Re: Proposed change for subscriptions...

["Steve Lamb" <grey@dmiyu.org>]

Michael Marsh said:
> I have an email address.  I make it available online so that people
> who need to contact me can.  This is good.  However, it means that I
> also get spam.

> If you find that contradictory, then why do you (a) have an email
> address, and (b) send email to a list that archives your messages
> along with that address?

    I don't because the conrary.  Why?  Because *you* are responsible to
ensure the mechanism you use for mailing aren't subject to abuse.  Do we
ostricize the spammers who utilize the open relays or the operators of
the open relays?  Do we ostricize the clueless people who run open
systems rife with zombies and viruses or the people who zombied those
boxes or wrote the viruses?

    In the above examples we ostricize both; often to the point of excessive
collateral damage.  So, please, tell me exactly how a mailing list for
(dozens of?  hundreds of?) thousands of people who relays postings from
any any all comers is fundimentally different than an open relay?  No, I
am not ignorant of d.o's spam filtering.  But let's be honest, if an
open relay did spam filtering we would still consider it an open relay. 
Just as we considered whole blocks of dynamic IPs open spam/virus
vectors even though the individual operators may employ their own
spam/virus scanners and firewalls.

    So do I see a contridiction?  No.  Because I own up to my own
responsibility to ensure my mail clients, my mail machine, my firewall,
the machines behind the firewall are not used to abuse others on the
net.  It is that responsibility that a mailing list manager has to a far
greater degree for he or she is personally responsible for a vector into
mutiple other mailboxes.

> Openness invites idiots and jerks.  Public discourse
> is full of examples of this.  We don't choke off public discourse to
> deny the obnoxious their ability to speak.

    Don't be so sure about that, Michael.  For the first time in a decade or
so on this list, through political arguments, personal attacks and
multitude of other clearly non-Debian related material I have never once
seen anyone threatened with unsubscription.  Yet in this very thread, 2
messages below yours, I had been threatened with just that because I
have the audacity to be publicly critical of the irresponsible actions
of the list managers.

    So do watch and see if public discourse is choked off.


-- 
Steve Lamb