Mailing list administrivia

[Fairlight]

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 07:33:47PM -0400, filePro Mailing List thus spoke:
> | While I don't like the new rules, we had to adopt them on all our hosted
> | email servers.
> | Mark, you stop the DDOS and spam attacks worldwide and let me sleep and I
> | will turn
> | the rules off. Until then, follow the new rules so I can sleep or I have to
> | do
> | without the filePro list. NO Exceptions! Without the rules, our servers were
> | blacklisted daily.
> | With the rules, very seldom. So get off your soap box and live with the new
> | world order!
> | 
> | Paul
> 
> 
> OK, Paul who????
> 
> From years if experience, I know this Paul's last name, but this is
> no way to run a mailing list....

I was just thinking pretty much both...Paul who, and this new system is
simply not working.  That's painfully apparent.

I -don't- know Paul's last name, but he just lost the right to have me take
him seriously.

Personally, I would take down the list if those are the only two
alternatives.  It's Bill's call, obviously.

The one piece of constructive input I can offer is that the Real Name
segment of the email address should at least be a quoted version of the
originating email address of the actual poster.  People would at least be
accountable and identifiable, then, without having to bother Bill.  As it
is, hell, anyone could spoof being anyone, as long as they come from the
same ISP so the Received headers vaguely match.  The way most people read
mail, they don't even see Received headers, and unless someone clues them
in, it'd be pretty easy to impersonate anyone just by setting one's Real
Name to theirs.  That's patently silly.  

The irony here is that the measures are meant to combat the exact kind of
anonymous abuse which it actually enables in a mailing list environment.
As I said, it's ill-conceived, no matter who conceived it.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.