>   Is it just me, or does it seem that a lot of the list owners are very
> paranoid about who subscribes to their lists?  I have followed this
> thread for a few days now, and have not seen one single 'act' that justifies
> the deletions and the filtering that I am seeing.
 
There have been several clues that have prompted a quite reasonable
anticipation of imminent trouble.  First, the fact that these
addresses have subscribed to an *unusually* wide variety of lists.  There
is little reason for a user to subscribe to such a wide variety.  (And
note that most participants of LSTOWN-L will not want to clutter this
list by posting a long series of "me too"s, so the few confirmations
posted here in fact indicate many more.)  But there is good reason for a
would-be spammer or other kind of disrupter to subscribe so broadly, to
set up an ability to post directly within many private lists.  A second
indicator is that most of these addresses are false, i.e. "user unknown".
 
Having several years worth of experience as a list-owner will alert
oneself to this pattern rather quickly, as many of us have here.
 
>   Even if I had a subscription,
> I'd e-mail the person before nuking them... something about curtosey?
 
The few addresses, if any, that are genuine should be contacted for an
explanation, and I hope a report about any such responses will be posted
here.  The majority of addresses which do not exist, as you have read about
here, obviously cannot be contacted.
 
-- Roger Burns    [log in to unmask]