[plug] The persistence of off-topic extraneous postings

[Bret Busby]

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Milan Pospisil wrote:

> Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:39:42 +0800
> From: Milan Pospisil <Milan.Pospisil at swantafe.wa.edu.au>
> Reply-To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] More invites up for grabs)
> 
> 
>  On  09/07/04 10:28pm  lodion at gmail.com 09/07/04 10:28pm in response to Kai,  Chris Griffin,  Brad Campbell and others wrote:
> >Why dont you all just go to www.gmailswap.com and stop posting here? :)
> 
>  Well Folks, it is getting a little bit rich to have a go at someone who is offering something to his fellow PLUGers. Surely, this is not by any means some form of spam, there is not  any profit involved and above all it is not exactly easy to get immediately a Gmail account ATM. It seemed to be a nice gesture to ask PLUG members if anyone would be interested, however, not quite so in the eyes of some, as it would appear.
> 
>                                                          Milan Pospisil
> 
> 

The messages promoting gmail ARE spam. They are unsolicited, and, to 
some of us, competely unwanted.

We might as well start discussing whether the parliamentary policies to 
prevent homosexuals from adopting children, are correct.

Neither are related to open source, and neither are related to Linux 
or to PLUG, other than the PLUG name being used for sending the spam.

I had previously made what I believe was and is a quite reasonable 
request about this; that messages relating to the gmail facility, be 
marked as such, by having the word "gmail" included in the subject 
field, so that those of us who are completely disinterested in gmail, 
could easily filter on that, and continue to enjoy the use of the PLUG 
list, for discussing things to do with open source Software, Linux, and 
PLUG.

It is also mailing list courtesy, to use appropriate and relevant 
message subjects.

There are obviously those whose aim is to split the list, through 
persisting with the spam, and, by not properly using the subject field 
values.

I suppose that the only effective way to deal with these people, is to 
now filter on the word "gmail" in the body of the message, which then 
means that anyone using a gmail email address, will be automatically 
filtered along the same path as discussions of the gmail facility.

I guess that is the cost of preventing spam, and, it would appear that 
the gmail facility is becoming somewhat less reputable, through the 
actions of those who spam to promote it.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................