[volunteers] Linux Compatible equipment available at bargain prices...

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:
> Quoting Luke S Crawford (lsc at prgmr.com):

> > My point is that even if the product is interesting, SPAM  should be
> > discouraged.   If every local company that has cool linux products
> > got to send me a mail, I'd have nothing else.   
> 
> Er...
> 
> Every local company that has cool Linux products does _not_ get to reach
> the Volunteers mailing list.  Thousands of posts per year go straight
> into the oubliette, in fact.  This particular one got manually approved
> by yrs. truly as a one-off exception because I thought it looked
> distinctively interesting.

Above and beyond that, as an afterthought, currently if you're on the
Volunteers mailing list, it's because (in part) you by implication
_want_ to see substantive arriving mail addressed not only to
volunteers at lists.svlug.org _as_ a mailing list but also to:

president
vice-president
speakers
speaker (redirects to "speakers")
av-crew
all-volunteers
publicity-team
publicity (redirects to "publicity-team")

...those being a bunch of the group's known, advertised contact e-mail
addresses for purposes of the group's business.  This _is_ the current 
forum for the group's internal business -- except for what goes to
web-team at lists.svlug.org, which catches:

webmaster
webteam
web-team

...in addition to mail sent explicitly to the web-team mailing list's
address, as such.

The point is that this is _not_ just a mailing list -- nor is web-team. 
It is an end-point for incoming communication to the group's volunteer
staff.  If you didn't know that, I'm sorry, but now you do.


I carefully review the thousands of postings per year addressed to each
of those mailing lists from non-subscribed addresses.  Almost all of
that gets left in-queue and thus expired out and discarded after three
days in queue.  On really rare occasions, I make a judgement call that
the incoming mail is in some sense arguably a legitimate communication
rather than just more crud.

I'm sure I overestimate the legitimacy of some such posts -- at least in
your eyes.  If I do, don't forget that I'm _also_ trying to avoid any
perception that I'm not being permissive _enough_:  In a situation where
mailing list administration has been utterly abandoned by everyone in
this group but me, it'd be really easy -- facile -- for some twinkie who
doesn't like me to accuse me of being a mailing list tyrant.  

And twinkies there have been.  There have been several people who've
actually had the nerve to try to assert that -- Chris Miller, for one --
and of course (if memory serves) Alvin Oga (though it's sometimes
difficult to remember _which_ varieties of bullshit were among the ones
he's favoured us with).  Anticipating that chump move, I've taken great
pains to make sure that anyone making such assertions cannot be
credible, to make sure that the accuser shoots himself/herself in the
foot by making it, rather than being able to credibly slime my
reputation, as repayment for all my volunteer work.

Part of the way that I do that is to be liberal in what I let through.
If a post is even arguably a legitimate communication to one of our
contact addresses (such as "president"), then I approve it rather than
have to deal with a parade of juvenile idiots of all ages accusing me of
censoring the group's mail.

So, I'm sorry if you decide you don't like one or two non-subscribed
posts I let through on average every six months.  Really.  I do regret
that.  However, it'll be what I do -- for reasons I'm glad to explain,
and have done to, above.