<<> Unless I change this list to "moderated" and personally approve
each message that goes out, we can be "spammed" by all sorts of trash.  I do
        > not have the time to moderate the list, and even if I (or some
volunteer) did, then you get into censorship issues -- are we deleting some
people's posts?  editing them?  Big headache.

        Can the listserv do "automated moderating," e.g. have it verify the
address on every post as originating from a list member or some such check?
Would this be hard to add into the listserv script? It almost certainly
would take less time to write something like this than to moderate the list!


Actually, LISTSERV has that capability built in:

                "7.12.4.        Self-moderated lists

                So-called "self-moderated" lists were invented in 1993 or
1994 when the current epidemic of spamming was beginning to get cranked up
and before the "spam filter" was developed by L-Soft. With the spam filter
in operation, self-moderation is not as much of an issue anymore, but some
lists still run this way.

                Self-moderation takes advantage of the ability to make an
access-level a secondary list editor, and is implemented as follows:

                * Send= Editor,Confirm
                * Editor= [log in to unmask],(listname)

                (The "Hold" and "Confirm" parameters for "Send=" may
naturally be used if required. L-Soft recommends that "Confirm" be used by
default.)

                Usually, one of the list owners is the primary editor (here
"[log in to unmask]") and the specification of (listname) makes all of
the subscribers of the listname list editors, and thus eligible to send
messages directly to the list without editor intervention. Postings from
non-subscribers (e.g., spammers) are deflected to the primary owner for his
or her disposition.

                There is one caveat to this kind of list. If a user
subscribes to the list, and later his mail address changes (for instance,
the hostname changes slightly but mail sent to the old address is
automatically forwarded to the new address), any postings from him to the
list from the new address will be forwarded to the editor because the new
address is not subscribed to the list. Thus there is a certain amount of
list-owner overhead on this kind of list in keeping track of users whose
addresses have changed and modifying the subscriber list to reflect those
changes."

The down sides are
1)      All non-approved stuff, like spam, goes to the designated editor
2)      #1) would include comp.os.hp.mpe stuff

#2) can be "solved" by turning off the newsgroup gateway entirely. This is
not a problem for me-I have advocated it for months-but others like to
receive their newsgroup feed through the list, indirect and unreliable as it
is. But the net result would almost definitely be an increase in Jeff's
workload, which is probably not an option.


Steve