Re: One way to combat spam in sci.math ...

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:22:26 -0800, The World Wide Wade
<aderamey.addw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Let's see how it goes for a while as is. Having "-- " in the subject
line seems to me a good idea, certainly at the outset. It's easy
enough to set up a filter that kills "ALERT: Please begin subject ..."
for those who don't want to see it.

Right, I agree -- in fact, I just posted an independent reply taking
back my earlier suggestion.

I think I'll start one last thread for final comments, beginning with
"-- " of course, summarizing our anti-spam proposal. (Thanks to the
spam inundating this group, our conversation here is getting buried at
the end of my sci.math listing.)

Question: How often

At least daily, perhaps 2 or 3 times daily.

and who will post the alert?

For that we need volunteers. As long as there are enough volunteers,
whenever one of them gets on line, they should look to see whether the
advisory message was recently posted, and if not, post a fresh one.

Also, the advisory message should always be posted as a new thread,
not as a reply, even though the title will be the same.

Another question: There will of course remain people posting bona fide
math threads without "-- " in the subject title. What's a good
response when this happens?

One of the volunteers can reply, asking the poster to please repost
the message with the "-- " prefix, explaining that most users can't
see it otherwise, due to filters in place. The wording of such a
message can be standardized so it can easily be pasted.

If after being directly advised, the user doesn't repost and/or the
thread continues without the "--" prefix, there are a few options ...

(1) Advise filterers of a good "unmarked" thread.

(2) Reply to the thread with a renamed subject line containing the "--
" prefix.

(3) If after having tried (1) or (2), the user continues to post new
posts without the prefix, write off that user. If a user expects
cooperative replies, the user should be willing to cooperate in
return, at least minimally. After all, how hard is it to post with a
"-- " prefix?

Once again, we need a group of volunteers who will periodically toggle
their filters off, scanning for newbie users who may need a direct
reply.

Of course, I'll volunteer, and I assume you will also.

Two volunteers is not enough, we need more, but on the other hand, if
we _all_ volunteer, that defeats the whole idea of not having to see
the junk.

Perhaps you can draft a "direct reply" type message, the body of which
can be pasted by one of the volunteers as a reply to a user's thread.
As to which volunteer takes the initiative for a particular direct
reply, it doesn't matter -- whoever sees the user's post first (and
optionally decides that the user is worth a direct reply).

quasi
.