Re: Can one-way lists be created?

On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 01:21:41AM -0500, Charlie Summers wrote:
> At 12:26 AM -0500 2/14/03, Donald MacDougall is rumored to have typed:
> 
> > Then you want to rm the symlink named accept which links to the
> > dist file and instead creat an accept file which contains the email
> > addresses of all the people who should be able to submit to the
> > list.
> 
>    ANd, since From: header fields are easily forgable, you should _still_
> make your list moderated and require those "trusted" users to "approve" their
> messages as well. (See archives for pointers to various patches for multiple
> maintainers, different methodology for approving messages, and other security
> considerations.)
> 
>          Charlie

Well, ok.  I suppose.  But if I were setting up a few lists for a
few instructors to communicate with a few students I wouldn't.  The
potential for abuse is just to low.  I have lists for each of our
four classes of medical students and don't restrict them in any
way.  They are entirely open to posting by anyone anywhere, and in
five years or so have only had two small incidents of companies
getting hold of the list names and sending advertising to them,
probably given to the companies by students who thought they were
good things for their fellow students to know about.  I've blocked
those companies and the lists remain open.

We allow the students to post, not just the instructors and
administrators, although there was considerable pressure in the
beginning to restrict it.  Faculty felt that their "important" email
would get lost in all the (in their opinion) inconsequential
student posting.  My argument for allowing students to post is that
email lists are just too convenient a method of communication to be
suppressed and so if we try to restrict ours, the students would
soon be gathering up email addresses and producing their own lists. 
If we allow them to use ours it allows us to keep an eye on what is
getting exchanged on the list, and we have an idea how many,
supposedly inconsequential, student postings ours are getting
buried in.  If we force them to creat their own, we will never
know.  Students tend to police their own lists pretty well anyway. 
They don't like spam anymore than anyone and if someone gets out of
line they get pounced on pretty quickly.

Now I suppose the time may come when it will be necessary to
restrict posting in some way or other, but I plan to cross that
bridge when I come to it.  If I were a faculty member in a
department of statistics and I were setting up lists for faculty to
communicate with their students, I wouldn't add any more
impediments to their use of the lists than absolutely necessary. 
Time to think about that when and if it becomes necessary and after
and after faculty become comfortable using the lists without the
necessity of learning how to approve their own postings.  Just one
man's opinion.

Don MacDougall
USC School of Medicine