Spam

[pidgin at alexoren.com]

On 09-03-2017 14:51, Ethan Blanton wrote:
> 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).

The problem is definitely not "solved".
Every message to the list exposes the sender's email address to all the recipients.
Most of the spam that I receive to my dedicated pidgin email address does not come directly from the mailing list.

>> There is a reason everybody uses web forums.
>
> Where "everybody" = "some people".

OK, I'll bite.

Please point me to mailing lists used for non-technical end-user support (I assume that using IM clients does not require extensive technical knowledge) with reasonably high traffic.

>> And yes, I will be shouted down again, I'm used to it by now.
>
> Probably.  Bad suggestions tend to get that.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_by_assertion

I have been using mailing lists in various incarnations since the late '80s and I have yet to see one compelling argument to the superiority of mailing lists over modern forums that did not boil down to "this is what I am used to since the early days of ARPANET" or "it takes an extra click".

On the contrary, I claim that a forum will solve a lot of problems, such as:
- People using "reply" instead of "reply to all"
- Oracle employees asking questions that should be directed to their IT department (put a sticky thread "ATTN Oracle employees")
- The same question asked over and over again, such as the AIM protocol change (again, sticky thread)