On Sun, 17 Apr 2016 17:57:51 +0100, Tim Golden wrote: > There's been a bit of chatter lately about the moderation on the Python > List (and, indirectly, comp.lang.python). The list moderators have > suspended a couple of posters for a while and we've been discussing a > little our policy towards non-subscribed posts. > > First, a quick summary of the current settings of the list: > > * Any post from someone who's not subscribed to the list is held for > moderation > > * Subscribers are also held for moderation until a moderator clears that > flag (which we usually do on the first post, unless there's some doubt). > This is basically to prevent canny spammers from signing up and then > posting garbage. > > * There are a few other rules which will cause posts to be held for > moderation: unduly large posts, certain odd headers, large-scale > cross-posting, etc. > > * All attachments are stripped > > Exactly how held posts are handled is down to each moderator: generally, > though, it's quite obvious as most spam is very blatant. Occasionally, > of course, we have a post which borders on (or is clearly) > objectionable, and we have to decide whether to reject it at source or > to let it through and let the community deal. > > Our approach to non-subscribed posts has been to let them through if > they're clearly genuine, ie non-spam. However, as has been pointed out > recently, this can quite easily result in useful advice falling on deaf > ears. The OP isn't subscribed to the list, may not be reading it via > gmane/ggroups etc. and may simply expect people to cc them directly. The > list subscribers have no way of knowing whether someone's subscribed or > not, so they reply to the List. And, of course, some people object to > cc-ing individuals as well as the List. > > Our new approach (from as soon as we set it up) will be to reject > unsubscribed posts with a friendly message indicating how to subscribe. > The only exception we expect to make is if we spot a regular subscriber > who's come in on a different address for some reason (eg posting from a > phone). > > The main effect, we hope, will be that people asking questions actually > see the answers. Of course, as we've seen in the past, some people will > be confounded by the way in which a mailing list works (ie that they see > all the chatter going through not just the answers to their question). > But I don't see there's very much we can do about that except to help > them to understand how it works. > > In general, please feel free to feed back to the list owners. Like > everyone around here, we're all volunteers so we can't guarantee to > respond in any particular timeframe, but we'll try. > > TJG
How will this change affect posts to comp.lang.python? -- <Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453 -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
