An idea for a "moderation period" based list server WAS: Moving
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.
|
Not Categorized, Please Help
|
|
