On Sun, 15 Oct 2006, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 11:43:19 -0700 From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...961...> To: inkscape-devel@...6... Subject: [Inkscape-devel] List access? (anti-uce)
When we set inkscape-devel@ up, we set it to post-by-anyone to make it easy for people not subscribed to be able to send emails.
However, in recent weeks we seem to be receiving an unusually high amount of spam.
A few months ago the inkscape-user@ list was suffering the same situation, and reached a concensus to have list posting closed to non-members. This resulted in immediately preventing the spam emails. It also had the predicted downside of preventing some people from posting to the list, but so far this has been a fairly low level problem
(most of the complaints were from people who didn't have much experience with mailing lists in general, and could be addressed with a little education).
With webmail and webforums it seems most users are more comfortable with web interfaces, and they will still have the option to use the forums: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=93438
Even at the risk of exposing the bug tracker to even more anonymous users in need of technical support rather than actually filing bugs or requests I think making the list subscriber only is a necessity given the amount of spam on the internet today.
Like many on this list, I've always been in the camp of keeping list posting open to non-members, however, given inkscape-user's success, it might be worth considering.
With a closeed list there is an option of allowing moderation of non-subscriber posts and then letting them through if they look vaguely like reasonable messages. It is often a lot of hassle but it allows those who really want it to help those with difficulties subscribing to the list.
What do others think?
Definately require posters to be subscribed to the list, but maybe invite people to form a team of moderators (to let exrtra messages through, not to interfere with subscribers, at least not without warning and express instructions from multiple developers).