[AV Media Matters] Usual Summer Update... Spam and more

[James Lindner <jim@media-matters.net>]

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere - welcome to summer. At this 
time many of you are taking a well deserved vacation - but I must 
request that you please do NOT put your autoreply on your email account 
- there are now about 850 members in this list and if you all did that - 
well let's just say I wouldn't get much work done! If you MUST use the 
autoreply due to a work policy, then please go to your account at 
www.topica.com and put your email delivery for the media matters list on 
hold, and then turn it back on when you return.

For those of you who are relatively new to the list, you will notice 
that the postings are irregular. That is because it is a moderated list. 
The good news is that no spam gets through and you get 100 percent good 
stuff. The bad news is that I can't always read and release the emails 
on a daily basis, and sometimes it is quite a while before they are 
posted.

I did want to let everyone know that recently we have become more of a 
"target" for spammers, with people trying to enroll on the list in order 
to get subscriber names or send spam directly over the list. I have now 
instituted a "policy" of asking new potential subscribers with 
suspicious account names in an email what their interest in the list is. 
If I get a reasonable reply they are subscribed. If I get no reply or a 
really lame one they are not subscribed. What is a suspicious account 
name? Well ones like "makemoremoney3299@hotmail.com" are ones that get 
my attention. So I am trying to be a good gatekeeper on this, but the 
reality is that some may get through. I have a 0 tolerance rule - if 
they try to post spam and I get the posting to review, I obviously don't 
post and throw them off the list. Also, I am the only person who can 
view the entire subscriber list, BUT they still could email you directly 
if you have sent a post, or worse add your list to a spam list by going 
through the postings archive. The only way to stop that would be to 
remove the archive from being able to be seen by everyone, and I think 
that it is far more useful to make it available to the subscribers. 
Still, the possibility does exist.

I am also currently allowing attachments that are less then 100K in 
length as well as HTML postings. I can turn this off if people would 
prefer, but 100K seems to be a reasonable size even for us with dial up 
access only. I personally am very careful about attachments and virus 
but please be careful and make sure you take proper precautions - it is 
possible for one to slip through - if in doubt never ever open an 
attachment.

So have a nice summer, thanks for participating on the list, 

James Lindner


Moderator: AV Media Matters Listserve
To subscribe to AV Media Matters Listserve send an email to:
AV-Media-Matters-subscribe@topica.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: waiscool+av-media-matters@cool.conservation-us.org

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP8EW.bWciq7
Or send an email to: AV-Media-Matters-unsubscribe@topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================