Subject: namedroppers, continued

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Nov 2002 20:07:11 -0000

Bush stuck the following note into the top of my latest message to
namedroppers:

   [ post by non-subscriber.  with the massive amount of spam, it is
   easy to miss and therefore delete posts by non-subscribers.  your
   subscription address is [email-masked],
   please post from it or, if you wish to regularly post from an address
   that is not subscribed to this mailing list, send a message to
   [email-masked] and ask to have the alternate address
   added to the list of addresses from which submissions are
   automatically accepted. ]

Okay, Bush: Put [email-masked] on the list of addresses from which
submissions are automatically accepted.

Furthermore: Stop publishing private subscription addresses. This
includes malicious actions by the list owner, accidents by the list
owner, failure to configure the mailing-list software to keep
subscription addresses private, etc.

Furthermore: When you want to say something to a sender, say it in an
immediate bounce message to that sender (which in this case would have
been [email-masked]), not in a stupid editorial note
on the top of the sender's message to the list. You're perfectly aware
that many senders don't read messages to the list.

Furthermore: Stop delaying messages. The delay is unacceptable. The
excuse for the delay, namely manual review, is also unacceptable. Under
United States antitrust law, standard-setting procedures must ``prevent
the standard-setting process from being biased by members with economic
interests in stifling product competition''; your reviews plainly flunk
this test.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

---

From: Doug Royer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 13:43:49 -0700

D. J. Bernstein wrote:
> ...
> You're perfectly aware
 >...

Yet - you must be reading the list or you would not have seen it.

Please cry elsewhere.

-- 

  Doug Royer                     |   http://INET-Consulting.com
  -------------------------------|-----------------------------
  [email-masked]                 | Office: (208)612-INET
  http://Royer.com/People/Doug   |    Fax: (866)594-8574
                                 |   Cell: (208)520-4044

                 We Do Standards - You Need Standards

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 16:10:04 -0500

[recipient list trimmed.]

> excuse for the delay, namely manual review, is also unacceptable.

I think the other suggestions are worth considering, but can't agree 
with this one.  Spam significantly reduces the signal-to-noise ratio
of a list to the point that it's impossible to get work done, and at
present we don't have a good way of effectively filtering the list
while keeping the list open to contributions from outsiders that doesn't 
involve human perusal of such messages, hence delay.

To me it seems unlikely to be vital that messages from a non-subscriber
reach the list immediately - as long as the message gets forwarded within
a day or two, and as long as messages that experience such delays are
given adequate consideration by the working group.  So if there's a 
working group last call that ends on day X, and the non-subscriber's
message doesn't show up until day X+3 due to delay, it should still
be considered as relevant input to the group.  

But except for such deadlines, what is that non-subscriber responding to 
that can't wait a day or two, if not some activity on the list?
No working groups that I'm familar with make decisions that quickly.

As for the legal arguments, the place to decide those - if it's really
important enough to go to the trouble - is in a court of law.  Arguments 
about such matters by engineers are rarely fruitful.

Keith

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Nov 2002 23:22:03 -0000

Keith claims that allowing ``contributions from outsiders'' requires
delay and manual review. That claim is absurd. Immediately bounce the
message to the ``outsider,'' with instructions explaining how to have
the message sent to subscribers; end of problem.

---

From: "Bill Strahm" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 15:46:38 -0800

Silly question,

But you DO know what it will take to get your message to be immediately
seen by the list, you just aren't willing to do it... 

I believe the problem is in your court, easily solved and it is not time
to move on to something that might be slightly productive

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of D.
J. Bernstein
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 3:22 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: namedroppers, continued

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 19:00:18 -0500

> the message sent to subscribers; end of problem.

Well, as long as the method for getting the message to the subscribers
(a) is simple and not onerous, and 
(b) cannot be automated
then I'd probably agree that this is an acceptable solution.

I've seen lists for which the way that this was accomplished -
subscribing or getting on the "acceptable posters" list - involved 
several email round-trips to get the address of the list bot,
get the help file, send a command, get back a cookie, send back
the cookie, find out that the list bot won't accept subscribe
requests and/or cookies from a different address than that for
which the subscription is requested, etc.  Basically it amounted
to a considerable barrier to posting by outsiders.

These days, with a web interface, that level of complexity is
no longer necessary.

But if you make the process automatable spammers _will_ game it.

Keith

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 30 Nov 2002 01:01:11 -0000

Bill Strahm writes:
> I believe the problem is in your court

That's patently absurd. It's not _my_ fault that a bunch of messages
from _other_ people are being silently discarded.

(As I said before, there have been more than 100 messages in the past
three months on namedroppers labelled as coming from non-subscribers,
only a small fraction of those being mine. Furthermore, Bush has
silently discarded several of my recent messages. If we believe Bush's
claim that he isn't selectively targeting my messages, the only
reasonable conclusion is that he has silently discarded a huge number of
messages overall, only a small fraction being mine.)

Most namedroppers contributors who don't post from subscription
addresses are, presumably, people who don't watch the list at all---for
example, people from other lists involved in cross-posted discussions.
How are they supposed to find out about the problem?

I do tend to watch the list. I noticed the problem. I pointed it out.
That doesn't mean I'm the only person with the problem.

If the problem is fixed _for me_, but not _for everybody_, then it
hasn't gone away. The procedures are still broken. Legitimate messages
to namedroppers---potentially quite valuable messages---continue to be
thrown away.

---

From: "Daniel Pelstring" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 22:40:25 -0500

There is a process to have messages posted immediately, if what is being
said is important and time critical, follow it.  If it is not worth even the
small amount of effort to do this, you probably do not have anything so
incredibly important to say that it cannot wait.  Personally, I thank the
people who take the time to filter the list and keep it free of spam, it
wastes the time of the subscribers to get these unwanted messages and, some
of us (I suspect the vast majority) would rather not get them.  If you are
going to make an accusation of censorship, do so, but do not do so lightly.
If you are not, then there really is no point to these messages, as it is
unfortunate if a few messages are lost but, the alternative to not filtering
the list is worse.

That being said, I do find the examples you linked to in the original
message interesting.  Has anybody else experienced these problems?  I
especially find the earlier ones questionable as there should be no reason
to edit an incoming message.

-Daniel Pelstring

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:52:33 -0600

To Mr. Bernstein and the others involved in this 
discussion -
Whether or not Mr. Bernstein is right, the clear 
consensus on this list is that the members of this
list aren't going to be changing anything. 
You may be right, but since you clearly are not
getting any support here please either take up
this grievance somewhere where you can get
some support or let it go.  It is no longer productive
to continue a debate between one person and
the rest of the list.  At least, it is clearly less 
productive than other things we could be discussing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ray B. Morris
[email-masked]
http://www.WebmastersGuide.com

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 15:00:21 +0200 (EET)

> the message sent to subscribers; end of problem.

No, it's not 'end of problem'.

If I cross-post a reply to some message with was cross-posted to a list
I'm subscribed at and a list I'm not, in the general case I do *not* want
to subscribe to the other list to be able to send my cross-post reply to
both.

Waiting for moderator approval is just fine for me, much better than
requiring to subscribe or do something else.

It's not black and white.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy                   not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security.  -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords

---

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 11:29:38 +1100

"[email-masked]" wrote:
	[..]
> list aren't going to be changing anything.

I have yet to see a consensus. I see stubborness spread
across the spectrum, but hardly a landslide, black-and-white
consensus. But perhaps you were just trolling to get people
looking at your .sig?

gja