Re: [OFFTOPIC] spam scoring (was: *****SPAM***** Extracting a KeySym from an action routine)

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, David Dawes wrote:

> I'm not particularly interested in using these lists to apply social
> pressure.  I'm only interested in a mechanism that provides an acceptably
> low level of spam without imposing subscriber-only posting restrictions.

Then why not simply use an email confirmation like is used for verifying
subscription and then cache the address for n days (where n is 30 or so)  
if the response comes back positive?  Or, even better, only require email
confirmation for those messages which get scored as positive for spam.

Spam only works because its one-to-many.  Forcing a confirmation requires
many-to-one and will collapse a spam server (or be ignored, either way you
win).  In addition, adding a two-way element avoids all the ethical issues
of blacklists.  If someone really wants to post to the list that badly and
they score positive, they'll send the email verification.

-a