I've been spammed!

["Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com>]

Who among us hasn't, of course, and many of us learn to munge our email
addresses 9at least in the body of our messages), but this is particularly
annoying.

Why? Because the spam--two of them, one each to 2 of the email addresses
I've used in this group--from a company within our industry. I have such a
strong desire to out-and-out name the company and advocate that no one use
or buy their product. But unless Eric himself were to say it's OK, I'll keep
the company's name out of public posts.

I don't mind getting at least one postcard a month from that Very Big Help
Tool Vendor (that just got bought by a bigger software company), although
they're (a) preaching to the converted and (b) sending them to places where
I no longer work. But spam from within the TECHWR-L industry deserves
blackballing.

And the thing is, it's not that hard to get the email addresses of people
who post to this list. YOu have to post from an unmunged subscribed address,
and once the post gets to the outside world (bit.listserv.techwr-l), there
are plenty of email address scrapers that work on news servers. (It's how
many people were inundated with the Klez virus last year.)

And I know I have never had any business relationship with this company,
whcih is not a U.S. company. I did check out their web site and looked at
the history of the company officers. (I also noted two significant usability
problems right off the bat: that the site requires a plug in for some of its
content and that it quotes prices in a non-U.S. currency.)

I wonder: is it that much cheaper to scrape up a list of email addresses of
posters here and spam them than it is to buy an ad to support the list?
Isn't it better to make people (especially Eric) happy than to p*** them
off?

Part of my annoyance, too, is that the emails are nicely enough worded and
without the typical hype and tricks that Spam Assassin didn't flag them as
spam.

Not that it'll make any difference, but who knows, maybe someone will
realize that you shouldn't send spam to someone who's spent the whole day
writing a documentation plan instead of writing documentation.

-- 
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net      www.writeforyou.com

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day
may come when the courage of Men fail,  when we forsake our friends and
break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! This day, we fight!"
                    - Aragorn

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
                    - Gandalf