RE: [PHP] Spam control (was Re: [PHP-DB] wealthy)

At 19:51 07/01/01 -0800, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:

I'm on a few more mailing lists than that, although with only a slightly higher total volume. Other than the PHP lists, NONE of the others have any spam at all, let alone people complaining about it. Why? Because those lists are closed to subscribers only. I seriously doubt that anyone who has web or NNTP access wouldn't have EMail access, and thus would be prevented from participating in any discussions. If someone really is interested in participating, it's not really that hard to subscribe... But the reason they use these alternative means of reading the list is that the volume on the lists are too high for their mailboxes. Forcing them to subscribe to participate makes these alternative mechanisms rather redundant.

True, although it's possible to implement subscription-like protection for other mechanisms - e.g. requiring website users to have a login/password (although I doubt too many spammers would bother with the website), and a "self approval" requirement for Usenet postings. It seems, from the increase in spam over the past few days, that the PHP mailing lists have found their way on to some spammers' email lists, and so my guess is that the problem will just get worse :( Angus.