Kudos to John Noerenberg for this extremely clear statement:
I wish it no more than I seek ads for magazine subscriptions I have no
interest in. Nevertheless, I'm not about ask the US postmaster to validate
everyone who might send a message to my postal box. There is no reason to
think my email address should be treated any differently.
There is a middle ground worth considering, however. FV has faced a
similar problem on our "fv-users" list. We wanted this list to be
available for free & open discussion. Moderating it would make it look
like we were censoring anti-FV comments, which we certainly weren't.
Restricting access to FV customers was useless, because some of our
customers are the very people who would post inappropriate
announcements. So we evolved another solution: a bozo list. The list
operates freely, except that anyone who has developed a history of abuse
is added to a bozo list, and posts from THAT person are re-routed to the
list owner, who can post them or not.
The combination of a strong presence by the list owner, the THREAT of
bozo status, clear explanations of what is and is not appropriate, and
occasional USE of the bozo mechanism can go a long way towards solving
problems like this one. -- NB
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Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(_at_)fv(_dot_)com>
Chief Scientist, First Virtual Holdings
FAQ & PGP key: nsb+faq(_at_)nsb(_dot_)fv(_dot_)com