Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses
2004-01-03 04:25:21
At 11:42 PM 1/2/2004, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
Earl Hood wrote:
And the factors of maintaining an open forum. I have received a
private response in favor of not hiding address since the user has
had useful benefits on their archives in not doing so.
Wonder why he or she chose to not respond to the list. Maybe for fear
that doing so would result in their address being exposed to spam...
In my opinion, the spam problem makes keeping the addresses open to
harvesters inconsiderate to the posters. What value does it have to
keep the forum open in the current sense, if it results in a
decreasing group of subscribers that post?
No, I have no fear of that. (I'll assume Earl is referring to me.) I
receive well over 1000 spams a day due to my other online activities and my
own archives and web sites. I learned to deal with that a long time ago. As
to the other post, like most people my phone number and home address has
been in the phone book as long as I've had a phone. It's been on the
internet since my first website in 1996. I consider it a good thing that
people can contact me when they need to, and my life experiences show this
to be true.
I didn't reply to the list because I didn't have anything to contribute to
the technical discussion going on. However, I do have something to
contribute to the philosophical discussion. I agree with Earl's points
about making information available to the world. It is a bold thing to do,
and many of us have put a large amount of energy and time and sweat into
making it possible to do this over the internet. I applaud him for making
the mhonarc archives available, including addresses. The world is better
because of it. (The world is better because of MHonArc also!)
Millions of people have gotten information from my list archives. That
includes email addresses of the original posters, who are often contacted
by others for follow up questions, jobs, offers of collaboration,
friendship, etc. In the case of my list archives, the result is a huge
amount of great music being created in the world that wouldn't have been
there otherwise. In Earl's case it is a great piece of software that many
of us rely on to put information out into the world. I hope that more
people find mhonarc and use it.
People on my lists know their words and addresses are going to be public
when they post. There is no secret. They still post, day in and day out,
because they too care about sharing knowledge and information. The number
of subscribers has not gone down. In fact, it is pretty rare that I ever
hear a complaint.
A small number of spammers have been abusing loopholes in the laws and the
underlying technology to screw up this wonderful thing we've created. There
is no way I will give up the value and benefit of free information because
of these people. That would mean the spammers won, and I will never accept
that. Closing down or limiting our sites is the same sort of illogic as
giving up the constitutional freedoms my ancestors in my country really did
die for because of a small number of terrorists. I would rather deal with
the source of the problem than hide from it or throw away everything we've
built.
You guys are obviously engineering types, as am I, and we naturally see
everything as a technical problem. Not everything is. You will never stop
spam by trying to implement some cheap technical gimmicks that address the
symptoms. Either do the hard work to fix the underlying loopholes or don't
bother. You also need to act in the political, social, and legal arena if
you really care about this. If you just want to crawl into a hole and hide
from spam you can do that too, but that would be a sad loss.
The political will is there. I've talked with my senators and
representatives in my state and country, and they all support enacting laws
and creating enforcement bodies. You can do that too. The problem is just
as bad for them, since they get more spam than anyone and it limits their
ability to interact with their constituents. As a result we finally passed
an anti-spam law here in the US. It isn't very good, but it addresses some
issues and it is a start. The popular will to do something is small but
growing, and I'm certain that will mean better laws in the future. The
public will in the US to limit telemarketing grew large enough that we
really did get some good laws, and I haven't received an unwanted call
since. We can do the same for spam if it becomes a big enough movement. You
just need to speak up and deal with the real issues. Whining at your local
list admin and hiding behind your monitor is not going to fix the problem!
kim
______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint | Looper's Delight
kflint(_at_)annihilist(_dot_)com | http://www.loopers-delight.com
http://www.annihilist.com/ |
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- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, (continued)
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Gunnar Hjalmarsson
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses,
Kim Flint <=
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Gunnar Hjalmarsson
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Earl Hood
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Alejandro Forero Cuervo
- The "+" Approach (was: Poll: ... hide mail addresses), Jym Dyer
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Earl Hood
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Chuq Von Rospach
- Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Earl Hood
Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses, Gary Frederick
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