J. David Bryan wrote:
I am a newcomer to this list, but I have had extensive experience with other lists (e.g., GNAT, Cygwin). I will not post messages to lists that have been gatewayed to Usenet, simply because each time that my real e-mail address appears on Usenet, I receive a flood of spam that takes nearly a year to taper off. I willingly contribute to closed lists and enjoy the high signal-to-noise ratio that such lists often have. [...]
Okay, what about the following: Let us create one separate list that will be gated to Usenet and keep one closed.
For example:
gpc-announce@gnu.de - moderated list for announcements gpc@gnu.de - unmoderated list for discussions (as now) gpc-news@gnu.de - unmoderated list, gated to usenet
Everything posted to news:comp.lang.pascal.gnu is gated to gpc-news@gnu.de and to gpc@gnu.de. Spam can be sorted out manually on the way from gpc-news to gpc. Everything sent to gpc-news@gnu.de becomes visible in Usenet; this does not hold for gpc@gnu.de. Everything sent to gpc-announce@gnu.de becomes visible in all lists and the newsgroup, but the `From:' header is that of the moderator.
I hope that I got it right and that everybody gets the picture. :-)
If the perceived problem is that GPC users are unaware of the mailing list, I would suggest that the solution would be more prominent display of that information, especially subscription information, in the accompanying README files and on the GPC Web site.
That's already there. For me the main advantage of a newsgroup lies in the possibility just to look into it without the need to subscribe in the first place.
However when thinking over this, I feel that _not_ opening a mail/news gateway for this reason means kind of capitulation to the spammers.
I would rather "capitulate" to them than be constantly annoyed by them.
Here we are entering a field where it is a matter of taste. I think that two separate discussion lists, only one of which is gated to Usenet, is a suitable compromise. The details I sketched above may be worked out differently, if someone has a better idea.
(And I don't agree that it is capitulation; it is accepting the reality of the Internet. Is it capitulation to our automotive society to look both ways before crossing the street? :-)
(No, but it is capitulation to street rowdys to drive faster than one feels secure because one has one of them in ones back. The Right Thing[tm] to do is to sue them for being a danger to everybody.;-)
Greetings,
Peter