mark@unicorn.com wrote:
>
> Brian Atkins [brian@posthuman.com] wrote:
> >Well there's a simple solution to that, add a few lines of
> >Perl to the mailing list software so it rejects any message
> >sent to the list without any subject keywords
>
> Problem: without a sophisticated AI, you're not going to be able to detect
> messages which have *incorrect* keywords, so there's an easy way for anyone
> to get around this kind of blocking.
Well that's simple, if someone is going to be that much of an idiot, they are basically grouped into the category of spammers and removed from the list. i.e. if Joe and whoever he has enticed decide to use the keyword "META" in their gun debate posts instead of the obviously proper GUNS, they get banned. You know I believe it is in the "charter" for this list that ExI agrees to arbitrate decisions like this. So we can leave any sticky decisions to them.
I don't think this is an "authoritarian" response at all. We are doing two simple things: a) adding a required bit of syntax to message subject lines. This is the same as the list requiring your mail software to at least provide a To:, From:, etc. in the headers. A technical requirement. b) removing people from the list that use "tricks" to inundate the list members with messages they don't want to see (spammers). What is wrong with these two things that we can't all agree to implement them right now?
-- Join the ExI/>H SETI team today: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_show&id=393 ------------------------------------------------------------------- "It IS possible." - Vincent, _Gattaca_