[Coco] Re: CoCo List/Newsgroup Information

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 01:27 AM 10/26/03 -0700, Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>I did not wish to suggest that anyone is not or would not be fair.

Thanks.

Prelude opinion: It would be great if we didn't let spam discussions on one
list turn into post-spam list discussions on the new one.

So there's no mystery, here is what I have been doing:

0. Posting every way to join the list or use the newgroups in
bit.listserv.coco and comp.sys.tandy. Each suggestion that has been made so
far has been added to my post. I have a new one ready to go for next week
that includes all suggestions so far.
1. Getting the authorization request from a potential subscriber. This only
happens if the email is already valid, because the first steps (subscribe
request & list reply) are automated. The next steps are in order of *ease
for me*. :)
2. Checking the received email (which does not contain a real name, so I
can't say, 'oh, yeah, that's Jim') against the CoCo posts from 1999 to the
present (I keep an archive). If a post is found, I subscribe. If no post is
found, then onward to #3.
3. Checking the email address on Google. If it is found anywhere attached
to almost anything as the originator, I subscribe. If not, then onward to #4.
4. Checking key parts of the address against the CoCo posts to see if
something turns up likely. If yes, I subscribe. If not, then onward again.
5. Sending a note to the potential subscriber to ID themselves in some way,
any way, since there have been lurkers or those with addresses kept
harvest-free. If I get a response, I subscribe. No one is hiding -- usually
I've gotten full bios that (after checking with the subscriber) I forwarded
to the group!

That's pretty thorough, and takes more time than I'd like, but guess what?
Every subscription but one has ultimately gone through using one of these
methods.

And that one remains a problem. I received a request from a person using an
anonymizer to join. In fact, that person has posted previously (and for
several years) -- I can tell by the grammar, spelling, and tone. This is a
real member of the community, though one who has chosen anonymity. I'd like
to figure out how to make this work. For example, if that potential
subscriber could guarantee that the incoming address would be consistent, I
could subscribe. I answered back through what appears to be a public relay,
but haven't heard yet. I also offered a unique posting address from one of
my own domains that, since his traffic has been very low over the years, I
could validate as needed.

I didn't intend for this to be a real job. :) Nor to provoke anyone into
unhappiness. I know Brett Heath believes the list shouldn't even exist, and
I do know how he feels. At some point, maybe humanity & technology will
rise to the spam and flood challenge. Right now it hasn't, and our group,
however small, should at least have some places -- here, Yahoo, gmane --
where we can feel comfortable in simply discussing our interests in Ye Olde
Colour Computer without swimming through spam floods.

I hope that allays any fears. If anyone has suggestions (that are actually
possible to implement without me standing on my technical head, that is)
let me hear them. But so far, 99 out of 100 ain't so bad -- and it'll be
100 out of 100 if we can figure out how to get our otherwise anonymous but
long-term poster signed up.

Dennis


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