Subject: (radius) Think before deciding to close the list

From: MegaZone <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 13:55:32 -0800 (PST)

Once upon a time Farshad Abasi shaped the electrons to say...
>I am getting these also.... Please filter out junk mail if possible...

There is no effective way to filter the junk mail - notice the address 
for each mail is different.  Unless you wanted to make the list moderated -
which is a bad idea.  First you'd need a moderator, second it would stop
all conversation except for spurts when the moderator clears the batch of
postings.  That is very bad for a discussion list trying to work things out
in a timely manner.

The list can be closed so that only subscribers can post.  I used to run
this list, and all of the lists at livingston.com, when I still worked there.
In fact, all of the Livingston/Lucent lists *are* run that way.  It was
only the IETF lists that are not.

Why?  Because IETF WGs are supposed to be open to anyone to send comments
to.  It is an open forum.  Making it harder for people to send comments,
or requiring people to subscribe to the list to do so was considered more
detrimental to the spirit of the WG process than the occaisional spam.
Personally the spam I get from this list doesn't even register in the sea
of email I deal with daily.  I don't have a problem hitting the 'd' key
and moving on.

Before everyone jumps on the 'close the list' bandwagon, I'd seriously
think about the tradeoffs.  Is avoiding the spam - which doesn't even
average one a day - worth turning an IETF WG into a closed forum?  For
those who don't know, closing the list means you can post *ONLY* from the
address that is subscribed.  And Majordomo is very picky - it may even
reject a different machine name within the same domain.  It also means
that anyone who reads the RFCs or drafts and tries to send the WG a question
will fail - they'd have to subscribe first.  Not something people will
expect to have to do.

Personally I think the cure is worse that the disease in this case.  But
if the weight of the WG favors closing the list - fine.  Just no one 
complain if you start finding yourself unable to post anything, etc.

-MZ
-- 
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From: "Mark Beyer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 14:14:25 -0800

> Is avoiding the spam - which doesn't even
> average one a day - worth turning an IETF WG into a closed forum?

It was for the dhcp lists, which I believe were closed to non-subscribers
due to spam.

Mark

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