[UbuntuWomen] Non-members posting! [was] Re: Fwd: [Blueprint community-1311-ubuntu-women] Ubuntu Women Trusty Goals

[svakSha]

Hello All,
I've changed the subject line to reflect the discussion at hand.

On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 8:05 PM, Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph
<lyz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> As an aside: Since we need the mailing list to accept non-member
> postings in order for blueprint updates to work, I've asked svaksha to
> loosen the restriction on posting to the list so that emails land in
> the moderation queue. She had to restrict posting to members in order
> to handle spam, so we'll have to recruit more moderators to handle the
> spam queue, please contact her if you're interested in helping out :)

For any Foss team/project, its important to be open and transparent,
hence, I'm forced to post pleia2's irc message here as the
#ubuntu-women channel is not logged and I find her irc message
accusatory and insulting, largely based on fallacies which I'm trying
to clear below.

<quote>
2014-04-13:CEST:21:59:30 < pleia2> svaksha: add more admins if the
current team can't handle the spam queue, our blueprints don't work if
non-members can't post,
                                   this is very bad
2014-04-13:CEST:21:59:59 < pleia2> svaksha: we have to make sure
non-members can post because not everyone uses their default email in
launchpad as their mailing
                                   list email
2014-04-13:CEST:22:00:50 < pleia2> svaksha: he's already posted 3
times, it's really too much to ask again, I'll forward his mail
2014-04-13:CEST:22:01:56 < pleia2> it's ridiculous that I've had to
spend 5 days trying to get this mail through :(
</unquote>

Regarding LP members who wish to post here, how many such members
exist? I had suggested that they sub and set their options to NOMAIL,
which you completely ignored. Instead, you are now twisting my words
to conclude that the existing admins have not done a good job - how
did you jump to this conclusion at all?  The fact is that I am on irc
24x7 and never once (in those 5 days as you claim above) did you ping
me that cprofitt was having a problem. I saw jamfish trying to help
you and left it at that, so if you wanted another pair of eyes to help
out, all you had to do was ask. You didnt.

If LP members wish to post here, why not ask them to subscribe, set
their options to NOMAIL, which means they dont get list mail but they
can freely post as much as they like. There is a simple solution for
the problem you raised, for which Mailman has a technical solution but
you ignored this completely, instead you accuse the admins of not
doing their job. I find that very disturbing because a large majority
of linux-related mailing lists dont allow non-subscribers to post,
which cannot be twisted to mean their admins (some lists have just one
admin fwiw) are incapable or incompetent to handle spam. Why do you
think a women's list, being managed by women should allow random
people on the internet to spam the list as a free-for-all? There is a
technical solution in Mailman and yet you choose to ignore it. Why?

Mailman has a bayesian filter for this technical problem and it just
works(TM). The main reason why non-members are not allowed to post is
their lack of enlightened self-interest
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest) in a specific
group meant for people interested in that group and its functioning.
Opening up the mailing list to non-members to post is not the solution
- the spam I mentioned on irc earlier was caught by mailman's bayesian
filter (which fwiw, does a very good job imho, a lot better than any
human ever could), so I have no clue how you jumped to the conclusion
that the admins are unable to handle the spam and hence closed the
list. Not true.

The UW list has always been open to posts from subscribers so the
accusation that the list is not open is false. Opening up the list
should not be twisted to mean "give spammers a free-for-all mailing
list to spam". Not allowing non-subscribers to post has been in
existence from the time I started this list in Jan2006. People can sub
and set their individual options to NOMAIL. We have had this
discussion some years ago too (happy to dig out the archives if you
wish) so I'll repeat, yet again, that allowing non-subscribers (which
essentially means the whole internet) to post is not helping us. Even
if I add moderators to help out, non-subscribers will not be given a
free-for-all.    If LP members (who will always be a small proportion
as compared to spammers) cannot subscribe and take out less than 2
minutes to set their individual options to NOMAIL in mailman, which is
a ONE time setting, then they are hardly interested in the group and
its functions, so why should admins/mods who are afterall volunteers
be forced to spend their time everyday dealing with spammers? That is
unnecessarily increasing a volunteers workload when a technical
solution already exists in Mailman. Additionally, if anyone wants to
be added to the filter (like I added cprofitt when jamfish alerted me
to the problem), I can do that but I will prefer to not do that
without obtaining their permission first. Some years ago, all LP
members were set to receive all the discussions and it ended up
annoying a lot of people so that feature was changed IIRC and you
could opt out or in, as the case maybe. Evenso, I am willing to
consider adding Pendulum (if she still wants to) as a moderator),
despite the fact that we dont need any moderators and non-subscribers
will still not be allowed to post. Hope that clarifies.

Finally, instead of alluding that the current admins are not doing a
good job pleia2, it would have been nicer if you had just asked (even
though you already knew that non-members are not allowed to post on
most Ubuntu lists. Your accusations (current team can't handle the
spam queue) is not polite and plain wrong and because you have done
this in the past, I find it extremely tiresome to have to defend my
team (and myself) again and again every couple of years. People expect
appreciation for their volunteer work but I dont expect that even, at
the very least I dont expect insinuations based on fallacies.  Granted
we (atleast I'm not) are not a noisy bunch but alluding that we are
not doing a good job because we dont allow non-subscribers and
spammers a free-for-all is misleading at minimum, and a logical
fallacy at worst. And personally, I find this depressing and sad
considering the amount of volunteer work I have done, and continue to
do, in various Foss communities, including Ubuntu.

Thanks ॥ svaksha ॥ http://svaksha.com