Let's shut down

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Emacs!

Let's just shut down bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.  You think I'm joking?

I actually receive this mailing list via NNTP on gnu.emacs.bug, by the
way.  I've just been through this newsgroup clearing out spam, and it is
truly revolting.  Since 23rd November, when I last cleared out the group,
I have downloaded 38 decent posts and 302 spams.

In years past, I actually used gnu.emacs.bug a fair amount to report bugs
and submit feature requests.  If I were just getting into Emacs now, I
doubt I'd bother, given the state of this newsgroup.

gnu.emacs.bug is supposedly a moderated newsgroup.  That so much spam
spews forth from it makes the FSF look like a mass of incompetent idiots.

Sadly, gnu.emacs.help is rapidly going the same way.  By way of contrast,
the non-gnu newsgroup comp.emacs is clean indeed - Since 23rd November, I
haven't downloaded any spam at all there, though it does get the odd
slice of it.

In September, I sent an email to postmaster@gnu.org offering to do manual
moderation of help-gnu-emacs.  After all, sifting out ~20 spams per day
is not that onerous a task, and seeing how I'm doing it privately anyhow,
why not let everybody get the benefit?  I didn't get a reply.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)