[Tracker-discuss] [issue105] Dealing with spam

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> Martin, I did not mean that it had to be akismet, just that a service
> 'like' akismet should be used. I only mentioned it because it's the
> one I have experience with (and code for). 

Unfortunately, this is precisely the situation we always run into when
somebody brings up a commercial service. It's the one they had
experience with, so they recommend it. An often-mentioned advantage
of using a commercial service over a self-managed one is that the
commercial service requires less volunteer resources.

In my (little) experience, this is not true. To actually get in
contact with the commercial service, and to acquire their services,
a lot of volunteer time is needed. So if somebody suggests to use
a certain service, if they don't simultaneously offer to work with
that specific company on getting things set up, such an offer has
zero chance of getting considered.

In the case of the Roundup tracker itself, it was actually that
the company (Roche) came to us and offered to do everything
for free. So they are actually volunteers here, although they use
company resources - this is exceptional. In all other cases, you
need a volunteer to interface to the company.

So if you volunteer to make integrate some such service into
roundup, that might be useful. Without a clear commitment,
it's likely that we will have to use what is available at
the time the service goes life (I'd like to see this issue
as blocking production-mode, though - *something* has to be
done).

Regards,
Martin