> > So, here are the choices:
> >
> > 1. Save thousands of people from having to deal with multiple spams
per
> day,
> > at the cost of presenting a minor inconvenience to a few, or
> >
> > 2. Require thousands of people to receive and deal with spam (or
to
> learn
> > all about mail filtering), in order to avoid inconveniencing a
few.
>
> you have it backwards. all subscribers of the list are
'inconvenienced'
> if we discourage legitimate contributions from folks who are not
willing
> to jump through arbitrary and time-consuming hoops that we impose on
them
> just because a few people insisted (even in the face of evidence to
the
> contrary) that they knew what was best for everyone else.
There is a fine line between "anti-spam" and "censorship." I would much
rather receive and delete another annoying proposition to get rich quick
or see lurid pictures than tolerate any form of censorship. This
translates into an engineering requirement. Anti-spam filters, like all
filters generate false positive, i.e. declare as spam something that is
in fact legitimate, and false negative, i.e. declare as legitimate a
message that in fact is spam. The openness requirement of the IETF
translates in a requirement to eliminate "false negative." This is the
IETF, we ought to be able to engineer that.
-- Christian Huitema
