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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sun, 16 Apr 2000 11:54:14 -0400
Reply-To:
Michael Feldman <[log in to unmask]>
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Michael Feldman <[log in to unmask]>
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<[log in to unmask]> from "[log in to unmask]" at Apr 16, 2000 06:52:43 AM
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[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

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