reconsidering default exit policy

[Valient Gough]

Jonathan D. Proulx wrote:
>
>Admins however should also be expected to RTFM or suffer the
>consequences. 
I have mixed feelings about the best default exit policy for TOR, which 
is why I'm playing devil's advocate and making sure other views are 
considered.  But no software maker (or other service provider) should 
ever feel justified in punishing their user, whether they have RTFM or 
not.  That is just bad business.

It helps us all if TOR is widely distributed.  That means we should hope 
it will be also run by those who don't know much about TOR, internet 
workings, or usenet abuse, but who have extra bandwidth and want to 
help.  It also means there will probably be many people who aren't 
native english speakers which adds an extra level of complexity to 
RTFM.  Letting people "suffer the consequences" because they didn't 
understand to the same depth as the people on this list would be 
counter-productive.

Since we are asking people to donate resources, if they have problems 
then we have problems.  So by punishing them, we punish ourselves.  For 
that reason, I think the default exit policy should be chosen to 
minimize the trouble caused to site operators.  The more technically 
able operators can RTFM and see how to widen their exit policy further.

How about this as a litmus test:  will the vast majority of people on 
this list be using the default exit policy as-is without any further 
reject entries?  If not, then I think it is not a good starting point 
for new TOR server operators.   We should eat our own dog food.  
Personally, I would not use the default exit policy as currently 
proposed without additional reject lines - concerning usenet abuse 
through google's usenet proxy as the prime example..

regards,
Valient