[Mailman-Users] Need ability to allow emails with specificsubject line

[Jason Pruim]

On Feb 19, 2008, at 2:49 PM, Cyndi Norwitz wrote:

> When I have had forms on my web pages, I was shocked by just how  
> many of
> the submissions were spam.  I could never figure out if a human took  
> the
> time to fill out all those little text boxes or if there was a  
> generator
> somewhere.  Sometimes the boxes were filled randomly and sometimes  
> they
> were done coherently.  More than half the submissions were total spam.
>
> I strongly recommend that you do not set things up to post from a  
> website
> automatically.  I see that you are talking about forms distributed in
> email, but the chances for spam are still there.
>
> It takes some time to screen them all but it is worth it IMHO  
> because even
> one spam really pisses people off and makes a huge mess.
>
> Cyndi


Hi Cyndi,

Yes spam is a big issue, and to an extent, you will never get rid of  
spam... I say this as someone who runs a company email server and is  
in charge of keeping the spam down :)

There are ways though to make sure that no bots can submit to your  
forms... And the way I setup my mailman lists, is that no one but  
authorized people can post to the list, which does block e-mail  
harvesting techniques.

There are also CAPTCHA's that you can put on your web form's to avoid  
spam, but that has it's own set of drawbacks... Plenty of info on the  
web about it.

If you have someone paying people to submit forms on websites, there  
is no way to avoid that... Other then not having a form at all.

And there are people who do that... I have seen lots of adds  
requesting people to do just that...

So basically I agree with you, with a few stipulations.

:)

--

Jason Pruim
Raoset Inc.
Technology Manager
MQC Specialist
3251 132nd ave
Holland, MI, 49424
www.raoset.com
japruim at raoset.com