Moderation action on the mailing list

[Sidney Markowitz <si...@sidney.com>]

Almost two months ago I posted a message about rules of the mailing list and
stated my intention to enforce them strictly.

That was followed by another post when I discovered that the mailing list
software does not provide what would be my preferred tool, which would be to
place someone under manual moderation. The least action I can do is to have
the list reject mail from someone.

Before taking what I consider such drastic action I brought the matter to a
vote in the SpamAssassin Project Management Committee (the PMC), and then
asked members of the ASF Board for advice. That, combined with the fact that
like everyone else my involvement with Apache SpamAssassin is volunteer work
that I fit in with my day job and family life, has resulted in quite some time
passing before I felt ready to post this announcement and take action.

The past week has seen a real degenerating mess appear on the mailing list. A
number of people have violated the rules I set down in June. More importantly,
as was pointed out to me by members of the ASF Board, there have been
violations of the Apache Code of Conduct (CoC)
https://www.apache.org/foundation/policies/conduct
which are rules that apply to every community that is part of an Apache
Software Foundation project.

The rules of this mailing list are simple: Keep the mails on topic for the
list, and keep it civil, where the latter is spelled out in the CoC.

I still want to take the minimum action that has a chance at restoring order
to the list. To that end I am banning just one person whom I see as
consistently violating the CoC even with no trigger event that itself was a
violation of the CoC. The fact that I am not banning everyone who has posted
inappropriate emails does not mean that I condone those emails. It is purely a
reflection of my belief that the rest of you are willing to keep your posts
civil, will do so if not provoked, and will not be provoked by emails that are
within the bounds of the topics of this mailing list such as people asking
questions that reveal that they know much less about configuring mail servers
than you do.

Now let\u2019s get back to keeping this mailing list on topic. That means please no
messages to the list commenting on this issue, whether you agree or disagree
with me. Feel free to email me directly if you have something to say that is
not part of a user level discussion or query or answer regarding Apache
SpamAssassin.

Thank you,

Sidney Markowitz
Chair, Apache SpamAssassin PMC