Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 20:28:13 -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: Tally on today's messages - SPAM v. Comments
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Volks,
Today at approximately 5:30 a.m. we had one SPAM one with a sexually
explicit term in the topic line.
Here are the results from the next 14 hours, i.e., through 7:50 p.m.,
Eastern Time Zone. Many from the Mountain or Pacific zones may not even
gotten home from work and checked their email yet.
We have had 71 total comments in response to that one message.
We had four people, RG, JR, J-G S, and MW repeat the heading complete
with the sexual term in it, only one of them doing it after others had
started using other terms to continue the discussion.
We had two people, CT and TK, use a modified version of the original
SPAM's header but still containing the sexual explicit term.
One person has had the need to comment 8 times during this time period,
fortunately only using the sexually explicit header in his first
message. Others including me have participate twice, some more. So,
the 72 messages are actually only from about 50 of the 800 members of
the list.
In the 65 other messages, the authors either omitted the P word from
their header or used some other words to indicate that their message was
related to some part of the ensuing discussion.
One of the messages I included in the tally was a person who is feeling
overwhelmed by the volume of email. Almost every day that we have this
onslaught of comments about SPAM, we lose a list member due to the
volume of mail. Go back and check it out.
If every of these 50 or so people one on the list had just pushed the
delete key one time today - a minute or two after they saw the first WET
TEEN P_____ heading. There would have been 72 fewer messages in the
intervening 14 hours. If everyone of these 50 had set their filters to
delete any email from the source of this SPAM and to exclude the word
P_____ if they found it offensive, then they would have been on the
first step toward solving this problem on their own.
Now we all will need to delete at least 73 messages and probably over
100 before it is over because a small number of people out of the 800 on
the list can't agree to simply delete unwanted messages.
While I think that the messages sent to Tom will constitute a vote, and
I sent mine in, it is clear that about 700 people, maybe more voted with
one keystroke, not the many needed to either post a message or send in a
vote.
One more voted by leaving the list due to the volume of mail.
Food for thought I hope.
Sam Walters
A comment about personal email at work.
I have been both an employer and an employee. As for work, what job
lets you get and read an email list that produces 50 to 100 messages a
day - and other lists as well for some of you. I think that I might
want that job. We discourage profanity on the list, but what if someone
uses a simple expletive in saying "the wrench slipped and I busted my
dam_ knuckle on the frame." A strict boss could deem that inappropriate
and take action. If you get your personal email at work - it seems to
me to be your problem. Do you get your personal mail at work? I doubt
it. I can't imagine trying to get this list at a job nor can I imagine
letting my employees get this or similar lists at work.
