Spam

[Ethan Blanton]

I'm replying to this because we *have* had a spam problem, and I'd
like to address it.

pidgin at alexoren.com wrote:
> When I suggested that a mailing list is not the optimal solution for
> support, I was shouted down. Now both the support email, and the
> private emails of the list subscribers are used for spam.

Yes, we have had spam problems.  This is due to some problems with the
migration of our services from one machine to another.  You may have
noticed that we had a large amount of spam for a couple of days (at
which point I noticed the problem; my scripts for noticing such
problems had a bug, or I'd have noticed it earlier), after which we
have had exactly *one* spam message (the one that leaked through
today).  I believe the problem is fixed, but as we are relying largely
on Bayesian filtering, we may see a few leaks until things settle.
The multiple-obvious-spams-a-day problem should be entirely gone, that
was a specific migration problem that caused the filters to be
entirely inoperative (versus possibly slightly under-trained).

> There is a reason everybody uses web forums.

Where "everybody" = "some people".

> And yes, I will be shouted down again, I'm used to it by now.

Probably.  Bad suggestions tend to get that.

Ethan