[R] Off topic:Spam on R-help increase?

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "DB" == Douglas Bates <bates at stat.wisc.edu>
>>>>>     on Tue, 6 Mar 2007 11:57:28 -0600 writes:

    DB> On 3/6/07, Bert Gunter <gunter.berton at gene.com> wrote:
    >> In the past 2 days I have seen a large increase of  spam getting into
    >> R-help. Are others experiencing this problem? If so, has there been some
    >> change to the spam filters on the R-servers? If not, is the problem on my
    >> end?

    DB> There has indeed been an increase in the amount of spam making it
    DB> through to the list.  We apologize for the inconvenience.  Regretably
    DB> we will not be able to do much about it until the beginning of next
    DB> week.

    DB> Martin Maechler is on vacation at present and I am administering the
    DB> lists until he returns.  Most of the time this works even though the
    DB> mail servers are in Zurich Switzerland and I am in Madison, WI, USA.
    DB> However, in the last two days we have had a surge in spam and quite a
    DB> bit of it is getting through the filters.

    DB> The filters are catching some of the spam.  I think the main
    DB> difference in the last two days has been that the level of spam to the
    DB> lists has increased but it could be that something has happened to the
    DB> filters too.

I've been back today, well relaxed and tanned from the nice
vacation; thanks to all of you for taking such an interest in it:-) ;-) 

With a work back-log of almost 4 weeks, I hadn't dared to look
into my R-lists inbox of > 2400 messages until about an hour ago.

"Fortunately" it's not the spammers that would have become
smarter (well they have or their hired geeks, but already a few
months ago, not just now).
The main problem has ``just'' been disk-server, then network and
file mount problems on the mail server that were unfortunately
not seen at first by our IT staff. 
As a consequence, there had also been enormous (> 24 hours)
delays in mail delivery, maybe less visible on the mailing list
side of it.
As far as I can see/guess now, the spam problem should have
lasted only about one to two days --- too long of course for
you, but at least not till I had returned to work.

Yes indeed, we are sorry for this, but no, we cannot promise it
won't happen again :-\

Martin

    DB> All the lists except R-help only allow postings from subscribers so
    DB> there should very little spam on the other lists.

    DB> This subscriber-only policy can be difficult for people like me who
    DB> receive email at one address but send it from another.  Either the
    DB> sender must remember to use the account that is registered for the
    DB> list or the list administrator must manually approve the posting.
    DB> Even worse, such a policy dissuades new useRs from posting because
    DB> they get a response that their message has been held pending manual
    DB> approval by the administrator.  Sometimes they react by reposting the
    DB> message, then re-reposting, then ...

    DB> We have avoided instituting such a policy on R-help because of the
    DB> level of administrative work that will be involved and our desire not
    DB> to dissuade new useRs from posting to the list.

    DB> However, if this keeps up we may need to reconsider.

    DB> I would ask for the list subscribers to bear with us until Martin
    DB> returns and can check on whether something has gone wrong with the
    DB> filters.

    DB> ______________________________________________
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    DB> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
    DB> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
    DB> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.