Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:39:08 +1100, Ben Finney wrote: > >> Spam is better defined as unsolicited bulk messaging. Whether it's >> commercial in nature is irrelevant. The content is relevant only in that >> it's unsolicited by the vast majority of its many recipients. > > Not quite. > > I've read tens of thousands of messages to comp.lang.python, and > solicited perhaps some hundreds. Are all the rest spam? I should say not! > I haven't solicited them: at no point did I say, explicitly or > implicitly, "Hey strangers all over the world, send me messages asking > questions about Python" but I do welcome them. > > (In fact, I'd be annoyed if everyone started sending the questions to me > personally instead of to the list.) > > I think it is foolish to try to create a water-tight definition of > "spam". It is clearly a fuzzy concept, which means sometimes right- > thinking people can have legitimate disagreements as to whether or not > something is "spam". > > For example, I happen to think that the OP's message about Fascism is off- > topic but not spam. I think Joan is guilty of a breach of etiquette for > failing to label it [OT] in the subject line, and she should have > directed replies to a more appropriate forum (a mailing list, another > newsgroup, a web forum, anywhere but here). But in my opinion, it didn't > cross the line into spam. I wouldn't be the slightest bit tempted to > killfile her, or flag the message as spam, in my mail/news client. > > If other people feel differently, well, that's your personal choice. But > please don't try to tell me that *my* line between spam and ham is wrong, > and that *yours* is the only correct one. > > (That last response is aimed at a generic You, not Ben specifically. > Stupid English language, why can't we have a word for generic you?) > > That's why SpamBayes allows per-user training.
regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 PyCon is coming! Atlanta, Feb 2010 http://us.pycon.org/ Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ UPCOMING EVENTS: http://holdenweb.eventbrite.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list