Fascism is coming to Internet

[Steve Holden]

That seems to miss the point to some extent. If I post my recipe for
spinach lasagne here, is that spam? I don't think many people would call
it spam, just an off-topic post. From my POV, spam is defined a bit more
narrowly.

Spam is, at least from my point of view, UCE: unsolicited commercial
e-mail. So anything that isn't commercial (like those "send these to ten
of your friends" emails) isn't spam (but it might just as well be).

regards
Steve

 

[Arnaud Delobelle]

That seems to miss the point to some extent. If I post my recipe for
spinach lasagne here, is that spam?

Are they really good? Sounds good, spinach lasagne, I don't know a
recipe for them. Maybe you could post it as Python code, with a lot of
nested if-then-else clauses, of course

 

[Aahz]

Spam is, at least from my point of view, UCE: unsolicited commercial
e-mail. So anything that isn't commercial (like those "send these to ten
of your friends" emails) isn't spam (but it might just as well be).

That's roughly correct, but I also think that if someone posts the same
message to five mailing lists, it's not unreasonable to call that
spamming.
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote
productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are
precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer

 

[Aahz]

Non sequitur. Spam is spam, not by who authors or posts it, but by its
distribution (to many people, e.g. via a forum like this one) and its
content (off-topic and unsolicited).

The message is important, its poster is a regular here; that doesn't
stop the message being spam when posted here.

Moreover, by your definition, your post above counts as spam.
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote
productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are
precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer

 

[Neil Hodgson]

Steve Holden:

Spam is, at least from my point of view, UCE: unsolicited commercial
e-mail.

Spam is more commonly defined as UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email) of
which UCE is a large subset. Its just as much spam if its pushing a
political party or charity even though there may be no commercial
advantage to the poster.

Neil

 

[Steve Holden]

Steve Holden:


Spam is more commonly defined as UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email) of
which UCE is a large subset. Its just as much spam if its pushing a
political party or charity even though there may be no commercial
advantage to the poster.

From my point of view that's a far better definition. Thanks.

regards
Steve

 

[Robert Kern]

That's roughly correct, but I also think that if someone posts the same
message to five mailing lists, it's not unreasonable to call that
spamming.

This accords with my understanding of the term and, it appears, that of Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup_spam

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Aahz]

No. Again, as several others have pointed out, discussions about how the
forum should operate (meta-discussions, if you like) are on-topic in the
forum.

We already agreed that the original post was not appropriate for c.l.py;
further discussion about the precise term for describing that post is
off-topic. Therefore, by your definition, your post is spam. My point
is that c.l.py is somewhat tolerant of off-topic posts, and generally
people who contribute to the newsgroup are more likely to get a pass on
off-topic posts.
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote
productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are
precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer

 

[Robert Kern]

That excludes things like the religious screeds, or any other one-way
"get this message in front of as many eyeballs as possible" message.

Spam is better defined as unsolicited bulk messaging. Whether it's
commercial in nature is irrelevant. The content is relevant only in that
it's unsolicited by the vast majority of its many recipients.

That said, in the context of USENET or mailing lists, a single off-topic post to
a single group/list from a regular contributor is not usually considered "bulk
messaging" or "spam". There is already a perfectly fine word for that:
"off-topic". Only when it gets cross-posted excessively or repeated verbatim
indiscriminately does it usually get designated spam.

I think there is an important distinction to be made between isolated off-topic
messages and spam. It's not just about finding commonly agreed meanings of terms
in aid of clear communication. There is a substantive difference. The repetitive
nature of spam dictates what you can do about it. With spam, you can killfile
people, or filter out certain hosts, or use statistical filters, or require
registration or first-post moderation, etc. With the occasional off-topic post
from a regular, you ask them not to do it again and subject them to unending
threads about what spam is or isn't.

But you only break out the comfy chair for the very worst of the offenders.

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Spam is better defined as unsolicited bulk messaging. Whether it's
commercial in nature is irrelevant. The content is relevant only in that
it's unsolicited by the vast majority of its many recipients.

Not quite.

I've read tens of thousands of messages to comp.lang.python, and
solicited perhaps some hundreds. Are all the rest spam? I should say not!
I haven't solicited them: at no point did I say, explicitly or
implicitly, "Hey strangers all over the world, send me messages asking
questions about Python" but I do welcome them.

(In fact, I'd be annoyed if everyone started sending the questions to me
personally instead of to the list.)

I think it is foolish to try to create a water-tight definition of
"spam". It is clearly a fuzzy concept, which means sometimes right-
thinking people can have legitimate disagreements as to whether or not
something is "spam".

For example, I happen to think that the OP's message about Fascism is off-
topic but not spam. I think Joan is guilty of a breach of etiquette for
failing to label it [OT] in the subject line, and she should have
directed replies to a more appropriate forum (a mailing list, another
newsgroup, a web forum, anywhere but here). But in my opinion, it didn't
cross the line into spam. I wouldn't be the slightest bit tempted to
killfile her, or flag the message as spam, in my mail/news client.

If other people feel differently, well, that's your personal choice. But
please don't try to tell me that *my* line between spam and ham is wrong,
and that *yours* is the only correct one.

(That last response is aimed at a generic You, not Ben specifically.
Stupid English language, why can't we have a word for generic you?)

 

[Steve Holden]

Spam is better defined as unsolicited bulk messaging. Whether it's
commercial in nature is irrelevant. The content is relevant only in that
it's unsolicited by the vast majority of its many recipients.

Not quite.

I've read tens of thousands of messages to comp.lang.python, and
solicited perhaps some hundreds. Are all the rest spam? I should say not!
I haven't solicited them: at no point did I say, explicitly or
implicitly, "Hey strangers all over the world, send me messages asking
questions about Python" but I do welcome them.

(In fact, I'd be annoyed if everyone started sending the questions to me
personally instead of to the list.)

I think it is foolish to try to create a water-tight definition of
"spam". It is clearly a fuzzy concept, which means sometimes right-
thinking people can have legitimate disagreements as to whether or not
something is "spam".

For example, I happen to think that the OP's message about Fascism is off-
topic but not spam. I think Joan is guilty of a breach of etiquette for
failing to label it [OT] in the subject line, and she should have
directed replies to a more appropriate forum (a mailing list, another
newsgroup, a web forum, anywhere but here). But in my opinion, it didn't
cross the line into spam. I wouldn't be the slightest bit tempted to
killfile her, or flag the message as spam, in my mail/news client.

If other people feel differently, well, that's your personal choice. But
please don't try to tell me that *my* line between spam and ham is wrong,
and that *yours* is the only correct one.

(That last response is aimed at a generic You, not Ben specifically.
Stupid English language, why can't we have a word for generic you?)

That's why SpamBayes allows per-user training.

regards
Steve

 

[Arnaud Delobelle]

(That last response is aimed at a generic You, not Ben specifically.
Stupid English language, why can't we have a word for generic you?)

I thought the word was "one".

 

[Emile van Sebille]

On 2/24/2010 1:52 PM Arnaud Delobelle said...

Are they really good? Sounds good, spinach lasagne, I don't know a
recipe for them. Maybe you could post it as Python code, with a lot of
nested if-then-else clauses, of course

+1 for Aahz posting his Spinach Lasagne recipe.

Emile

 

[Aahz]

On 2/24/2010 1:52 PM Arnaud Delobelle said...

+1 for Aahz posting his Spinach Lasagne recipe.

Sorry, I lied. ;-) I don't actually have a spinach lasagne recipe.
I've got lots of others on my personal website at http://rule6.info/
(including one for Catalan Spinach).
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote
productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are
precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer