Date:         Wed, 18 Apr 2001 12:17:09 -0400
Reply-To:     "Samuel L. Walters" <slwalters@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Samuel L. Walters" <slwalters@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Near-Spam about Spam, Hot Wet Delete Keys, etc
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Vanagon listees,

At 5:30 a.m. we got a message that many of us, me included find quite
unacceptable and offensive.  My initial reaction was to delete it
immediately without ever looking at the screen that it produced. Given
the recent discussions, I decided to let it sit and do a little data
collecting.

By noon we had received endured the full "Wet Teen . . . ."
header being resent to the list four times by people who want to
complain about unacceptable SPAM.  One person used another variation
of this phrase.  If this type of language is so unacceptable to you why
are you sticking these headers back into all of our email systems? DUH?
Someone at least had the wisdom to change the header to "Why the delete
key is not enough!" and most others followed this lead but then this
produced about fifteen more messages.

So we are up to 20 responses to just this one piece of
supposedly pornographic email (I didn't open it, but will assume that
it is at least sexually oriented - won't debate what is pornographic).
This from just those who check their email early in the morning or
before noon - 20 more messages in just seven hours.  There have been a
few good suggestions in the discussion, but much of it is the same thing
we get week after week when the reactions to SPAM outnumber the spam
itself at least this 20 to 1 ratio.  I'd estimate that there will be
another 20 before 24 hours have passed.

I think Ron's suggestion and the variation on that posed by Tom C would
be good.  We can all learn to put Vanagon or VW in the text of our
message. If some spammer discovers this, then we can change the keyword
until it is discovered and then change it again.  This is not too hard.

But we can all also learn to use our email programs filters.  Your
employer can learn to set up filters that eliminate all email with
certain extremely offensive words.  Giving the employer a letter was
also a great idea.

We would have to use our delete keys much less if we didn't have this 20
to 1 or greater reaction to almost every piece of spam that we get. Most
of the SPAM doesn't get to me as I have a bunch of filters set up.
I only get the commentary.  I am thinking about filtering out anything
from Hotmail as most of the SPAM I have been getting lately (from all
sources, not just GERRY, have had Hotmail as the bogus source address.
But a few members use Hotmail and I haven't done this.

I don't see any of this as a reason to close the list.  This is the
internet.  It is not the same as your front yard or your living room.
It is more like driving down the highway.  Even comparing it to your
mailbox - junkmail - is closer than the living room or defecating in the
front yard analogies.  We can take steps to reduce SPAM, particularly
very offensive SPAM - whatever that really is, but we don't have to
close the list to do it.

I say all of this with a almost 12 year old who uses the Internet, but
with much monitoring.  That is my job as his parent and I do it.

I vote to keep the list open, but to work at finding ways that are not
too troublesome for Tom Carrington, but that reduce the SPAM.


Sam Walters