Re: mailing list moderation

[Hans Aberg]

This list is active, as far as I know. RMS wants GNU lists to be open  
to non-subscribers, I think, to facilitate communication, but the  
downside is the spam.

I do not get much spam from the list, though, because of a very good  
local spam filter.

One idea that comes to my mind, by which one can maximize openness,  
and minimize spam disturbance, without risking that essential mail is  
being deleted by the spam filter, is to hook up a spam filter to the  
archive, and make it a default to hide away from the reader mail  
labeled by it as spam. A moderator might then edit this further by  
hand. The reader of the the archive would by default not see the spam  
marked mail, but could do that by deactivating the spam filter  
markings, be it the automatic or those made by hand. A similar rule  
might apply to the mail sent out from the list.

The way I handle spam coming to me, is that the spam-marked email is  
sorted on my server into a special spam mailbox. Then, from time to  
time, I activate a special imap account, by which I can see all the  
mail titles, without actually downloading the whole messages to my  
computer. By inspecting the titles, it is easy to quickly see what is  
spam. I recently checked some one thousand of these mails, which took  
me about ten minutes, and of which none were legal email. It is then  
easy to mark all email and delete it in one go, and then deactivate  
the imap account. This way, I am not bothered much by the spam, as I  
choose when I want to see it. In the past, I have deleted more than  
15 thousand, and think that less than five were legal email. Some  
spam slips through the filter from the flex list; the phishing ones,  
I report to <address@hidden>.


On 10 Mar 2006, at 20:23, Karl Berry wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> It appears that this mailing list, address@hidden, (among many  
> others),
> has no known owner/moderator, and accepts mail from non-subscribers.
> The result is passing through of lots of spam.
>
> So we need to do something.  I'm writing to get input on the best  
> thing
> to do.  Please reply to me if you have any thoughts on the following:
>
> (1) If this list is obsolete and should be deleted.  We'd keep the
>     archives, just make the address inactive, so any future mail to it
>     would bounce.
>
> (2) If the list is *not* obsolete, and should remain as a live  
> address.
>     In many cases there is so much junk in the archives that it is  
> hard
>     to tell, hence my query.  In other cases, I could guess, but I  
> felt
>     it would be best to just inquire about everything.
>
> In case (2), if you can volunteer to help moderate the list (and/or
> others!), that would be most appreciated.  But even if not, I'd still
> like to know if the list is still live; I'm recruiting volunteer
> moderators to help with the job.
>
> Any other information or suggestions is welcome too.  For example, if
> someone is already administering the list but just isn't listed in the
> mailman interface.
>
> Thanks much,
> Karl
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Help-flex mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-flex