Re: Mail sent to midcom (fwd)

[Thomas Narten <narten at raleigh.ibm.com>]

Lloyd,

Just to be clear:

> > If you object to how the midcom elist is operating you need to take that
> > up with the midcom-admin and the relevant AD.

> done. on cc. On open IETF lists, I have the right to post what you
> deem to be rubbish, and you have the right to choose to ignore me (and
> the satisfaction of doing so). midcom's policy limits those rights a
> priori without consensus or even persistent complaints from list
> members.

Are you asserting that you (and anyone else for that matter) have the
right to spam an IETF mailing list and that filtering/moderating such
messages is inappropriate? I would be surprised if there is widespread
support for such a view.

What complicates the overall issue is that in all the cases I'm aware
of where "moderating" goes on, it is to reduce spam. I suspect few
people would argue that spam filtering is an unacceptable "censorship"
in practice.  However, because spam filters can make mistakes, it is
highly desirable (as a sanity check/second opinion) for a human to
double check automatic rejections.  Unfortunately, having a human look
at a message and decide whether to forward it on will always be viewed
as moderation/censorship by some regardless of the reasons for doing
so.

Consider the two extremes: automatic spam filters in which no human
has chance to overrule an automatic rejection, and completely open
mailing lists with no anti-spam filters. Neither of these seems to be
desired in the majority of cases, and any in-betweens would appear to
require some level of human "moderation".

Thomas