16 Mar
2002
16 Mar
'02
2 a.m.
I do have issue with commercial advertising on this list, but I certainly have
no problems of any sort with the way in which the list and all the associated
problems have been managed.
If there's a problem with SPAMming on the list, it's most likely not because
of what the list manager has done, but because of what others who use the list
haven't. SPAMmers love to find things like this list, where a single message
is distributed widely with no effort or cost borne by them. Do you think
there'd be VCF SPAM if the organizer had to pay a nickel for every destination
to which his message is delivered? Now lots of the folks on this list are
interested in what's up with VCF, and that's a SPAMmer's target. It
doesn't
do the SPAMmer any good to send his message to folks completely uninterested
in it. It's the occasional interested party that's his target.
It's true, a little discipline would help the list quite a bit. One thing
that would help everyone would be if the subject line changed along with the
topic. There's also been enough discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of
eBay, that we all know, by now, that some folks like it and some don't.
Blaring on about that won't change anybody's mind. It's been nearly a year
since the last time Sellam and I got in to a flame-fest about law and order.
I'm not going to promote another, however. If Sellam and I can display a
little restraint, perhaps others can, as well.
I'm also not going to get behind a movement among folks who've never run a
list like this one to move the admin responisibility from an experienced hand
to one less experienced. The time and resource demands are too great,
particularly if one hasn't done it before, and I'd recommend people
investigate what THEY can do themselves to prevent the address of this list
others
from finding its way into spammers'address
harvesters, such as disguising it
when referring to it in newsgroups, etc, before
they ask the list
administrator to do their work for them or to implement draconian measures to
compensate for their own unwillingness to to the work. I doubt there's
anything one can do about the OT stuff and irrelevant titles ... since folks
often hit 'send' before they think ... and I'm among them.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marvin Johnston" <marvin(a)rain.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: List Management - RESPONSE
Jay West wrote:
>
> Please read the entire message below from the list admin (who is trying
very
hard not to
come out of his skin and choke someone)...
Jay, count me as one who is quite satisfied with your handling of this
listserver!
I find the change of subject but not changing the subject line annoying
and do pretty much the same thing you do with them. Yup, I do lose some
good info, but good is relative; it is not worth my time to parse each
message to try and find something of interest.
Again, the spam is not a problem; it is the multiple complaints about
the spam that helps lowers the S/N ratio (which is already pretty low)
of this listserver. But again, this is a subscriber responsibility
issue, and I like the way you have been handling it.
> I have listened to the discussion about SPAM, I have been talking to > on the list privately about it, and I will
announce my intended solution
as
> soon as I am damn well ready to commit to
something. Yes, I have a
proposed
solution, it
does NOT involve moderating the list, and as soon as I am
satisfied that it is the best route to go, I will post it on the list for
final discussion in case some people vehemently disagree with it.
Another indication that you are doing a good job!!! Keep up the good
work!!!