OK, with Jeff's blessing, and in reply to several private messages from
listers, here is the definitive from the two guys who have control over this
list... we discussed it over beers in San Francisco (the best place to discuss
technical issues is after a couple of beers :)

This reply was sent to one of the listers who wrote - but with Jeff's blessing,
a large (and slightly edited) portion of it is being broadcast here:

<<start text>>

Here's the scoop on spam, and I think Jeff feels the same way given that we
both discussed it outside the 4th street bar one night this past week.

HP3000-L and comp.sys.hp.mpe receives so little spam, that fighting it would be
a waste of our time and bandwidth.  In addition, people need to realise that
this is not a moderated list.  Jeff and/or I do not have the time or bandwidth
to moderate this list, given that the average number of posts could number from
80 to 120 per day.

If people have a problem with spam, the best course of action is to use a key
on their keyboard labeled DEL.  It means delete, and it will do just that -
delete the message.  Responding to a spam under the same subject line just
makes it worse.  Please do not reply to Spam as it wastes internet bandwidth,
and most listers just delete it anyway.

If we applied NetMail Spam filters (or Sendmail or any other mail filters) to
the newsgroup, roughly 25-35% of all postings would never make it to Usenet for
several reasons:

1.  On incoming mail that goes through NetMail, we use reverse DNS lookup on
the SMTP and sending host.  If we cannot resolve the SMTP host, or the domain
is fake, we will reject the message.   This means that if someone uses
"[log in to unmask]" in their Reply-To or From headers, that message
gets rejected.

2.  If their server is on our list of banned servers (we are NOT using ORCA or
ORBS, but we ARE using MAPS), the message is rejected - we don't even take the
connection, it is refused outright.

In all, we use a separate, unpublished (via DNS) SMTP server for traffic
passing from HP3000-L to Usenet and now to/from Client Systems for 3kWorld.com.
This is a server that will accept mail only from these servers and IP
addresses - everything else sent to this address is rejected outright.  The
difference is that this server is NOT NetMail, but Exchange - and thus, does
not go through the rigorous filtering NetMail provides our corporate mail.  In
essence, I subscribe to 3000-L and I do not see many posts that are made, but I
do catch them in Usenet.

So basically, the issue is that we do not get that much, it's extremely
tolerable, it's gonna happen unless we moderate the list, and speaking for Jeff
and I (as we discussed this) - we do not have the time or inclination to turn
3000-L into a moderated list, where we would have to approve each and every
message.  It's just not happening.

<< End Text >>

Regards,
Joe