[ILUG] distributed list moderation

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

I'm not that bothered personally about the level of spam on ILUG, but I'm
getting bothered by the amount of mail there is about it.  So now I'm
trying to think of ways around this.

I'm curious to know if anyone has implemented this idea.  I haven't come
across it, but maybe someone else has.  Perhaps it's a crap idea, I'm not
sure.  Perhaps it's just a pain to implement.

 - users who sign up to a list may volunteer (or be required) to act as
   part-time moderators
 - only where there are at least some defined number of moderators, the
   list changes to "distributed moderation" mode
 - when a "dubious" mail arrives, that mail is sent to a single member of
   the list (or perhaps several members) with a confirmation code in the
   header (much like the subscription process)
 - the user(s) either delete the mail or reply, confirming the mail is good
   for sending to the list at which point it gets sent to everyone
 - when there are too few moderators, all mail gets delivered as is
   currently the case.  If people complain, it's in the power of users to
   volunteer as moderators.

The definition of "dubious" is changeable but in the case of ILUG, I guess
it could be "from address not subscribed, initial filters didn't mail match
as spam".

If we had fifty user-moderators and each dubious mail went to two of them,
this would cut down the spam everyone receives very substantially.

One objection to this would be that some user may bar another -- though
once you have a sufficient number of moderators this seems unlikely to
happen repeatedly. Even then the solution to that is for the barred user to
subscribe to the list.

It seems that if any kind of moderation is to happen it needs to be done by
the list users at large, not by the unfortunate list admin.

Gavin