From: "thaughey" <thaughey at acnet.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fwd: Hellboy set visit with MTV
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 18:22:48 GMT
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

I enjoyed the Sony article and hope you continue to forward
that kind of material.  You're right, though, about email.
I've been receiving about 50% worms for the last week or so,
and the uninfected stuff has also been coming in at a record
pace.  Now if there was only some way of harnessing the
worms and sending them to the porn sites and addresses
dedicated to body restructuring.  --Tom Haughey

> Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > Er, doesn't this count as spam?
>
> I don't think so.  It is commercial, but I don't think
> it's bulk.
>
> * It relates to SF, fantasy, or science.
>
> * It was emailed to our correct club contact address,
> rather than to
>   addresses set up for some other purpose, or to all WSFA
> members.
>
> * We only got one copy.
>
> * It implies that the sender knows we're an SF club.
>
> * The headers weren't forged.
>
> * The product didn't appear to be fraudulent.
>
> * In more than a 24 hours, nobody had reported it to the
>   news.admin.net-abuse.sightings newsgroup as spam.
>
> * It was from a reputable company (Sony Pictures).
>
> * It was the sort of thing we might have gotten via snail
> mail and
>   published in our Journal.
>
> * I thought it might be of interest to some WSFA members.
>
> These are the criteria I use.
>
> What's the consensus?  Should I continue to forward such
> messages to the list?  Should I forward them to Sam to
> print in the WSFA Journal? Or should I just ignore them?
>
> There are lots of borderline case.  On the 20th, I got an
> email from "Phobos Books" addressed to "Dear Editor:"
> touting an SF novel from a "Phobos Award Winner" whom I
> had never heard of, and offering us a review copy.  I
> chose not to forward it.  (Would anyone like to see it?)
>
> Today, I got a message forwarded by Judy Kindell, touting
> a local writing workshop.  I replied, reminding her that
> the address she sent to went only to me, and giving her
> the address of this list.  I won't forward a message to
> this list *from a WSFA member*, since I assume that if
> they meant to send to this list they would have done so,
> rather than writing only to me.  I will remind them of the
> list, and the fact that they don't have to subscribe to
> post to it.
>
> Every day there are hundreds of very NON-borderline cases,
> outright spam, which I ignore even when my filters don't
> block it.  I used to try to report it, but finally gave
> that up when it consumed nearly *all* my free time, with
> no signs of progress.  (If you've been paying close
> attention to when I've been placing old WSFA Journals
> online, you might have noticed that after I started, in
> April 2000, I went slower and slower, until I put none at
> all online for over a year. That's the year I sacrificed
> nearly all my free time to attempting to save email.
> Finally, I conceded that email was doomed.  I give it
> another two years.  Maybe three at the most.  Then we'll
> have to go back to snail mail.)
> --
> Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net -
> http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my
> e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk
> e-mail (spam) is not acceptable.  Please do not send me
> HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is
> discarded unread.
>