Re: murphy is listed on spamcop
md@Linux.IT (Marco d'Itri) writes:
> It works as advertised, and the FAQ says that it should not be used to
> block mail.
Hmmm, I looked at the FAQ, and found this -- buried in the middle of a
paragraph: "SpamCop encourages SCBL users to tag and divert email,
rather than block it outright." Good advice to be sure (for any such
service), but not very adamant.
In any case, many clueless people _do_ use spamcop to block mail. I've
had a number of email conversations with mailing lists admins who
basically refused to stop using spamcop in this way, saying "If you're
listed in spamcop, there _must_ be something fishy about your machine!"
[Pointing out that it's not a good idea to use it this way usually
results in the admin getting pissy "I'll do what I want! You suck!"]
So in practice, it is often used as an absolute block. This is a
problem.
If one assumes that it's impractical to address this issue by talking to
individual users of spamcop -- there are more of them, and many of them
are idiots -- I think it's reasonable to ask what spamcop itself could
do to help.
Since the basic problem seems to be a mismatch between what spamcop is
and what people _think_ spamcop is, I can imagine:
(1) Spamcop could try to move users' perceptions closer to reality by
being more forceful in educating users, e.g., put in giant
blinking letters on their home page (and other places): "SPAMCOP
IS NOT A RELIABLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION ABOUT SPAMMERS; _DO NOT
USE IT TO BLOCK MAIL_!!!!"
(2) Spamcop could try to move reality closer to users' perceptions by
trying to provide more reliable information and applying stricter
standards to the information it exports.
-Miles
--
"Though they may have different meanings, the cries of 'Yeeeee-haw!' and
'Allahu akbar!' are, in spirit, not actually all that different."
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