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Re: filtering of mailing lists and NATs

2001-05-22 10:00:03
Forgive me here, but I was pondering the problem of mailing lists filtering
last night, and want to float an idea.

The problem as I understand it is that non-subscribers to a given mailing
list may contribute good ideas or may be spammers. And short of
human-directed analysis it's impossible to know whether the email should be
forwarded or not.

Further, by having only one person decide on what's appropriate, there is the
possibility for intentional or inadvertent censorship. Also, it's a
significant burden for someone to have to manually filter all of the email
from non-subscribers.

So here is the idea: For email that comes from non-subscribers, forward it to
N subscribers randomly selected from the current subscribers. (Maybe pick
from the most recent posters, since they are most likely to be active.) If
one of subscribers thinks the mail is useful, he forwards it to the group. If
more than one approves, still only one copy goes forward. (Software somewhere
would prevent duplicates.)

As long N is large enough and picked at random each time it would reduce
dramatically the possibility for censorship, fairly share the load, and
protect the email list from spammers, yet still allow for non-subscribing
folks to contribute.

I know this is fairly low-tech, but it seemed like a reasonable and practical
solution to spamming.

James