I am no different than most people that don't like SPAM but find no difficulty in deleting it quickly. I can't help but wonder however if we would still have access to the many wonderful FREE sites and SERVICES if there was no SPAM. In addition to what amount we are paying for our various ISP's would you be willing to pay additional sums to access sites that you now access for free?
:-2
In Defense of Spam
In Defense of Spam
SPAM in the work place has a dramatic effect on servers it sucks the life out of them I hate SPAM and have no use for it. We pay good money to have it blocked daily and were talking hundreds of SPAM email daily to everyone on the staff awful stuff.
ALOHA!!
MOTTO TO LIVE BY:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming.
WOO HOO!!, what a ride!!!"
MOTTO TO LIVE BY:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming.
WOO HOO!!, what a ride!!!"
In Defense of Spam
SPAM, fried, and served with eggs and grits, is wonderful.
Seriously,
Our servers filter out most of the junk. Every now and again something will get through, but our IT group is pretty good.
Seriously,
Our servers filter out most of the junk. Every now and again something will get through, but our IT group is pretty good.
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
- DH Lawrence
- DH Lawrence
In Defense of Spam
I think the definition of SPAM might be a tad ambiguous.
I fail to see any real socially redeeming value to most of what I classify as spam.
As I see it, SPAM is the unsolicited emails and posts on chat forums and such proclaiming some basically useless web site, or sent out to snare the unwary and scam them out of their money.
There is little real monetary support for the internet as a whole from SPAM. The real commercial value of the internet is being realized by the consumers, and those pursuing honest services and merchandise sales.
Trivia question:
What was the first "official" Spam message?
I fail to see any real socially redeeming value to most of what I classify as spam.
As I see it, SPAM is the unsolicited emails and posts on chat forums and such proclaiming some basically useless web site, or sent out to snare the unwary and scam them out of their money.
There is little real monetary support for the internet as a whole from SPAM. The real commercial value of the internet is being realized by the consumers, and those pursuing honest services and merchandise sales.
Trivia question:
What was the first "official" Spam message?
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
- DH Lawrence
- DH Lawrence
In Defense of Spam
It's the email version of cold call telemarketing. Are you also thankful when someone phones your home or, even worse, cell phone to sell you something you've never heard of and don't want? At least the home phone calls don't suck any free minutes on a billing plan.
In Defense of Spam
LarsMac;1348679 wrote: I think the definition of SPAM might be a tad ambiguous.
I fail to see any real socially redeeming value to most of what I classify as spam.
As I see it, SPAM is the unsolicited emails and posts on chat forums and such proclaiming some basically useless web site, or sent out to snare the unwary and scam them out of their money.
There is little real monetary support for the internet as a whole from SPAM. The real commercial value of the internet is being realized by the consumers, and those pursuing honest services and merchandise sales.
Trivia question:
What was the first "official" Spam message?
Earliest I could find:wah:
I fail to see any real socially redeeming value to most of what I classify as spam.
As I see it, SPAM is the unsolicited emails and posts on chat forums and such proclaiming some basically useless web site, or sent out to snare the unwary and scam them out of their money.
There is little real monetary support for the internet as a whole from SPAM. The real commercial value of the internet is being realized by the consumers, and those pursuing honest services and merchandise sales.
Trivia question:
What was the first "official" Spam message?
Earliest I could find:wah:
In Defense of Spam
YZGI;1348714 wrote: Earliest I could find:wah:
I shoulda been more specific, but I can go with that.
I shoulda been more specific, but I can go with that.
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
- DH Lawrence
- DH Lawrence
-
FG-administator
- Posts: 957
- Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:35 pm
In Defense of Spam
The thread's talking about spam by way of emails.
May I stretch it slightly and include spam by way of posts on ForumGarden? Because it's been put to me that some of it, while definitely advertising without invitation, has a role to play in the modern marketplace. And that perhaps we ought not stifle it to the absolute extent we currently do.
There's a scale of spam on a site like this.
At one end there's teams of people using robot programs. The program finds forums and queues them, it works its way into the registration screen and fills in all the fields it can, it then hands over to a piecework employee who types past CAPCHA graphics at ten cents each, and then another employee confirms the subscription for another ten cents each. Finally, a completely different employee is given a list of valid account names and passwords and uses a robot to log in and upload adverts by the thousand, two or three per site. Most sites leave it there because they're not bothered, or they're not watching, or they're not active. And then Google indexes the spam and people get it fed to them for years.
I don't like that sort, and that's a lot of what we get. I think it's easy to recognize. I think we should clean it off the Internet as a civic duty. On the other hand, doing that may well reduce the number of ten cents handed out to people at the very bottom of the pecking order, and that accumulated money might mean a lot to them. So I don't have an absolute view.
We also get real people trying to publicize their own budding businesses. I don't think that's spam at all, though if they did it by email it definitely would be.
Does anyone have a view?
