OT stuff, archives

[Andrew Rudoff]

> Since the archives filter out porn/Spam already, couldn't the filter be
> extended to also exclude posts that contain OT in the subject line from the
> archives?

Currently the archives contain everything that gets posted.  The filtering
happens earlier, preventing posts from going to the lists.  SPAM tends to come
from addresses of people who are not list members (some clever spammers
already know they need to forge the from address to be a list member
but fortunately we have not been hit by that technique just yet).  Virus
posts contain attachments that are "executable".  So we currently catch
those and hold them for a human to check them.  The Electronic Communications
Committee rotates the responsibility of handling the day-to-day operation
of the list.  So each time a message gets held, that week's "stuckee" goes
and deals with it.

So I can't quite do what you're suggesting since there's no filtering
that only affects the archives.  We could, I suppose, write a program
that runs through the archives every now and then and removes entries
with OT in their Subject line, but I haven't had time to attack such
things lately.  Besides, not everyone had been putting "OT" in their
Subject lines for all off-topic posts...

-andy