The mailing list needs to be careful of what it signs, because a wide
replay of a single message relayed through the list could be quite
damaging to the list's reputation, once reputation systems come into use.
You don't need signatures or reputation systems for a list to have a bad
reputation. For example, help-flex(_at_)gnu(_dot_)org, the support list for
the flex
program generator, appears to let anyone post to it with predictable
consequences. Hence nobody uses it.
Agreed. The mechanism used by the list to decide what it accepts could
be anything.
Yup. But I would have little sympathy for a list that signed some
messages but not others. Wimping out and forcing filtering decisions on
people downstream is invariably a bad idea. It's up to list managers to
keep junk off their lists and IIM or DK won't change that.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)iecc(_dot_)com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet
for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.