Re: [gentoo-project] Make gentoo-project a whitelisted mailing-list

[Gregory Woodbury <redwolfe@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 7:10 AM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
> I'd like to propose that the gentoo-project mailing list also becomes
> white-list only to post, as there are a lot of "off-topic" posts being
> submitted. I believe that the Council would have no problem with this,
> as their objectives clearly include snubbing out any form of
> non-technical discussion.

And it begins...
In this case there is an insane and inane call to moderate, in the
name of making a point that doesn't exist.

Ulm makes a good response so I don't need to elaborate.

However, it is indicative of the sort of resentment that applying
broad brush(-off) strokes with a technical solution to the essential
social problems of keeping flame wars out of a technical discussion
group. So what that a blacklist can be fooled by a change of
identifier, the real means of controlling a difficult user is to weild
a ban hammer lightly, and making sure that other users simply ignore
the trolls. The ban hammer may need to be used repeatedly agains some
users, but after they cannot get the irritated reactions they crave.
(Perhaps by just hiding their attempts and any out-of-band responses,
leaving messages only in the archive, but not distrubed to the list --
oh yeah, that's not a possibilty unless the first post from a new
address gets looked at before sending it out. Hmmm, sounds like a form
of robo-moderation that could be set up so that any user who cares can
act as a reviewer for the robot.)

Yes, this is also a technical solution, but one that supports
implicitly open communications, rather than erecting a specific
qualification to be allowed entry to discussions (i.e. the requirement
to get someone already on the list to sponsor the new person.)

I am in the process of trying to get a hold of the old s.r.u-u robot
and polishing it. I just don't know where to talk about it.

-- 
G.Wolfe Woodbury
redwolfe@gmail.com