RE: [Asrg] criteria for spam V2

> From: Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>

> Something which keeps coming up in these definitional attempts is that
> we seem to go around and around spam as being a personal and/or group
> experience.
>
> "Bulk" is a group experience, I only know it is "bulk" because a lot
> of other people received it. When I look at one msg on the screen I
> have no idea if anyone else received it.

Bulk is a group thing, but the last sentence of that paragraph is not
right.  Given a single message, you practically always know whether
it was bulk.  If it is bulk it will almost always say so in the text
with something about unsubscribing, not being addressed to you properly,
containing "hash busters" in the Subject or body, having obscured
URLs, and so forth.  In the rare cases where the text does indicate
that it is bulk, you can ask a DCC or Vipul's Razor client or Google
on NANAS.  System operators can often detect "bulk" by the flood of
double bounces in a postmaster mailbox and other signs.

> "Unsolicited" is a personal experience. You may've signed up for
> information about body part enlargement, and I haven't, doesn't matter
> if it's bulk, for me it's spam, for you it isn't (using the common
> definitions of this group, forget my more draconian definitions for
> the moment), same msg, same sender.

That is certainly true.

> ...
> I know, dialectic can be tedious; it's more fun to just charge forward
> and begin slaying the dragon. But I think we're rushing headlong into
> semantics and definitions w/o a lot of (disciplined) thought.

I'd phrase that as rushing headlong into the lexicography or even language
invention business without pausing to consider purposes and goals.

Vernon Schryver    vjs@rhyolite.com
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