Re: [Declude.JunkMail] OT: How to define "spam" and "ham"

[Bonno Bloksma]

Matt,   Although I agree with your reasoning, my problem would then be.... how do I determine who belongs to what catagorie? Overhere I see stuff getting caught which is definitely a newsletter of some sorts but I don't know whether the user requested it or not. Nor whether the user might want it or not.   As we have a lot of students with a very divers interest area it's impossible to know what is normal. Also being the mail admin is only a (small) part-time job overhere, as long as it's running..... ;-)   I keep telling my students "don't unsubscribe as it will only increase your spam". Now maybe *I* can make a exeption by reading a list of companies that honor opt-out but I know most of our students and staff would not. They'd either unsubscribe or not, without reading such a list, "it's too much work". ;-(   Groetjes,   Bonno Bloksma     ----- Original Message ----- From: Matt To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 2:01 PM Subject: [Declude.JunkMail] OT: How to define "spam" and "ham" This was the subject of a recent off-list discussion between myself and Pete where there was a perception that my definition of spam was too conservative or rather my definition of ham was too liberal.  While I readily admit that in practice, I do personally wish to block many fewer things that I consider to be legitimate first-party advertising than most do, I don't necessarily get the impression that the definitions that I use are all that much off the mark.  I have also found that the folks at BondedSender think that I am some sort of anti-advertising zealot for reporting what is near universally what we would consider to be spam, so it does go both ways :)  So I wanted to throw this topic out for some feedback and other presentations of one's own definitions and maybe learn something in the process. First off, I naturally follow the basic definition of spam that is widely promoted where spam is both unsolicited and bulk.  What causes such wide derivation from this common definition however is the sub-definition of what constitutes unsolicited, and the gray area that exists beyond this definition due to abuse. The definition that I use to qualify advertising or newsletter related ham is as follows: This definition starts with me treating things as ham if it comes from a first-party relationship with the sender, however there are some exceptions as follows: [.....]