May I stretch it slightly and include spam by way of posts on ForumGarden? Because it's been put to me that some of it, while definitely advertising without invitation, has a role to play in the modern marketplace. And that perhaps we ought not stifle it to the absolute extent we currently do.
There's a scale of spam on a site like this.
At one end there's teams of people using robot programs. The program finds forums and queues them, it works its way into the registration screen and fills in all the fields it can, it then hands over to a piecework employee who types past CAPCHA graphics at ten cents each, and then another employee confirms the subscription for another ten cents each. Finally, a completely different employee is given a list of valid account names and passwords and uses a robot to log in and upload adverts by the thousand, two or three per site. Most sites leave it there because they're not bothered, or they're not watching, or they're not active. And then Google indexes the spam and people get it fed to them for years.
I don't like that sort, and that's a lot of what we get. I think it's easy to recognize. I think we should clean it off the Internet as a civic duty. On the other hand, doing that may well reduce the number of ten cents handed out to people at the very bottom of the pecking order, and that accumulated money might mean a lot to them. So I don't have an absolute view.
We also get real people trying to publicize their own budding businesses. I don't think that's spam at all, though if they did it by email it definitely would be.
Does anyone have a view?
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Who has a spare two minutes a day to play in this month's FG Trivia game!
Your satisfactory is our goals
In Defense of Spam
FG;1348734 wrote: The thread's talking about spam by way of emails.
May I stretch it slightly and include spam by way of posts on ForumGarden? Because it's been put to me that some of it, while definitely advertising without invitation, has a role to play in the modern marketplace. And that perhaps we ought not stifle it to the absolute extent we currently do.
There's a scale of spam on a site like this.
At one end there's teams of people using robot programs. The program finds forums and queues them, it works its way into the registration screen and fills in all the fields it can, it then hands over to a piecework employee who types past CAPCHA graphics at ten cents each, and then another employee confirms the subscription for another ten cents each. Finally, a completely different employee is given a list of valid account names and passwords and uses a robot to log in and upload adverts by the thousand, two or three per site. Most sites leave it there because they're not bothered, or they're not watching, or they're not active. And then Google indexes the spam and people get it fed to them for years.
I don't like that sort, and that's a lot of what we get. I think it's easy to recognize. I think we should clean it off the Internet as a civic duty. On the other hand, doing that may well reduce the number of ten cents handed out to people at the very bottom of the pecking order, and that accumulated money might mean a lot to them. So I don't have an absolute view.
We also get real people trying to publicize their own budding businesses. I don't think that's spam at all, though if they did it by email it definitely would be.
Does anyone have a view?
Yeah. Tough nuts.
If someone is operating at that level, they would also have mechanisms in place to tell them if the ten center had done their part. So it shouldn't matter if we kill it or not.
We have a freebies section. If anyone takes the time to look, they already have a place to put coupons and discount items.
It's rude and intrusive to come in here and throw their crap onto old posts that members had put effort into to.
May I stretch it slightly and include spam by way of posts on ForumGarden? Because it's been put to me that some of it, while definitely advertising without invitation, has a role to play in the modern marketplace. And that perhaps we ought not stifle it to the absolute extent we currently do.
There's a scale of spam on a site like this.
At one end there's teams of people using robot programs. The program finds forums and queues them, it works its way into the registration screen and fills in all the fields it can, it then hands over to a piecework employee who types past CAPCHA graphics at ten cents each, and then another employee confirms the subscription for another ten cents each. Finally, a completely different employee is given a list of valid account names and passwords and uses a robot to log in and upload adverts by the thousand, two or three per site. Most sites leave it there because they're not bothered, or they're not watching, or they're not active. And then Google indexes the spam and people get it fed to them for years.
I don't like that sort, and that's a lot of what we get. I think it's easy to recognize. I think we should clean it off the Internet as a civic duty. On the other hand, doing that may well reduce the number of ten cents handed out to people at the very bottom of the pecking order, and that accumulated money might mean a lot to them. So I don't have an absolute view.
We also get real people trying to publicize their own budding businesses. I don't think that's spam at all, though if they did it by email it definitely would be.
Does anyone have a view?
Yeah. Tough nuts.
If someone is operating at that level, they would also have mechanisms in place to tell them if the ten center had done their part. So it shouldn't matter if we kill it or not.
We have a freebies section. If anyone takes the time to look, they already have a place to put coupons and discount items.
It's rude and intrusive to come in here and throw their crap onto old posts that members had put effort into to.
I expressly forbid the use of any of my posts anywhere outside of FG (with the exception of the incredibly witty 'get a room already' )posted recently.
Folks who'd like to copy my intellectual work should expect to pay me for it.:-6
Folks who'd like to copy my intellectual work should expect to pay me for it.:-6
In Defense of Spam
Lon;1348591 wrote: I am no different than most people that don't like SPAM but find no difficulty in deleting it quickly. I can't help but wonder however if we would still have access to the many wonderful FREE sites and SERVICES if there was no SPAM. In addition to what amount we are paying for our various ISP's would you be willing to pay additional sums to access sites that you now access for free?
