🚀 go-pugleaf

In can.infohighway, clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) wrote:

=>Obviously you've never tried to do this.

Granted Chris, but seeing as the issue seems to have garnered your
attention I want to get back to the issue that raised my hackles.

That was my original contention that the term 'spam' seems to have
become a generic four letter word for *everything* that admins and
users find distasteful about the internet as well as a number of
related issues.

In 'usenet/netnews' terminology the term 'spam' carries a specific
and defined meaning. Outside of parameter measurement, the
central thrust is that 'spam' has no relationship to message content.

The word is probably the first buzzword that a newbie learns, although
Velvetta, and Jello would no doubt leave them with nothing more
than a desire to go raid the 'fridge.

Yet it now appears that the term is being readily applied to 'e-mail'
in some type of bastardized corruption of meaning that runs totally
contrary to the meaning of the 'usenet/netnews' application
vis a vis 'spam' has no relationship to message content.

I'm sure that most reasonable people agree that while Falks (and by
implication ISC's) motive are solidly based, the approach taken
by the pages referenced in your sigfile leave me questioning whether
the migration of terminology is a 'deliberate' blurring of
distinction.

In one breath spam is identified as cross posting a message to 20
or more newsgroups, and yet mention is made of the Briedbart
formulation with an index level of 20. No matter how you slice it
one post to 20 newsgroups does not near, much less exceed
a BI of 20.

Then it goes off on a tangent intermixing usenet and e-mail abuses.
Now I don't want to get into a debate about where e-mail ends
and usenet begins and how usenet can be considered a form of
e-mail etc. because that horse died after being flogged to death...
several times.

The point I'm trying to make is that it does not serve anyone's
purpose by attempting to form a core of support from not only
people who are being grossly victimized by junk e-mail, but as
well as people who haven't got the brains god gave them to realize
usenet is not e-mail, and that *they, as a user* bear a personal
responsibility to take reasonable steps to identify the issues.

Yes, abuse of the internet is still abuse regardless of the form
that it takes, be it usenet spam or it's derivatives, pornography,
spews, hate sites, junk e-mail or ftp piracy. It transcends purist's
terminology, and is a very real problem.

But as a *news admin* how can you in good conscience not
recognise and clarify that e-mail abuse is not 'spam', particularly
when the issue is being discussed in usenet?

There is a place on the information highway for commercial
business,  private users, and everything in between. Drawing
a line in the sand and painting one side black and the other
white serves little purpose.

Any comments or thoughts?