Greetings, When I contributed to the Newbies list some time back, shortly afterwards I received non OSM related junk mail. I know OSM to be the source because I was using a dedicated OSM only email address. When posts are published via the mailing list contributors email addresses are there to see and copy if you've a mind. How can I contribute without getting spam? Regards, Pete asked 15 Nov '10, 15:26  Molescott |
One Answer:
As you've noticed, all the OSM mailing list postings are archived publicly at lists.openstreetmap.org. Though there's some moderate degree of spam-trapping (the @ in e-mail addresses is replaced with 'at'), the addresses are still visible and can be harvested by a moderately intelligent spambot. This is a standard function of the industry-standard software we use to run the lists. If you're anxious about receiving spam from this address, the best advice is to post from an account on a webmail service with significant spam filtering capabilities (e.g. GMail). You can still subscribe from your normal e-mail address if you like the postings to arrive in your inbox, just don't post from it. Of course, you don't need to subscribe at all to read the postings; services such as Nabble or Gmane will let you read through the web or a newsreader. Note that this applies only to the OSM mailing lists. Other services (the OSM site itself, the wiki, forum, and this help site) do not expose your e-mail address publicly. answered 15 Nov '10, 17:48  Richard ♦ |
Richard, Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Pete.