--- 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