After some more thought, I now propose the following:
The machine-readable list-policies specification consists of one or
more lines of text, which each consists of three parts:
a) one of the field-names "List-ArchivePolicy:", "List-MirrorPolicy:",
"List-RobotPolicy:", "List-CachingPolicy:", "List-GatewayPolicy:"
b) an integer number in the range of zero to three
c) a comment which explains the policy for humans
Each of the field-names SHOULD occur only once.
The meaning of the integer values is as follows:
0 - States the policy that the activity is completely disallowed to
third parties, and that no exception will be made.
1 - States the policy that the activity is generally disallowed to
third parties, but interested parties are invited to request
permission, and such requests will be considered on a case-by-case
basis.
2 - States the policy that the activity is generally allowed under the
condition that the first thing that is done with all postings is
to remove any and all email addresses first, as a spam-prevention
measure.
3 - States the policy that the activity is generally allowed, without
any requirements for removing email addresses.
The meaning of the field-names is as follows:
List-ArchivePolicy: - refers to mailing list archives which are
published in some way, e.g. via the internet. (Regardless of
the List-ArchivePolicy: value, subscribers MAY always create
archives for their own personal use.)
List-MirrorPolicy: - refers to making the content of the list
available through some other subscription-based channel, like
e.g. a newsfeed or another mailing list.
List-CachingPolicy: - refers to making recent content of the
list available for a limited time of a month or less.
List-GatewayPolicy: - refers to submitting postings (which are
made e.g. through a web-based form or in any other way) to the
list.
List-RobotPolicy: - refers to robots subscribing to the list, and
processing the postings in some way. Such robots MUST NOT post
to the list or send private mail to other subscribers except by
explicit permission of the list-owner.
Examples:
A list with very liberal policies might use this:
List-ArchivePolicy: 3 (everyone is welcome to archive this list)
List-MirrorPolicy: 3 (everyone is welcome to mirror this list)
List-GatewayPolicy: 1 (work together with us to prevent loops)
List-RobotPolicy: 3 (robots are welcome but should keep quiet)
Another list might use this:
List-ArchivePolicy: 1 (ask: permission from the list-owner is needed)
List-MirrorPolicy: 0 (this list should not be mirrored)
List-CachingPolicy: 2 (cache postings for a month, help prevent spam)
List-GatewayPolicy: 0 (direct submission of postings only)
List-RobotPolicy: 2 (robots must help prevent spam)
Default values:
When not explicitly specified, List-ArchivePolicy:, List-GatewayPolicy:
and List-RobotPolicy: have a default value of 1 (which means "don't do
it without asking first"). If List-MirrorPolicy: and/or
List-CachingPolicy: are not specified, then the value of
List-ArchivePolicy: applies.
For discussion....
Major disagreements with this proposal can be discussed right here on
list-managers, while minor issues of refining the language etc should
be discussed on the rfc-discuss list:
http://maillist.info/mailman/listinfo/rfc-discuss
Greetings, Norbert.
--
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59 Fax +41 1 972 20 69 http://norbert.ch
List hosting with GNU Mailman on your own domain name http://cisto.com
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