Dear R-help mailing list readers,
After some discussion among R foundation members (and friends),
we have agreed that ``the spammer mafia (*)'' has momentarily won a
battle:
After more than ten years of open and free mailing lists devoted
to R (development, use, etc),
the increasing volume of spam {quadrupling within one year, I'm
told by an expert} and the slickness of the spam programmers
have lead to regular leaking of spam messages into R-help (and
other mailing lists). Even though our filters catch > 99.9%
(probably even > 99.99%) of all the spam, our mail server has
now occasionally been blacklisted because of the R-help spams.
The consequence of this will be that .. before the weekend ..
only __e-mail addresses__ subscribed to R-help will be allowed to post to
R-help without any moderation, and we are even considering outright
rejection all non-subscribers, these latter decision coming
later.
Consequence:
Please subscribe to R-help __ at least in digest mode __
now, and ``spread the word''
so that you will be able to continue asking questions
and getting advice here.
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich
... a sad list administrator
looking back to the good old times ...
-----
(*) I've been told that "Mafia" is quite correct here:
Spammer-programmers who want to leave the business are
life-threatened; CIOs of big anti-spam organizations are
getting threats...
Martin Maechler wrote:> Dear R-help mailing list readers, > > After some discussion among R foundation members (and friends), > we have agreed that ``the spammer mafia (*)'' has momentarily won a > battle: > > After more than ten years of open and free mailing lists devoted > to R (development, use, etc), > the increasing volume of spam {quadrupling within one year, I'm > told by an expert} and the slickness of the spam programmers > have lead to regular leaking of spam messages into R-help (and > other mailing lists). Even though our filters catch > 99.9% > (probably even > 99.99%) of all the spam, our mail server has > now occasionally been blacklisted because of the R-help spams. > > The consequence of this will be that .. before the weekend .. > only __e-mail addresses__ subscribed to R-help will be allowed to post to > R-help without any moderation, and we are even considering outright > rejection all non-subscribers, these latter decision coming > later. > > Consequence: > Please subscribe to R-help __ at least in digest mode __ > now, and ``spread the word'' > so that you will be able to continue asking questions > and getting advice here. > > Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich > > ... a sad list administrator > looking back to the good old times ... > > ----- > (*) I've been told that "Mafia" is quite correct here: > Spammer-programmers who want to leave the business are > life-threatened; CIOs of big anti-spam organizations are > getting threats...Martin, I salute your efforts over the years to keep this list clean from the annoyances of spam and related issues. You have facilitated an amazing resource on behalf of this wonderful community. It is unfortunate that this step has become necessary, but know that your efforts are most appreciated and that these decisions are supported. Regards, Marc Schwartz
Martin Maechler <maechler <at> stat.math.ethz.ch> writes:> > The consequence of this will be that .. before the weekend .. > only __e-mail addresses__ subscribed to R-help will be allowed to post to > R-help without any moderation, and we are even considering outright > rejection all non-subscribers, these latter decision coming > later.Does that mean that posting through the gmain/nabble pathway will no longer be possible? Dieter