On 23 May 2002 at 12:40, Berg Oswell wrote: > David W. Tamkin wrote: > > All the more reason that nobody should presume to decide what mail > > any other person wants or doesn't want. As long as there are email > > recipients who are not sysadmins, spam filtering cannot be > > accomplished satisfactorily by blanket rules for the whole site. (I > > was going to say "nor at the MTA level," but possibly every user > > could get a separate subdomain with a different way of contacting > > the smtpd such that every user could configure the MTA uniquely for > > his or her incoming mail. But perhaps that would require a separate > > IP address for each user's smtpd, and that might render it > > impracticable.) > I agree; Personally, if it's unsolicited, I don't even read it. Even > if someone is sending me extremely well-targeted spam with the deal of > a lifetime, I wouldn't do business with someone who resorts to spam > email. > IMO, the best test of what email to send is simple...did the > person affirmatively request the mailing? If not, then it shouldn't > be sent.
That's a pretty tough test. If I applied it to my incoming mail, I wouldn't have been able to do my last job. I was an editor for a technical magazine. If I didn't get notes from people who wanted to become writers or to write for us, we wouldn't have had new writers. If I didn't get notes from vendors I hadn't dealt with before, we wouldn't have been able to review any products except those we already knew about. Actually, I think it's a pretty simplistic test. I draw the line at unsolicited mail sent to many people. If someone has a reasonable expectation that I will be interested in a piece of email they want to send to me as an individual, I am usually willing to receive it. Even if I hadn't heard of them before. I view this as part of the price I pay for being in the public eye. You say you aren't in the public eye? I beg to differ - you just put yourself there.... Mike -- Mike Avery [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 16241692 AOL IM: MAvery81230 Phone: 970-642-0282 * Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way * A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day: Newsflash: Microsoft announces Visual Edlin for Windows.
