On Sun, 16 Apr 1995, Aldo-Pier Solari wrote: > ] From: Trish Forrest <[log in to unmask]> > > ]might be effective. I don't think anything as formal as you are > ]suggesting is realistic in a world where one country holds one act > ]as illegal and another views that same act as a right. > > I would be optimistic (i.e. "the glass is 50% full, not empty"): > Western countries have their constitutions and law based on Roman > Law. For instance, you may bear arms in the US and not in Sweden. > However, you may not go to college in the US with a pump-gun hanging > from your shoulder. I appreciate and admire your optimism and although one cannot bear arms here in Canada either, that does not help this situation. I don't think it is realistic because of what I have seen in the current case which involves pornography according to Canadian law, but not according to the laws of other nations. This 'material' aspect would have to be solved. No, I have to agree with another poster who said in not so many words, it is not a question of formal law. These things nations will never agree upon, and there is much more agreement on this list than one could ever hope for on an International Law level that is in a formal court. I have seen posted here a general agreement for handling individuals who cause problems on lists. For example, there is agreement that a listowner should send a private mail first, asking the person to stop a particular behavior. If that doesn't work, the listowner should send a mail to the list asking those involved to take the "flame" off list (this is so that list members can see that the listowner is taking the matter seriously). The final solution, if the first two don't work, is to delete/filter the person. I'm wondering if there is an agreement on how to handle a request to filter off a network (Yes, Douglas, I mean a commercial network such as AOL or Compuserve to be defined as network by my usage). > There are several agreements & conventions (UN, UNESCO, some of them > regarded as International Law as, for instance "The Law of the Sea", > etc.) which have been ratified by most countries. Even in > networking and e-conferences where law may hang behind, there are > convergency processes concerning rights, use & access. I am sure it > would not be _that_ hard to push-together some Senior listowners & > sysops (say, the LISTSERV and MAJORDOMO ones with international > lists to start with) to set up a code covering ethics, law and > common conflicts related to these activities (and a Senior board to > go to when conflicts arise). I have no doubt that this may come to pass, Aldo-Pier, but not in my life time since most of the powers that be who would make or discuss such aggreements, don't even know what e-mail is. :-) > ] [...] do they not also have the right to restrict it to > non-commercial networks? > > As far as I understand, there is a "right" to restrict anything you > would like. However, I ask: Is it ethical to deny access to the > information to individuals who have access to a conference through Let me answer this more explicitly, since I did not in previous mail. Unethical? Indeed, in any situation it could be considered unethical to restrict 'the many' for the actions of one person. That is why I'm posting to this group. Am I correct? Are you? I don't know...how could we know if a great good could be served by serving off a number of domains for behavior which is not 'punished' to use your term. If more listowners and postmasters server off commercial networks at the first spam, ignoring their ethics, perhaps a new Code of Conduct would exist on these networks in the future. Perhaps these very networks would be applying to listowners to 'let in' their academics who would like to 'keep in touch'? > commercial networks ?. I am afraid it is not. As a matter of fact, I won't argue semantics with you and in time the distinction may become blurry, but in the strict sense, AOL, Compuserve, etc., are commercial networks even if they be used by academics who do not have a provision in their contract to retain their userid after retirement. I freely admit that my history is in BITNET and our current service provider for this Province is very BITNET-like in its policy. I also recognize that times are changing and not all commercial networks carry commercial traffic and grant/sell accounts to companies. > I understand some of you see XX.COM as the problem-children. I > would say the problem is not the pistol (service provider) but the > one who spamms (the individual users: commonly small biz, > environmental groups or some other kind of "crusaders"). This is the same kind of analogy that the US uses against our gun control laws. It isn't the gun (the service provider) but the individual who uses it. It doesn't wash. I know there are aruguments for and against this issue, but suffice it to say that since individuals are not responsible, the country assumes that responsibility for them no matter how innappropriate that may be. That is not the issue. > FISH-ECOLOGY, for instance, is a conference which got a single spam > message when it started (which started a flame war) but never again: > The flags Private, Subs_By_Owner and -most important- the > cooperation from the subscribers to ignore such provocations close > the gates for spamms. Furthermore, a good measure in FISH-ECO was > to make clear that whatever is sent to the conference it is the > resposibility of the original author (included forwarded material). Yes, I understand this and it is one solution. The solution is to make the listowner responsible, to make the listowner invest the time to prevent spams. I would prefer to make the service provider responsible for the users of their service. Perhaps we can agree to disagree on this issue. > ]I think education would be very difficult for them. They are not in > ]the business of 'educating users' but collecting and making $$. > > I believe that coordinated efforts from academic listowners may > bring about positive changes. I am sure that "positive engagement" > will be good to all parties -since .COM access will increase > exponentially during coming years and whether we like it or not, > academic conferences will be affected by this. Yes....if you can coordinate with .COM networks and get them to include a Code of Ethics which addresses spams. If you can't, what other alternative is there? I can get my own .COM addr and be both postmaster and user and spam your list to death. This is also the future that we have seen a glimpse of on this list. > ]I really don't have the answers, which is why I posted here. > > Nor do I and I would like to know what Senior managers like Thomas, > Klassen and others think about this. I am sure their expertise will > give further insight into these issues. Well, we have seen Eric's post, and there is usually wisdom in his words, so I read it over and over even though I thought it not at all related to this issue. Then it hit me. He asked for 'patience'. This struck me as interesting because at our site, listowners are new to the business of listownership...but not to e-mail. While what he says is true, there is another element I hadn't noticed before. For example, the request to server off a network....the members of the list sending mail blaming the listowner for the spam...many signing off until security could be better, etc. All of this reflects a lack of patience with a post to "Get Rich Quick". Yes, there is the delete key, the old-timers would have you hit it and forget it, but these list members take it personally. They are not impatient Canadians, but from countries all over the world and they want action. I think the lists are becoming more like your personal phone at home where you get impatient with calls like "We have a special on carpet cleaning for $$"....or junk mail, where you send back the return envelope empty, but the Co has to pay the postage because it was used. Perhaps this is a trend, and with increased spams I've seen discussed here...subscribers are demanding action and the listowner reacts in kind...assumes the responsibility, and requests a network to be banned. This may be the future until they get heavily into the list-running business as Eric suggests. The answer perhaps lies in a balance of Eric continuing to modify his code to detect spams and us putting pressure on commercial networks to include spams and inappropriate posts to academic lists in some form of a Code. For those of you who may be interested, I sent a note to the list and listowner, stating the reason for not banning the network and quoting Aldo-Pier that perhaps a network ban might prevent the many academics from subscribing to the list and contributing. One list member posted an apology from the spammer (I filtered him but forgot to delete him from the list...ooops!) and I think everyone is happy. So, the list goes on much like this one; you get your frustrations out by the many postings of "I got hit too!"...and nothing changes in the end. :-) Now if everyone shared Dave's convictions, we wouldn't have a spammer left to give us something to talk about. If it were up to me alone, and postmasters are never alone, I'd serve off AOL at the first spam until they could control their users. Yes, the spammer was from AOL, and still no rely from the postmaster except his/her vacation msg....and the user still has his account. Although I noticed other userids from AOL attempting to subscribe, and I filtered those hoping to get some reaction...nothing. Thank you all for your interesting comments. --Trish