Deadly Dunc and other victims

[Sean Casey]

karl at sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:

|In article <1989Oct14.193713.3567 at ginger.acc.com> pst at anise.acc.com (Paul Traina) writes:
|>Hrumph!  Some times I wish I hadn't cancelled my alt-sources message
|>destroyer.

[...]

|I recommend email to the author (of the objectionable alt.sources article,
|not Paul) with a few choice comments about how undesirable of a thing it
|is to do what he has done.

First of all, sending a form letter to someone asking them to cancel
their message is an example of hopeless optimism. Most people HATE form
letters, and tend to throw them away, or worse do exactly the opposite
of what they want.

Second, demanding that a user cancel his message is hardly going to win
any sympathy points. If you want to get users to do what you want,
especially those you never see in person, you have to persuade them.
Accusing them of a crime, and demanding to rectify that crime is only
going to piss them off.

Finally, publishing unsolicited received email would hardly break any
laws.  When someone sends you something out of the blue to your post
office box, it's free and yours. That's the law. I suspect that if it
came to a court case exactly the same would be held for an unsolicited
email message. There's plenty of precedent for it.

If you want to cut down the alt.sources chatter, consider using a
little psychology. Instead of a confrontational net.police type
message, consider what might work better. Get inside people's heads just
a little bit. We don't want people getting a gestapo type image of
Usenet. Be gentle. You might be amazed how much better it works.

Sean
-- 
***  Sean Casey          sean at ms.uky.edu, sean at ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean
***  Copyright 1989 by Sean Casey. Only non-profit redistribution permitted.
***  ``So if you weight long enough, you'll get your packets, right?''