I realize that there is a special list for discussing spam, but I think
my questions are nevertheless appropriate for Lstown-L.  If not, I
apologize.  I also realize that these subjects have been discussed in
the past.  I apologize for the repetition but am seeking current thoughts.
(With all these apologies, surely people will now take pity and help me
figure out the best course of action. :-)
 
I run two listserv lists, one of which is full of people who don't really
mind excessive mail and are quick with the delete key, the other of which
is a much more serious professional list with subscribers who are highly
displeased when spam shows up in their mail.  Unfortunately, listserv's
spam-filter works alphabetically, catching almost all of the spam aimed
at the list that is more tolerant of junk mail (Words-L) and catching
almost none of the spam aimed at the professional list less tolerant of
excess mail (ADS-L).  After a new burst of spam over the weekend (none
of which made it to Words-L, all of which was posted on ADS-L), the
subscribers on ADS-L have asked me to try to do something about the
problem.
 
Short of changing the name of the list to something that doesn't start
with an A, a solution that none of us like (ADS=American Dialect Society),
I can see two possible actions:
 
(1) Change the list to 'send=private'.  I did that yesterday, but people
aren't happy with the change.  Here's a sample of mail I've gotten about
it:
 
>   My problem is with my university.  When I subscribed to
> ADS-L (my favorite list), my email address was as above except that "zoo"
> was then "moose."  I can still receive mail addressed to "moose"--or to
> "zoo," "elk," or "gnu."  The problem is that I never know which of these
> creatures is actually going to send out a particular message, and I can't
> control that.  If ADS-L is private, then many (most?) of my postings will
> bounce, and I don't know what to do about the situation.  Do you have any
> suggestions?
 
I realize that a solution for somebody with totally different addresses
is to subscribe from all of them and set all but one to 'nomail'.  Will
that work when all of these addresses are really the "same" address in a
way?  (I don't understand why her university does this kind of thing.  It
seems more sensible to me to have a system like ours.  I'm just as likely
to be sending mail from isis.msstate.edu as from ra.msstate.edu, but it
gets magically turned into mail from ra.msstate.edu even if I'm on isis.
Can you tell yet that I'm a non-techy?)
 
(2) Set 'sizelim=200'.  That would catch the longer spam.  But it would
also catch longer legitimate postings, of course, like an occasional
paper-in-progress or bibliography.  And it wouldn't catch short spam.
I'm leaning at this point toward changing 'send=private' back to 'send=
public' and setting the 'sizelim' instead.
 
Any advice you can give me will be appreciated.  Another thought:  How
about changing the spam-filter's order of detective work, Eric, to start
at the end of the alphabet instead of the beginning?
   --Natalie ([log in to unmask])