Subject: Re: filtering of mailing lists and NATs

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 22:24:27 -0700

Keith Moore wrote:

> however, I have seen a couple of occasions where I believe that
> a 'moderator' acted inappropriately in filtering messages that
> came from non-subscribers but were arguably on-topic for the lists.

So the non-subscriber subscribed, and their posts went through okay,
right?  (If not, and the moderator was in fact filtering all posts
to the mailing list in question, then this example is a red-herring.)

Gas tanks explode - we ban cars?
Cigarette butts cause fires - we ban cigarettes?
Moderators go loopy sometimes - we ban subscribe-before-post
mailing lists? 

You got me there, guv! I concede.

cheers,
gja

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:49:44 -0400

> right?  

no.  the WG was badly in need of a clue from folks outside of the WG -
because the WG was failing to understand how its work would interact
with and/or affect other applications or protocols outside of its purview.

the would-be contributor did not want to subscribe to the list because
he/she had no desire to participate in the day-to-day conversations of
the working group.  after all, the contributor normally worked at 
layer X while the WG was working at layer Y.

still, the WG needed the contribution.  it would have benefited from 
knowing that what it was doing was inherently flawed, and that its
poorly-informed design decisions would do harm and/or cause its work
to be less useful than anticipated.

but the capriciousness of the mailing list maintainer prevented this
from happening, and many months of hard work were wasted.

> (If not, and the moderator was in fact filtering all posts

seems like you've left a big hole in your case analysis.

> Gas tanks explode - we ban cars?

if the gas tanks explode under normal or even occasional use, we do in 
fact recall the car.  

you seem to believe that non-subscribers are inherently illegimiate,
and that any barriers we erect to make it more difficult for them to 
post are therefore justified.  looks like circular reasoning to me.

Keith

---

From: Pyda Srisuresh <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 09:30:01 -0700 (PDT)

Here is a suggestion. 

Require people to subscribe to a list to post to the list. 
This is in addition to requiring subscription to receive posts 
mailed to the list. Nanog adopts this approach and has been
fairly successful in avoiding spam, I believe.

Subscription to Post can be made contingent on the subscriber not
agreeing to post material that is out of scope for the list and
willing to abide by the list administrator's decision to moderate
inappropriate postings.

Free-for-all type of lists are inherently prone to spam. Thanks.

cheers,
suresh

> post are therefore justified.  looks like circular reasoning to me.

=====

__________________________________________________
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---

From: James Aviani <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 09:26:59 -0700

Forgive me here, but I was pondering the problem of mailing lists filtering
last night, and want to float an idea.

The problem as I understand it is that non-subscribers to a given mailing
list may contribute good ideas or may be spammers. And short of
human-directed analysis it's impossible to know whether the email should be
forwarded or not.

Further, by having only one person decide on what's appropriate, there is the
possibility for intentional or inadvertent censorship. Also, it's a
significant burden for someone to have to manually filter all of the email
from non-subscribers.

So here is the idea: For email that comes from non-subscribers, forward it to
N subscribers randomly selected from the current subscribers. (Maybe pick
from the most recent posters, since they are most likely to be active.) If
one of subscribers thinks the mail is useful, he forwards it to the group. If
more than one approves, still only one copy goes forward. (Software somewhere
would prevent duplicates.)

As long N is large enough and picked at random each time it would reduce
dramatically the possibility for censorship, fairly share the load, and
protect the email list from spammers, yet still allow for non-subscribing
folks to contribute.

I know this is fairly low-tech, but it seemed like a reasonable and practical
solution to spamming.

James

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:41:08 -0400

> Require people to subscribe to a list to post to the list.

worked great for the NAT WG list, which successfully used this technique
to discourage input from people harmed by NAT.

Keith

---

From: Pyda Srisuresh <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 10:16:37 -0700 (PDT)

> to discourage input from people harmed by NAT.

NAT WG never had a separate subscribe-to-post requirement, FYI.

The previous list as well as the current list (hosted by the IETF) 
required a single subscription to receive as well as to post. 

With the current list, messages sent by folks not subscribed to the 
list would be directed to list administrator to permit posting to 
the list. List administrator would have to manually approve the posting.

Now, do you object to a separate subscribe-to-post requirement?
Would this discourage or inconvenience you (the occassional non-spam 
contributor to a non-subscribed-to-receive-list) or the spammer more?

If the answer is debatable (or) the frequent spammer is likely to be 
discouraged at least 50% of the time, the approach is worth a try.

cheers,
suresh

=====

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 13:33:04 -0400

Suresh,

I don't mind having WG lists moderate contributions from non-subscribers,
provided the moderator can act in a timely fashion (say within a day or
so) and the moderator allows any post that is even arguably on-topic for
the list.

for reasons already stated, I doubt that a single moderator could be
found for the main ietf list.  but I would like to see an experiment
with the 'multiple per-message moderators chosen at random from the 
subcriber list' proposals.

the problem with the NAT list was that posts from non-susbcribers 
were, apparently, simply discarded.  as you point out, this has since 
been fixed. 

Keith

p.s. I don't think the question of whether we inconvience the legitimate
poster or the spammer more is the relevant one.  a better question is 
which filtering policy allows our organization to function more effectively -
given that 'effectiveness' includes honoring our principle of open participation
and being open to good ideas from all sources.

> Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 10:16:37 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Pyda Srisuresh <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: filtering of mailing lists
>

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 13:47:38 -0400

> would prevent duplicates.)

Then you have to educate the subscribers on how to approve messages.

