[Dovecot] My "fighting spam" article is live!

Luca Corti luca at leenoox.net
Sun Feb 18 19:14:03 UTC 2007


On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 09:06 -0700, Esther Schindler wrote:
> First: I'd asked for input for this article on the dovecot list. I  
> received several replies from people who answered my question, "what  
> ONE thing do you wish your CIO understood about this subject?" So, at  
> a minimum, my message was written to let people know that the project  
> was complete and that their contributions mattered. (Not to mention  
> that a few of your online friends might have been quoted.) This is  
> called "good manners."

Posting on topic messages to mailing lists is also called good manners.
This is a technical mailing list strictly focused on dovecot. Dovecot
has nothing to do with spam. I'm sure you already know spam is not the
same to everybody. Such a message on the dovecot mailing list is spam
for me.

http://www.dovecot.org/mailinglists.html


> Also, I don't see that the article was irrelevant. It was meant, from  
> the first, to be a document that explained the techie's side of the  
> issue to a manager. If your CIO doesn't need to be told these things,  
> then I'm very happy for you -- but I've already gotten several  
> responses saying that a copy was sent to the boss' office. For many  
> readers, having the boss understand the situation _does_ help an  
> email admin deal with the problem (i.e. the problem of clueless  
> management), so I think it's relevant indeed.

I don't think CIOs read this list or, if they do, expect to be informed
about spam from this list. I'm not questioning the actual contents of
your article.


> Third, I'm rather irritated when I see people use the word "spam" to  
> mean "I'm not interested in this." You could argue that my message  
> was off-topic. (I would disagree, but I'd accept the viewpoint.)  
> However, spam is defined as unsolicited commercial e-mail. A link to  
> an online article is not commercial, especially if there's nothing at  
> that site for you to buy.

People subscribed to this list are interested in dovecot related topics.
I'm really interested in understanding how your message may be
considered on topic here. Your message is mostly advertising your
article, on a topic not relevant to the list. If you wanted to inform
peers about your project status you could have at least tagged your
message OT or even better sent a message directly to them.

Honestly I'm rather irritated by your attitude.



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