:-2I'll tell you what I reckon, Lon. I reckon there's no beneficial free sites and services which have gained any business by way of spam, though a lot of them rely on email to subscribers. There's two sorts of subscriber, the really proper opt-in one who asked to be on the distribution list and the didn't-opt-out one who said yes to third party recommendations on an unrelated site. Those didn't-opt-out subscriptions are below the belt in my opinion.
:-2I'll tell you what I reckon, Lon. I reckon there's no beneficial free sites and services which have gained any business by way of spam, though a lot of them rely on email to subscribers. There's two sorts of subscriber, the really proper opt-in one who asked to be on the distribution list and the didn't-opt-out one who said yes to third party recommendations on an unrelated site. Those didn't-opt-out subscriptions are below the belt in my opinion.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left. ... Hold no regard for unsupported opinion.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious. [Fred Wedlock, "The Folker"]
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious. [Fred Wedlock, "The Folker"]
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
In Defense of Spam
Forgive me for going off topic but are FG and Spot twins? Actually, I've always liked Spam, more when it's fried than just out of the can. And I don't mind it in my Inbox either. Makes it look like I've got lots of messages.
In Defense of Spam
I read that of the 90 billion or so emails a day, over 90% of it is SPAM. It's like a cancer...and it's killing the body!
In Defense of Spam
Well firstly, to answer my own trivia question, which actually speaks to FG's post, the first "official" SPAM on record was a post to the USENET newsgroups (early form of discussion forums, for you young netizens) advertising for a law firm (Cantor and Siegel, Houston TX) who offered assistance for hopeful immigrants to the US to help them acquire green cards (the famous "Green Card Lottery Scam" of 1994).
After that episode, the signal to noise ratio on the USENET groups became astronomical as many more budding entrepreneurs tried their hand with it.
As the Web and Email evolved, SPAM evolved with it.
What we see on the forums these days is an evolutionary step from those early days on USENET.
Forums like these sprung up from the old bulletin boards, which generally tried to isolate their members from such nefarious uses of the public arena.
Thanks to the diligence of the manager and mods on this forum, such SPAM seems relatively rare to the casual member.
After that episode, the signal to noise ratio on the USENET groups became astronomical as many more budding entrepreneurs tried their hand with it.
As the Web and Email evolved, SPAM evolved with it.
What we see on the forums these days is an evolutionary step from those early days on USENET.
Forums like these sprung up from the old bulletin boards, which generally tried to isolate their members from such nefarious uses of the public arena.
Thanks to the diligence of the manager and mods on this forum, such SPAM seems relatively rare to the casual member.
The home of the soul is the Open Road.
- DH Lawrence
- DH Lawrence
-
FG-administator
- Posts: 957
- Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2010 10:35 pm
In Defense of Spam
LarsMac;1348777 wrote: advertising for a law firm (Cantor and Siegel, Houston TX) who offered assistance for hopeful immigrants to the US to help them acquire green cards (the famous "Green Card Lottery Scam" of 1994).I vividly remember the day it arrived, and the explosive outrage of Usenet at the very notion. It echoed all month and by then others were doing the same, it was Armageddon. Kibo was one thing but naked raw advertising was a whole other problem.
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Who has a spare two minutes a day to play in this month's FG Trivia game!
Your satisfactory is our goals
In Defense of Spam
email spam and forum spam are different creatures.
I've always equated email spam to telemarketers. Both continue for the likely reason that they get results.
I've always equated forum spam with an attempt to trick search engines.
I've always equated email spam to telemarketers. Both continue for the likely reason that they get results.
I've always equated forum spam with an attempt to trick search engines.
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In Defense of Spam
koan;1348785 wrote: I've always equated forum spam with an attempt to trick search engines.That's true, I think, for the majority of it. We do have an identifiable small current of real start-up businesses trying (admittedly in an embarrassing way) to get noticed. And, somewhere in among them, there's the notorious viral marketers.
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Who has a spare two minutes a day to play in this month's FG Trivia game!
Your satisfactory is our goals
In Defense of Spam
It seemed important to not let them use FG in a searchable way to avoid our own site rank being degraded.
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In Defense of Spam
koan;1348789 wrote: It seemed important to not let them use FG in a searchable way to avoid our own site rank being degraded.
That was significant when Google (the only real player in town) was a day or two behind the posters. This year the search result is available within three minutes of the post, we can't react that quickly, if Google's ranking really slapped us for having spam these days then it would have done so. I agree that clearing it up matters but we have time to make a value judgement on whether it's laudable spam or despicable spam.
That was significant when Google (the only real player in town) was a day or two behind the posters. This year the search result is available within three minutes of the post, we can't react that quickly, if Google's ranking really slapped us for having spam these days then it would have done so. I agree that clearing it up matters but we have time to make a value judgement on whether it's laudable spam or despicable spam.
☎|||||||||||
Who has a spare two minutes a day to play in this month's FG Trivia game!
Your satisfactory is our goals