--
/===============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own. |
|Chief Scientist |==============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |All your problems can be solved by not caring!|
[email-masked]|                                              |
\===============================================================/

---

From: Kevin Farley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 10:53:32 -0700 (PDT)

I think I might set a filter to look for this thread in the subject
line of my email and dump it. It only takes a minute to set it up.

---

From: John Kristoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 13:01:46 -0500

> I know this is fairly low-tech, but it seemed like a reasonable and practical

This is a interesting if not good idea.  Some of the details may need to
be worked out (like perhaps certain people opt in or opt out of being a
moderator), but the technical implementation is probably the easy part. 
If you've given the IETF a solution without causing a theological debate
over the 'technical purity' of it, you've left your mark for posterity.

John

---

From: Pyda Srisuresh <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:51:00 -0700 (PDT)

> so) and the moderator allows any post that is even arguably on-topic for

Having a separate subscribe-to-post requirement alleviates the burden
on the list administartor, at the cost of minor one-time additional
inconvenience to the poster. This, in no way, violates the principle 
of open participation and being open to good ideas from all sources.

If a responsible poster still chooses to send a message without
subscribing-to-post, then it is not unreasonable if the message posting
is delayed by more than a day or is dropped at the discrition of the 
list moderator(s). On the other hand, if spam is sent automagically to 
a bunch of lists, the spam will automagically get dropped, unless the 
spam sender subscribes to each of the lists and violates the posting
law.
  
> subcriber list' proposals.

I am OK with the idea of multiple moderators. Many lists already
have multiple moderators. The IESG members, for example, could be the 
moderators for the IETF list. 

Unless the moderators group is pre-selected, attempting to select a 
moderator at random from the subscriber list for each new mailing thread
can be at best difficult and at worst a box of pandora. The random 
selection process in itself can become very hard to manage and will 
become a giant meta problem in itself.

<.. stuff deleted>

Thanks. Have a nie day.

cheers,
suresh

---

From: stanislav shalunov <[email-masked]>
Date: 22 May 2001 17:11:48 -0400

John Stracke <[email-masked]> writes:

[Randomly selected moderators.]
> Then you have to educate the subscribers on how to approve messages.

Include a short explanation in the message of why it is sent, and
offer to follow a URL to approve the message.  One of the randomly
choosen subscribers presumably knows how to follow a link.

-- 
Stanislav Shalunov		http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/

This message is designed to be viewed at 600 mph.

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 23:45:06 -0400

Keith,

Why do you keep pretending that sending mail to the main submission
address is the only way to get a message out on a mailing list and
that there isn't immense harm done by spam?  What about months of work
wasted because a WG didn't get the input of those driven away by spam?
If you have trouble submitting mail to a WG maiiling list, or even
think you might, why not just send mail to the chair and ask them to
post it?  Wouldn't it be their job to do so if it was at all relevant?

Limitations on absolutely free direct immediate posting have negative
effects and *positive* effects.  The right balance is different for
different mailing lists.

Donald

From:  Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Message-Id:  <[email-masked]>
To:  grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
cc:  [email-masked]
In-reply-to:  Your message of "Mon, 21 May 2001 22:24:27 PDT."
	                  <[email-masked]> 
Date:  Tue, 22 May 2001 11:49:44 -0400

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 08:59:00 -0400

> that there isn't immense harm done by spam?  

where do you get off claiming that I'm pretending either of these things?
I'm only claiming that one particular method of spam filtering - that
of expecting people to s u b s c r i b e before posting - (yes, even to a
"allow me to post list") is not appropriate for IETF lists.

> What about months of work

that's equally as bad as the months of work wasted because the WG
didn't get the input of someone driven away by the spam filter, of course.

> post it?  

what makes you think that I haven't done so?   of course, when the message
gets forwarded by the WG chair, sometimes there's a delay of several
days, and often the message gets forwarded as if it's from the chair
(forwarded, rather than resent), with > marks down the left side, and
since my email address isn't in the message header,  I don't get the
replies to the message. and in a couple of cases the chair has failed
to post the message even though it was squarely on topic for the list.

> Wouldn't it be their job to do so if it was at all relevant?

certainly I think so.

> effects and *positive* effects.  The right balance is different for

I've never claimed otherwise.

Keith

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From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 08:33:54 -0700

>didn't get the input of someone driven away by the spam filter, of course.

Keith, there are several barriers of entry for people who wish to work on 
Internet protocols. There are financial barriers, time barriers and most of 
all, educational barriers. We all have to learn how email lists work (some 
of us had to learn USENET), just as we all had to learn how to access the 
Internet. It is incumbent on the participant to move up the learning curve 
and follow the email list policy even if that includes extra effort. If 
that policy includes subscription, then you just have to go along with it, 
onerous or not. The Internet doesn't bend to individuals.

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 13:03:18 -0400

> onerous or not. The Internet doesn't bend to individuals.

no disagreement about the general argument - we have to understand how
to use our technology.    and from time to time we have to learn to use
new technologies.

but subscribe-before-post is not inherently a feature of mailing lists.
we have a choice about whether to impose that extra hump in the learning 
curve.  my argument is that a choice to do so, for the specific case of 
IETF lists, is a poor one.

Keith

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 15:44:42 +0100 (BST)

> wasted because a WG didn't get the input of those driven away by spam?

In the allegedly practically-focused networking world of the IETF, the
input of those driven away because they're just incapable of coping
with unsolicited mail is hardly likely to be worth much.

robustness in, robustness out.

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>