I am wondering .... a while back I was changing my acm forwarding a lot.
Every time I changed it, I would get a deluge of email from acm. That's not
at least part of what's happening here, is it?

Joe

> ----------
> From:         Michael Feldman[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Michael Feldman
> Sent:         Sunday, April 16, 2000 11:54 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Why I have been absent from the Team-Ada list
>
> [said Larry]
> >
> > My perception is that I get mail corresponding to every
> > paper publication (SIG) to which I buy service, but that
> > is probably an exaggeration.
>
> Well, I belong to ACM and 4 SIGs (SIGPLAN, SIGSOFT, SIGAda, SIGCSE).
> The only mail I get is the ACM newsletter and the SIGCSE members
> forum, both of which I find useful. (I belong to a lot of listservs,
> but none of those were opt-outs, they are all voluntary opt-ins.)
>
> In the SIGCSE case, as I recall I received one invitation to opt in,
> which I did. The list is limited to SIG members, and in any event
> I'm pretty sure that if I had not opted in, I'd get nothing more.
>
> I get no e-mail at all from SIGPLAN or SIGSOFT. And as far as I know,
> SIGAda is not sending any spam out and does not intend to.
>
> So which SIGs are spamming you?
>
> I agree that the ACM newsletter is an opt-out system. I didn't focus
> on it much because I don;t find it burdensome to scan their files for
> the interesting links. Maybe this is because I get precious little
> commercial spam so my frustration doesn't build as yours obviously has.
> >
> > OPT-OUT IS STILL SPAM.  I gave them an email address for
> > an entirely different purposes.
>
> You make a good point, Larry. I suggest you complain to the ACM
> officers and to the officers of the SIGs from which you are getting
> what you consider to be spam. Complaints to the staff will probably
> be redirected to /dev/null.:-)
>
> Much as ACM often seems to be a stifling bureaucracy,
> ultimately ACM is all of us, because the paid staff is obliged to
> be responsive to the volunteer officers. To an even greater extent,
> the SIGs are obliged to be responsive because they depend almost
> entirely on volunteer effort anyway.
>
> I just received my ballot for the ACM officer elections. If you got
> yours, why not e-mail the officer candidates for their positions
> on this issue? Tell them your vote, and the votes of your friends,
> depend on their position on stuff like this.
>
> Both ACM presidential candidates have made much of ACM's "necessary"
> transition from paper community to e-community, so there's your
> opening to nail the candidates down on the spam/opt-out issue.
> >
> > In most situations I would not give an email address to
> > someone who had my mailing address, so the only way to
> > determine who are using the address improperly is the
> > (sometimes deliberate) variations in spelling.  The only
> > two publications I perceive to be honorable in this regard
> > are at opposite ends of my spectrum -- CPSR and 2600.
> >
> You (and Bob Leif, too) obviously get much more junk than I;
> I can see how irritated it's made you; I sympathize.
>
> One last comment. It's very easy to spam Team-Ada, because the
> Team-Ada consensus seems to be to keep the list open to posters
> who are not subscribers. The issue has arisen many times in the
> last few years, and the responses always seem to favor openness
> even at the cost of a certain amount of spam. I agree with this
> philosophy; we should be open to visitors without forcing them
> to become members.
>
> I run a number of closed lists, so I'm well aware of the issues
> both ways.
>
> I'm not the Team-Ada list owner, of course, just a long-time member,
> so I've seen the repeated traffic on the subject. I've gotten
> very little spam via Team-Ada, but maybe our sysadmins are just
> filtering it better. Dunno.
>
> Mike Feldman
>