We had a discussion several months ago regarding mirroring the PICList to
Usenet.  At that time we had assurances from the person doing the
mirroring that *all* email addresses would be obscured.  If that's not the
case, then we may need to re-examine that issue -- though it's probably
too late to do much about it now.

I was the one who booted the address used to mirror to Usenet (at the
suggestion of two other list admins), and caught some considerable flak
for it.  There was a group decision among all the list admins and the list
owner (Jory, James, Mike, Mark and myself) at the time.  The Usenet
contingent was permitted to resubscribe after assuring everyone they would
obscure email addresses, both in the headers AND the message bodies.  No
one liked it much, but it was a compromise.  I don't visit the wasteland
that was once Usenet, so I haven't checked the result -- apparently it was
not what was promised.  I'll look into it as time permits, but it's the
holiday season, plus annual business things at work, and it may take a
while for me to get to it.

So I'm going to climb up on my soapbox for a little while.  I hav noticed
that there seems to be no shortage or people who want all the benefits of
the PICList, but are unwilling to put forth even the slightest effort for
those benefits.  Some are unwilling to do something as simple as using
topic tags.  Some can't be bothered to subscribe to the list and manage
which topics they accept, and want to use a news reader instead.  Some are
just too busy, too important, too antisocial, too whatever and want a
separate list for only those anointed few.  Whatever.  I'm not saying
everyone who benefits from the PICList needs to volunteer to help manage
it, but I am growing just the tiniest bit tired of small groups of people
expecting everyone else to cater to their wishes.

The vast majority of the subscribers to this list get along just fine
without coddling or special treatment.  They understand that sometimes
things are not perfect, and you don't necessarily always get things just
exactly the way you want.  They live with it.  Some people could learn
from that.

There, I'm done now.

Dale
(sole remaining PICList admin)

On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Quentin wrote:

> A few weeks ago it was mentioned here that this list gets mirrored on
> Usenet or some other newsgroup list. Now we know that that is a serious
> mother lode for address mining. I avoid all newsgroups like a plaque
> because of this. I haven't looked, but is there any protection in place?
> Two thing came up in this discussion so far:
> 1. There are an increase in SPAM to Piclisters, which I have noticed as
> well.
> 2. Spams come from places such as " .RU, .CN or unresolvable IP
> addresses somewhere in RIPE or APNIC address space
> (Europe or Asia)." (to quote Dale). I noticed that as well.
>
> So how about that newsgroup thing? I realy don't trust it.

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