so if a list can accept moderation that's fine.

First post moderation is an option, but I think you can only apply it to members since Mailman sets a moderated flag on the member. You'd still have to moderate or reject posts by non-members.

Simon