wje(_at_)netcom(_dot_)com (William J. Evans) writes:
...
For as long as we can assure Virginia that there is a Santa Claus,
there will be newbie subscribers to the list who will send listbound
spam to the list again, and your filters will be powerless to stop
them. You can educate the newbies all you want, but there will be
newerbies to replace them.
Therefore, filters (procmail or otherwise) are insufficient means to
keep from receiving spam on the list. The only defense is to require
subscription to the list before sending material to it.
I was going to stay out of this discussion, mainly because it seems so
completely pointless, but this comment just jarred me badly. So I'll
hang my brain on the coatrack and join the spree.
First off, a comment on your message: yes, there will always be people
who send spam back to the list. This neither means we should give up
on educating them, nor does it mean that spam filters that are
susceptible these resends are pointless. If I thought educating people
not to do stupid things was pointless, I wouldn't be on this list. If
I required a perfect solution for everything, I would go insane.
Instead I'll participate in this reality and this mailing list, I'll
teach people how to do better than they are, I'll work with the best
solutions I know, and I'll support others who do the same.
(If anyone takes offense at the word "stupid" in the above paragraph,
pretend I had written "non-optimal" instead.)
Now, I agree that things would be a lot better off if the list only
accepted messages from subscribers. This has been discussed several
times, a group of us have volunteered to act as list admins to handle
the resulting confusion, but it appears that Stephen is currently
incommunicado. So, further discussion here has exactly zero chance of
changing anything. Having eliminated that which is currently
impossible, 95% filters and education seem quite wise.
Please reply to me personally and not the list if you have some comment
on the above. If such off-list discussion turns out to be reasonable
for the list, we can always move it back.
Philip Guenther