Re: Poll: Should mhonarc.org mail archives hide mail addresses

[Kim Flint <kflint@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:42 PM 1/2/2004, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> Earl Hood wrote:
> > And the factors of maintaining an open forum.  I have received a
> > private response in favor of not hiding address since the user has
> > had useful benefits on their archives in not doing so.
>
> Wonder why he or she chose to not respond to the list. Maybe for fear
> that doing so would result in their address being exposed to spam...
>
> In my opinion, the spam problem makes keeping the addresses open to
> harvesters inconsiderate to the posters. What value does it have to
> keep the forum open in the current sense, if it results in a
> decreasing group of subscribers that post?

No, I have no fear of that. (I'll assume Earl is referring to me.) I 
receive well over 1000 spams a day due to my other online activities and my 
own archives and web sites. I learned to deal with that a long time ago. As 
to the other post, like most people my phone number and home address has 
been in the phone book as long as I've had a phone. It's been on the 
internet since my first website in 1996. I consider it a good thing that 
people can contact me when they need to, and my life experiences show this 
to be true.

I didn't reply to the list because I didn't have anything to contribute to 
the technical discussion going on. However, I do have something to 
contribute to the philosophical discussion. I agree with Earl's points 
about making information available to the world. It is a bold thing to do, 
and many of us have put a large amount of energy and time and sweat into 
making it possible to do this over the internet. I applaud him for making 
the mhonarc archives available, including addresses. The world is better 
because of it. (The world is better because of MHonArc also!)

Millions of people have gotten information from my list archives. That 
includes email addresses of the original posters, who are often contacted 
by others for follow up questions, jobs, offers of collaboration, 
friendship, etc. In the case of my list archives, the result is a huge 
amount of great music being created in the world that wouldn't have been 
there otherwise. In Earl's case it is a great piece of software that many 
of us rely on to put information out into the world. I hope that more 
people find mhonarc and use it.

People on my lists know their words and addresses are going to be public 
when they post. There is no secret. They still post, day in and day out, 
because they too care about sharing knowledge and information. The number 
of subscribers has not gone down. In fact, it is pretty rare that I ever 
hear a complaint.

A small number of spammers have been abusing loopholes in the laws and the 
underlying technology to screw up this wonderful thing we've created. There 
is no way I will give up the value and benefit of free information because 
of these people. That would mean the spammers won, and I will never accept 
that. Closing down or limiting our sites is the same sort of illogic as 
giving up the constitutional freedoms my ancestors in my country really did 
die for because of a small number of terrorists. I would rather deal with 
the source of the problem than hide from it or throw away everything we've 
built.

You guys are obviously engineering types, as am I, and we naturally see 
everything as a technical problem. Not everything is. You will never stop 
spam by trying to implement some cheap technical gimmicks that address the 
symptoms. Either do the hard work to fix the underlying loopholes or don't 
bother. You also need to act in the political, social, and legal arena if 
you really care about this. If you just want to crawl into a hole and hide 
from spam you can do that too, but that would be a sad loss.

The political will is there. I've talked with my senators and 
representatives in my state and country, and they all support enacting laws 
and creating enforcement bodies. You can do that too. The problem is just 
as bad for them, since they get more spam than anyone and it limits their 
ability to interact with their constituents. As a result we finally passed 
an anti-spam law here in the US. It isn't very good, but it addresses some 
issues and it is a start. The popular will to do something is small but 
growing, and I'm certain that will mean better laws in the future. The 
public will in the US to limit telemarketing grew large enough that we 
really did get some good laws, and I haven't received an unwanted call 
since. We can do the same for spam if it becomes a big enough movement. You 
just need to speak up and deal with the real issues. Whining at your local 
list admin and hiding behind your monitor is not going to fix the problem!

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                       | Looper's Delight
kflint@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx           | http://www.loopers-delight.com
http://www.annihilist.com/      |