Tackling auto responder spam. As tedious as it may be, before emailing an entire list or replying to a particular message, especially automatically, one must be careful for various reasons. The email addresses entered may be valid, but very likely go to some third party, and including the entire quoted text, especially on an unchecked inbox, means that anyone can use your server to anonymously hack the auto responder. Worse yet, when the auto responder attacks an entire list of people. Spam is evil because it slows people down from doing good positive productive things, and instead focuses them on the opposite task of destruction or consumerism often which are the same thing with the same horrible ends for everyone involved. Its important to butcher quoted text automatically in many circumstances to prevent the spread of unwanted links, especially once a thread is already marked as spam. If dealing with an entire list of people, the best practice would be some way of finding out whose looking at their inbox right now, and try a few tests quick (that people viewed the message but didn’t click the spam link at the bottom) before spamming everyone with the message. Ideally there is no major delay in the propagation of the thread, which may contain pertinent or useful time sensitive information, however when access to posting to the group is left wide open, and the user is brand new, emailing everyone on the list with the potential new spam message is not very fair to that lists users. Time and time again abusing systems that make it easy only leads to tougher systems and more restrictive societies. It’s really up to the people of the community to monitor what gets out of hand, do whatever they can to prevent the person from even considering doing it again, however the best method of all would be via some alternative that is actually productive instead of the crippling parasites that plague every species on the planet. Even leaches have their place, even if its only in 18th century medicine, because they force us to innovate solutions that preclude to exclude… but hopefully not simply due to the exotic, but due to time and other pseudo real restraints on communal usefulness. In a perfect world, if you feed a troll, you get more gold when you kill it. Playing it safe means not giving them any ideas but this also relegates them to their old tried and true tactics. I think its a better idea to convince them to try new tactics that won’t work, especially if they don’t work. Ideally threads can be marked as spam before they propagate and relegated to their own distinctive hall of dysfunctional, pointless, and ignored uncheckable shame, where it can be examined without having a real, or at least not the intended effect. Bad links on good sites, or in the wrong peoples inbox’s, are at least transiently bad for the internet. Nothings worse than fake results! People deserve to find the truth about what they’re looking for, not what some lowlife will pay to publicize as the answer for deception and profit only to hide something real on page twelve. Its too bad there’s no secrets when there are no friends willing to pay to keep secrets. The real idea however is the capacity to report auto responder abuse without playing favorites or wasting time about it…

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