Re: 0. General - Spam survey [was Re: [Asrg] Help with academic research survey.]

["Mark E. Mallett" <mem@mv.mv.com>]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2003 at 02:05:10AM +0100, Markus Stumpf wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 05:12:07PM -0500, Mark E. Mallett wrote:
> > I agree.  The problem may be that people forget, but the solution
> > isn't to rant against those people.  It's to realize that that is a
> > fact of life, and make it so people don't have to use their memories;
> > but to rely on tools, records, and methods that (hopefully) come
> > into play without always having to specifically be aware of them.
> 
> This methods exists in the very medium they used to subscribe.
> It's called email and is delivered in form of a notification
> message, containing a confirmation of the subscription, a description
> of the list and detailed help/unsubscribe information. The problem is
> they throw it away and I don't think any other "tool" or "record" will
> be of more success as they will throw it away, also.

Indeed, but that's all part of relying on each participant to do the
right thing over time.  That's not the kind of thing I meant.  That's
more of a description of the problem than the solution.  When millions
of people have to learn even a little bit, or remember a little bit,
or rely on their own records, etc., in order to interoperate correctly,
you'll get millions of failures and problems.  Thus the part of the
sentence about "... that come into play without people having to be
aware of them."  You want reality, fact, verifiability, and
traceability: this can't be up to every individual's record-keeping
ability or their ability to do the right thing in any way.


> If they sign a contract to get some yellow press magazines each month they
> keep the contract, because it costs money.

Believe me, people (on both sides) manage to forget agreements
where money is involved, too.  


> If they subscribe to a mailing
> list they don't, as it doesn't cost them money (usually). If they no longer
> want to be part of the mailing list they cry "spam spam", because that's
> currently more conveniant than to read the header, find the
>    List-Unsubscribe: <https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg>,
> 	<mailto:asrg-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> and unsubscribe themself.

Yep.  Agreed.  Blaming them doesn't solve anything, though.  I mean
yes, they are wrong.  They'll be wrong the next time, too.  Or
somebody else will.

> 
> Spam is trendy and /the/ bad guy, so serious mailing list managers
> (humans) are willing to spend a lot of time and effort to not to be
> called spammers and that is what those people currently abuse. I've seen
> spam complaints from people that had received the weekly newsletter for
> two years after double opt-in and then cried "spam" and "I never subscribed
> to this".

Agreed.  I've even seen it from people like you and me, people who
should know better.  I'm confident enough of my own ability to make
mistakes that I'm sure I could do it, too.  Relying on every person in
the world (even the smart ones) to behave correctly is futile.  Maybe
especially the smart ones: heaven help you said person is an expert who
couldn't possibly be wrong.

mm

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg@ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg