RFC: spammer policy

[Randy Kramer]

On Thursday 05 March 2009 12:31 pm, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> I'd like to stick to the original question; any objection to my 
> implementing a policy that any spam I moderate results in the sender 
> address being blacklisted (from both sending and subscribing)?

Sorry, I'm also going to suggest an alternative.  

On a yahoo mail list that I run, I have things set up (yahoo features 
support this) so:
   * only members can post to the list
   * members posts to the list are moderated until I decide to allow 
them to post unmoderated

So, after I see a few posts from a member to indicate he is not sending 
spam, I allow him to post unmoderated.  (The biggest problem I've seen 
is people who join a list to send spam--if their first couple posts are 
not spam, I haven't had any problem with them (and so far, I haven't 
run into anyone spoofing their addresses).

Other than that, if you go the blacklist route, I presume there will be:    
   * a means of appeal in case someone is blacklisted in error (based 
on, for example, someone else spoofing their address)
   * a notice sent to them when they are blacklisted, so if they are a 
real, non-spamming person they can do something about it, rather than 
waiting until they notice no longer getting something from the list

I guess, thinking about it some more, I don't see the point in keeping 
them from subscribing / receiving emails from the list--and I guess my 
concern is more the person who gets blacklisted in error.  Besides, if 
they are spammer, maybe the posts from the list will be some sort of 
payback ;-)  (I know, they'll probably never see them, and certainly 
won't pay attention if they do, and that continuing to send to them 
just uses bandwidth.)

Randy Kramer
-- 
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video 
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.