Earlier today I sent out an email to our mail-list. I get a few unsubscribe requests, but they measure in the 1% of the list range. Usually no big deal. You can almost always count on someone who will write a 5 page report on spam and copy your mother, your network provider, upstream providers, the President and even your neighbor with their own "spam" reply.
Today was more interesting though. One member here who shall go nameless for the time being, I am still considering whether turning this into the authorities, but he responded with, "Send me mail again and I will personally come over there with a goddamn shotgun."
I will give the guy some credit here. He did follow the listserv instructions on removing himself and when he went to confirm the system rejected it, and thus his response above. What he didn't know is I had already saw a previous "bounce notice" from his email account and had already deleted his email from the list, which is why the system didn't accept his confirmation code.
However, all good intentions aside, his response should not be excused.
Here is my talking point here. The number of spam messages from "lists" vs those coming from legit lists like ours that users actually subscribe too and our system is a listserv which you can actually unsubscribe from can be overwhelming. It is hard to know who to take seriously. As a "savvy" internet user I know that systems which run on mail-list servers are usually automated and legit in the fact that when you unsubscribe, you really are unsubscribed.
Recently I took steps to make sure that people really want to be on the list. Before, it was just a checkbox as for the registration process built into this board. Plus, to get off the list, you had to log in, and to the control panel and unchecked the box and it wasn't the easiest. So, I migrated everyone over to the new listserv. All new registered users are asked via email to not only confirm their email address for registration to the board, but also a second email to confirm if they want to the join the mail-list. A pure opt-in type system that our Spam-Filters like SpamCop endorse and who's filters we run on our own server to filter out all the spam we get.
I feel like I sit on the middle of the fence. A) I understand that SPAM is evil, I hate it. I get probably 100+ emails a day in my personal email box that are spams. Thankfully, SpamAssassin catches most of them, a few it doesn't. That is where SpamCop and other RBL type lists come in and all work like an orchestra to filter out the spam.
However, I can not tell you the number of times I have sent out legitimate emails and not only do I get turned into spamcop, but then I get emails from my hosting provider, and my grandma on "here is this guys spam response". I mean... do some people have too much time on their hands, they just enjoy sending hateful, nasty messages to people. Are they so blinded by the amount of spam that they really don't take time to consider... "Hell, I registered as a user on that site and you know what... maybe I should talk to them about removing my name before I send out my evil phrases?"
In my experience, it is the people who are on these missions to destroy the spammer, are the exact same people who can't follow a simple direction as to "unsubscribe" from a legit email-list.
I hate spam, but more than that, I hate people who spam 5 people with 3 pages of BS for each spam they get. Yea... spam sucks. But don't bother grandma, my neighbor and all the mail hop owners along the way.
Today was more interesting though. One member here who shall go nameless for the time being, I am still considering whether turning this into the authorities, but he responded with, "Send me mail again and I will personally come over there with a goddamn shotgun."
I will give the guy some credit here. He did follow the listserv instructions on removing himself and when he went to confirm the system rejected it, and thus his response above. What he didn't know is I had already saw a previous "bounce notice" from his email account and had already deleted his email from the list, which is why the system didn't accept his confirmation code.
However, all good intentions aside, his response should not be excused.
Here is my talking point here. The number of spam messages from "lists" vs those coming from legit lists like ours that users actually subscribe too and our system is a listserv which you can actually unsubscribe from can be overwhelming. It is hard to know who to take seriously. As a "savvy" internet user I know that systems which run on mail-list servers are usually automated and legit in the fact that when you unsubscribe, you really are unsubscribed.
Recently I took steps to make sure that people really want to be on the list. Before, it was just a checkbox as for the registration process built into this board. Plus, to get off the list, you had to log in, and to the control panel and unchecked the box and it wasn't the easiest. So, I migrated everyone over to the new listserv. All new registered users are asked via email to not only confirm their email address for registration to the board, but also a second email to confirm if they want to the join the mail-list. A pure opt-in type system that our Spam-Filters like SpamCop endorse and who's filters we run on our own server to filter out all the spam we get.
I feel like I sit on the middle of the fence. A) I understand that SPAM is evil, I hate it. I get probably 100+ emails a day in my personal email box that are spams. Thankfully, SpamAssassin catches most of them, a few it doesn't. That is where SpamCop and other RBL type lists come in and all work like an orchestra to filter out the spam.
However, I can not tell you the number of times I have sent out legitimate emails and not only do I get turned into spamcop, but then I get emails from my hosting provider, and my grandma on "here is this guys spam response". I mean... do some people have too much time on their hands, they just enjoy sending hateful, nasty messages to people. Are they so blinded by the amount of spam that they really don't take time to consider... "Hell, I registered as a user on that site and you know what... maybe I should talk to them about removing my name before I send out my evil phrases?"
In my experience, it is the people who are on these missions to destroy the spammer, are the exact same people who can't follow a simple direction as to "unsubscribe" from a legit email-list.
I hate spam, but more than that, I hate people who spam 5 people with 3 pages of BS for each spam they get. Yea... spam sucks. But don't bother grandma, my neighbor and all the mail hop owners along the way.
