List mechanics

[David Gerard]

On 23/01/2008, Wiebe van der Worp <wiebe at vrijschrift.org> wrote:

> With a list with a lot of members you don't want to approve membership
> manually. Besides, based on his name only it is hard to distrust spammer
> williamromsay at gmail.com (btw he is still on this list...). On the
> other hand manual membership approval may be the only solution for now
> because a look at the membership list shows several accounts I wouldn't
> trust. Tough decision to make.


On wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org all new members are set to moderated
until their first message is approved. This is a massive pain in the
backside and no-one ever clears the list quickly enough for the
aggrieved new subscribers. I advise against it on nuisance grounds
unless and until problematic posters (spammers and trolls - it was
address-changing trolls we had to do it to fight) make it the only
feasible option.


- d.