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by zeko1195 2449 days ago
Thank you for your response. I have a better understanding now. How is spam dealt with? Do people get banned quickly? Also, who archives these emails. Do they automatically get archived for public viewing?
3 comments

Most lists require you to subscribe before being able to post. Subscription involves the mailing-list software sending a cookie/none to your e-mail address for authentication. You can either reply directly to the message or, if the mailing-list software supports a web interface, follow an embedded link.

That simple step prevents most bulk spam. For technical lists you can also do things like limit messages to text/plain, reject binary attachments, etc. What little spam remains, if any, can be handled by simple filters. Manual moderation, where posts are queued waiting for approval, is rare but might be necessary if someone is maliciously trying to disrupt the list.

One of the oldest mailing-list archive-to-HTML processors is MHonArc (https://www.mhonarc.org/). Most mailing-list software now supports this feature natively, but the organization of such archives (by date, thread, etc) and the look & feel seem to have been heavily influenced by MHonArc.

Manual moderation of the first 2-3 posts of a new user can go a long way to prevent spam.
The mailing list software automatically archives them. There are also provisions for spam blocking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman

all of these are up to the list. various policies

spam: some run filters on the list, some let it through

banning: some lists are moderated where posts go through moderators, some are not, ban tendency is up to the list administrator

archives: some listserve software has built in archives, other people run add-on web applications, others dont archive at all.

see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mailing_list_software , etc.