An idea for a "moderation period" based list server WAS: Moving
- Posted by Cliff Bendrix <bendrixx at HOTMAIL.COM> Jan 25, 2001
- 492 views
How about this for a list server setup? 1) Anyone can subscribe and read the posts. 2) For the first month (or whatever) of being on the list your posts to the list (if any) are moderated. 3) If you go the whole first month (or whatever) without submitting an offending post you can then post unmoderated. 4) Offenders are removed from the list and not allowed to resubscribe from that email address. 5) If changing an existing email list to this format assume all current members have already gone a whole month (or whatever) without posting anything offensive. I.e. they have unmoderated status from day one. Ok we need a moderator but the moderator will not have to monitor all the posts. In fact the amount of moderation might be very small and here is why. a) A lot of newcomers to an email list tend to "lurk" for a while on a new list before they post. Infact this habit is often encouraged as being good "netiquete". b) My arbitray choice of a whole month can be "tuned". If this was changed to a week then the moderation work would be roughly a quarter compared to a month's worth. Maybe less if the "lurking" aspect is taken into consideration. This set up helps combat the problem of repeated email list abuse from multiple email addresses. In the scenarios I describe below I am assuming a duration of one week before a new user can post unmoderated. Let's call this value the "moderation period". Scenario #1 A free email account address is used to subscribe and then immediately tries to send an abusive post. Because it is less that a week since subscription it is caught by the moderator, is bounced, the email address banned from the list and the message is never distributed to any list members. Scenario #2 A free email account address is used to subscribe. The account either remains dormant for a week or no offending posts are sent from it. Then on day eight an abusive post is sent. As the week moderation period has expired the post, unfortunately, reaches all members of the list *BUT* the list admin can then ban the email address from the list so that email account cannot be used again for future abusive posts. Another free email account needs to be created and subscribed but this new account is subject to the week moderation period as well so it is no good for a follow up abusive post for a whole week. Ok I think this set up would deter *most* people from repeated abuse of an email list. Does anyone know of an existing list server or list server software that does this? BUT! (and there is always a but) a *determined* abuser could do the following: Say they want an ability to post up to 4 abusive messages to the email list on any particular day. For a week they set up 4 free email accounts every day and subscribe them to the email list. On day eight and every subsequent day they must continue to set up 4 free email accounts and subscribe them. However from day eight they can use the 4 email accounts set up on day one to safely get up to four abusive emails through. They have to keep track of (7 * 4) 28 free email accounts at one time to do so however and imagine the frustration if after your 4th abusive email of the day someone flames you back big time and you have to wait an agonising day before flaming back. Oh the humiliation :-] Also lets consider if the the moderation period was a whole month. An offender now has (31 * 4) 124 free email accounts to be set up (!) before you can guarantee your abusive email would get to all list members. And you have a whole 31 days to wait before you can send the first abusive email. Someone clever (!) might satisfy themselves with being able to send abusive emails to the list just during week days so if a moderation period of a week is in place then (5 * 4) 20 free email accounts need to be on the go for an ability of up to 4 abusive emails a week day. That's still hassle in my mind. The list admin could change the moderation period silently to cause the above strategy to fall over for the abusive poster every now and again. If the list admin has access to a log of what email addresses are subscribed to the email list and when (and most do) then if an email abuser uses the above technique on a "moderation period" email list then these logs would make interesting reading. Personally I think this idea would be rather spiffy. Lots of room for tweaks, enhancements and the like. I can't imagine that no one else has thought of it before. Anyone have any links on this? Cliff Bendrix. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.