The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

--- In AN1x-list@y..., Bruce Wahler <bruce@a...> wrote:
> All,
> 
> >It's a bit more work for the moderator, but it's worth it. This is 
BOT
> >shit and will keep happening if left unchecked.
> 
> As a former moderator of another fairly large group (over 500 
members), I can tell you that ANY solution is not necessarily a 
"bit more work" for the moderator(s).  The only options are 1) 
moderate new members; 2) deny new membership, pending 
approval; and 3) close the list to new members.  Options #1 and 
#2 are a little work for a little group, more work as the group gets 
larger.  Option #3 is no work for the moderators, but no removes 
the open nature of the list.  I believe that Jon is using option #1, 
which requires him (or a co-moderator) to look at all moderated 
messages, and approve or delete them.  That's easy if you are 
sitting at your computer all day, and don't have a lot to do, but if 
you have other things on your plate, it's a pain in the rear.  It's very 
easy to accidentally approve the message, which is what 
appears to have happened.
> 
> >> >Yeah, I know... it's a bugger nowadays, running a list.
> 
> Absolutely true!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -BW
> 

Well,this has been a pretty thoughtful discussion - and Bruce is 
correct: we are using Option #1 - moderating new members.

When this plague of spambots subscriptions first started some 
months ago we promptly changed the list options before it got 
out of hand. I made some effort to report each offense to Yahoo! 
and provided them as much detail as requested so that perhaps 
they could take some action. After about a dozen incident reports 
in a months time I said 'forget it' and stopped reporting the 
incidents - from then on we (the list moderators) have simply 
been deleting the offending posts before they go through. I think 
I've deleted maybe one or two non-related spam posts but the 
overwhelming majority have been identical to the one I accidently 
let through the other day when I fat fingered 'approved' instead of 
'delete' which consequently resulted in this discussion.

Coincidently I'd been considering changing the list options from 
'moderate  new members' to 'approve new subscriptions (option 
#2) to reduce the amount of work required to admininstrate the 
list. As it stand today we have dozens of recent subscriptions 
who are moderated because they do not post to the list - their 
current status does not impair their ability to access the archives 
or Files sections - but when the *do* eventually get around to 
posting a question/comment they still have to be unmoderated to 
allow their email to go through. So, in effect, option #1 requires 
twice the effort to administrate as option #2.

On a side not, I've recently disabled the message archive to 
members only in a vain effort to reduce the spambot atttacks 
(sounds like an episode of the Six Million Dollar Man gone 
wrong, doesn't it?) - this has not eliminated the spam bot 
subscritions - sigh. And while I doubt switching the list options to 
#2 will stop the subscriptions entirely it will reduce the amount of 
time and effort required to deal with this problem.

If anybody has any further questions, concerns or comments 
please feel free to put them forward :-)

regards,

Jon