Re: [tlug] Email address munging in the TLUG archives

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > On 06/12/06, Edward Middleton <edward@example.com> wrote:
 > 
 > > That is fine but its an issue of policy, i.e. should it be a requirement
 > > to have your email address publicly displayed in order to post to tlug.
 > 
 > Yes! Thank you for putting it so clearly. *This*, and nothing else, is
 > the issue. All the other stuff is simply implementation details.
 > 
 > My take on this is:
 > 
 > NO! In subscribing to the list, the only thing you are agreeing to is
 > that you want Mailman to try to deliver posts to you.

That's true of subscription, but posting is another matter.  Mailman
does not force subscribers to post, that's an explicit decision.

Note that there are plenty of archiving services (eg, Gmane) with less
than robust ethics about following list policy.  I'm pretty sure that
Gmane munges, but others many not.

And I know that people managing active open-subscription lists with
closed archives have reported (on Mailman-Users) clear evidence of
professional spammers signing up and harvesting addresses.

It's just a matter of time....