We can compare this situation to what is seen in many areas of science; most knowledge can in some way be used for ill aswell as good, yet the scientific community has developed over many decades on a foundation of sharing knowledge, publishing research, and peer review of discoveries. This wealth of freely available knowledge (whether Perl Monks, or scientific journals on nuclear engineering or genetic research) is as accessible to those doing legitimate work in the field as to less honourable types seeking to exploit the knowledge for applications most find unacceptable.

Does this mean that public scientific research, and open sharing of knowledge, should be cut back in the interests of society at large? My gut reaction, and I suspect most peoples, is absolutely not; however it's a tough call in some areas these days.

We can't limit what's already available, but we can take care on who we help -- the AM post in question is easy to ignore, if (s)he had logged in rather than AM, if he had described why he wanted to do this, if he had done anything to ease peoples suspicions he may have recieved advice; legitimate, or legitimate-looking questioners will receive better help from us than AM spammer-wannabees, in the same way that if I emailed an academic with a Q about nuclear physics I'd get a better response if I sent from @ucl.ac.uk than from @hotmail.com

In reply to Re: Helping Possible Spammers? by Callum
in thread Helping Possible Spammers? by Marza

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