Spam on Tomcat Users mailing list

[Mark Thomas]

Please ban the following user from all Apache Tomcat lists for spam.

[e-mail]

Cheers,

Mark

[Hugo <Nabble>]

I checked our database and that user actually has valid posts in the apache mailing lists. Can you point me to a message that you consider to be spam?

[Mark Thomas]

http://markmail.org/message/w73wtyxo42hq7uyp

http://markmail.org/message/rk3i57iaerf3w5xk

http://markmail.org/message/7upgxm5m63wukwwr

Mark

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Those messages don't look like real spam. Those links don't work and the Nabble threads have been deleted by that user. So maybe it was just a test. In any case, that archive is in the old system and we can't really ban that user from there. We will soon migrate that archive to the new system and the ban and anti-spam features will come into play. Please let me know if that user bothers you again in the meanwhile.

[Mark Thomas]

That is not acceptable. One of the conditions of permitting users to post to the Tomcat lists via Nabble was an assurance that the Tomcat list administrators would retain control - albeit through Nabble - of unsubscribing users from the lists. Those posts might not meet your definition of spam but they meet ours. Your unwillingness to block this user from posting to the Tomcat users list is concerning. Also of concern is that Nabble appears not to have the ability to block users from posting.

The Tomcat project works hard to ensure that project resources are not abused (e.g. people using the Tomcat Bugzilla system to test their auto-mated bug posting tools) and whilst we are forgiving of single test messages to the users list or infrequent out of office replies, repeat offenders very quickly get unsubscribed to keep the signal to noise ratio high. Regrettably, if Nabble is unwilling or unable to block users as requested by the Tomcat project, the only option open to the Tomcat project is block all Nabble users. I don't think we have reached that point yet, but it is getting very close.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

I just checked the old system and we actually have a way to block emails from that user (such mechanism is completely different from the one in the new system, so I got confused, sorry about that). So I set the flag for that user and emails from him/her won't reach any mailing list anymore. I am just curious why Tomcat can't ban that user instead of Nabble. As you probably know, Nabble sends the email to the mailing list on behalf of the user. This is pretty much the same as the user sending the email from his/her email client. So if that user doesn't use Nabble anymore, but uses an automated tool or simply his/her email client, the result will be the same. So you should also check how Tomcat could prevent that, but I will leave this up to you.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks for checking and blocking the user. It is reassuring to know that blocking users is still possible.

In short, the way the ASF mailing list software (ezmlm) works is that it is Nabble that is subscribed to the users list, not the individual Nabble users. Therefore, the ASF list moderators only have the rather blunt instrument of blocking all Nabble users - an action that would harm many legitimate users. It is good to confirm that this is not the only option available.