Re: [tlug] Don't Hijack Threads/OO.org MIME types

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 02:34:09AM +0000, Botond Botyanszki wrote:

>Can't we come up with a filter that would detect these and take some action

I'll bet it's not impossible.  If an entire list manager can be written in
procmail (smartlist), it's probably possible to have it inspect the subject
line of mail and if it does not contain substantially all of the text of 
the initial subject, to mark it as a possible thread hijacking.  I'm not
certain this can be done with 100% accuracy, though, and that's what we'd
need to actually use it.  However, if some smartlist guru among us writes
a patch for this functionality, I would not be opposed to trying it out.

In a test phase, we could have it simply send a copy of the possible
thread hijacking to a moderator (I volunteer to receive those copies) and
see how well it works.  If it's good, we could try it out.

If it works, we could return the offending mail to the sender with a note
on what thread hijacking is, why you shouldn't do it, and to resend the
mail as a new message because it wasn't posted to the list.  Oh, and to
not reply to the warning mail because no one will see it.  Otherwise,
someone is bound to reply to that and try to resend their mail that way.

For extra coolness, give the patch the ability to track who has been warned
and unsub them on the third offense.  If they are subsequently allowed back,
they are on probation and it knows who they are.  If they are caught again,
it drops them into a "with prejudice" file of people who are not allowed to
subscribe.

>I'm getting sick of this talk lately. Once we are honoured by having back S. Turnbull on the list, we shouldn't scare him off so early. ;-) 

Indeed.

Jonathan
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