[WikiEN-l] Administrative Request: (was: ????????8?????7.5?)

[Pierre Abbat]

On Thursday 05 December 2002 08:55, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Did anybody else receive an HTML advertising page with lots of Chinese
> writing, images and a Macromedia Flash thing?

I got a subject in Chinese and two lines of HTML code. If your mail client 
displays lots of Chinese writing, images, and a Macromedia Flash thing, it is 
misconfigured. These were not in the message and should not be displayed in 
the message. Email is not the Web. A mail client that accesses the Net to 
display things in the message is broken and a security hole.

> I don't think it came from a signed-up contributor -- or even an anonymous
> Wikipedian. Rather, it seems an abuse of the e-mail list.
>
> My question is what you all would like me do about things like this. As
> your list administrator, I am happy to serve. But as AxelBoldt reminded me
> last month, I am not a "Moderator" and thus do not set policy.
>
> Alternatives:
> * Do nothing (it may have been a fluke)
> * Ban myisking01 at sina.com (the address that sent the advertisement)
> * Other (please specify)

There is no sense banning that address. The probability that another spam 
will come from that address in a year, even if a spam comes each day, is 
minuscule. I suggest banning HTML mail and messages from nonsubscribers.

The IP address is not listed in any of the spam blocklists I have used, 
except Spamcop, which I advise against using, since it is fairly easy to 
maliciously list someone else's address.

phma