On Sun, Jan 24, 1999 at 09:23:37PM -0600, christ wrote:
> i am severely, SEVERELY disappointed that this got posted to the list.
> i was also spammed (and that's what it WAS! i put my name and email
> address on a few LUG contact sheets in good faith) with a request to
> tell my users group about this product.
Yes, spam is evil. Some kind of original sin for the internet
that could ruin everything for everyone if it gets out of hand
The point of whether it already is too far out of hand is a
debate that I don't want to start, please.
But my impression of Mike's original post was an intelligent
assessment that several or maybe many people on this list
actually _would_ be interested in this particular subject. If my
case had a little square for this logo, I probably would have
gotten one.
What I'm attempting to argue is that it wasn't so much spam when
_he_ forwarded it as a heads up about something that he thought
would be specifically interesting to this group. Just as if he
had solved some interesting problem regarding the use of telesys
or found some new open-source software in which he thought others
might be interested.
In Mike's action, I do not see the following common elements of
spam e-mail:
*) attempt promote personal gain at the expense of others
(yes, the original poster was guilty of this, but not our
SigLinux subscriber - unless he was offered some
compensation to forward it, which I doubt)
*) blind submission of something that has interest to none or
only a small few on a list for many
Let me re-state at this point, that I agree that spam is a very
worrisome foe, and we do need to be aware of it and careful to
keep it from screwing everything up. But I'm also starting to
see unsuspecting innocents assaulted by angry anti-spammers more
frequently than I'd like. And in this case, I'm really not even
sure that it was spam to begin with, as I've argued above.
Anyone who'd like to prove me wrong, go ahead. My mind is open
on this issue -- I'm aware that I might not be as well versed on
the subject as others.
later,
- rick
--
Richard Kilgore | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Electrical & Computer Engineering | http://lore.ece.utexas.edu/~rkilgore/
The University of Texas at Austin | (512) 471-8011
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