Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 08:43:08 -0400
Reply-To: Tom Carrington <tcarrington@RELITECH.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Carrington <tcarrington@RELITECH.COM>
Subject: Vanagon List stuff - Please read!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Howdy everybody,
There has been a lot of discussion on the list recently about SPAM, and this
does happen from time to time. But I would really like to see the discussion
centered on Vanagons!!
Last year about this time, there was a similar flurry of messages about
SPAM. Based on what I was seeing, I asked the listmembers to p-mail me a
vote on if I should "close" the list or not. I rec'd 8 (yes, EIGHT)
responses. Four of the responses were for keeping the list open, 4 were for
closing it. I cast a tie-breaking vote and closed the list. The whole
process revealed to me that while some of you like to whine about SPAM, it
wasn't a big enough deal to warrant any action.
Then all sorts of people complained to me about the "closed" list, so I
opened it back up after upgrading Gerry to ListServ 1.8d, which has an
advanced SPAM filter. We had only a few SPAMs for the first few months, but
now I get the feeling that SPAMmers have figured out how to get past the
filer, based on the increased incidents.
So here's the deal - I'm willing to change the configuration of the list if
a majority want it. Please send your opinion in an e-mail to
"vanagon-request@gerry.vanagon.com" and indicate your preference. DO NOT
SEND YOUR "VOTE" TO THE LIST.
So that you may make an informed choice, here is some background:
The Vanagon list is "open" which means anybody in the world can post to it.
Unfortunately, so can SPAMmers. But it also makes it easier for new people
that find the list to send a question.
If we close the list, then only listmemembers can post. This cuts the amount
of SPAM to a minimum. The drawbacks are that if you have several e-mail
addresses that you would like to use to post to the list (like a work and
home address) then you must subscribe *both*. If you don't want to receive
mail on both, simply set one subscription to "NOMAIL" as outlined in Ron's
directions at http://gerry.vanagon.com
Anyways, send your opinion to "vanagon-request@gerry.vanagon.com" between
now and next Friday at midnite. I'll sum up the votes and announce the
outcome.
Your Vanagon list admin,
TomC
