dbigwood@umdars.umd.EDU (Doug Bigwood) (07/26/88)
I get people trying to sell me things at my house, on the telephone, on the street, at the malls, on TV, the radio, etc. I can't really do anything about this (yet) except to be rude to the people who insist on invading my privacy. However, I *REFUSE* to tolerate this type of behavior at work. This includes these recent messages on this list in which the sender is trying to sell a computer, a condo or whatever. To those people: What makes you think you have the right to waste other people's money (in the form of computer resources and the reader's time to read/dispense with the message) to make money for yourselves? [If I partook in name-calling I would do it here.] For those of you who also feel this way and care to do something about I have the following suggestions. 1. Send a copy of the message back to the originator, preferably with a very nasty note as prefatory text. A large number of these should have a chilling effect. 2. Send your own solicitation to the originator. I like to quickly turn down door-to-door salespersons and then make a counter offer; something like used pencils for $5 each. 3. Respond favorably to the ad. even though you have no intention of purchasing. This should tie them up awhile. 4. Send a very long text file to the originator - anything will do. This has the effect of using up resources on originator's machine, but will also use up resources of computers along the path. For this reason it is suggested that this only be used if the advertiser is close by. Let's nip this in the bud. Thanks for listening. Doug Bigwood Lockheed-EMSCO ------
jr@PIZZA.BBN.COM (John Robinson) (07/28/88)
> To those people: What makes you think you have the right to waste other > people's money (in the form of computer resources and the reader's time to > read/dispense with the message) to make money for yourselves? [If I partook > in name-calling I would do it here.] Please please don't. I sent a message yesterday to the affected people (internet list only, [including you, Mr. Bigwood] not comp.emacs) apologizing for what, to me at least, was an obvious mixup in the automatic cross-posting of the usenet news to the internet list, and indicated that I was working on it. The message headers include indications that the messages traversed an automatic crossposting system, including a mailbox to send to if there are questions or problems. I did receive one message from another unix-emacs recipient that correctly guessed the problem. I have already received word that the bogus postings have stopped. The list they came from is called "ne.forsale", so the messages were entirely appropriate to the list where they were originally posted. I will not try to defend the crossposting system, other than to say it has worked extremely well over the last few years. This spring we moved it from Berkeley to BBN (did you notice?) with hardly a hiccup. I had observed that it seemed to refuse to forward mesages from usenet with certain "Distribution: " headers, and asked the maintainer to look into it. Part of the resulting change apparently caused the crossed lists for a few days. I am now confident it is repaired. /jr unix-emacs-request@bbn.com (Arpanet; Domainish) bbn!unix-emacs-request or bbn!jr (Usenet)
rbj@nav.icst.nbs.GOV (Root Boy Jim) (08/09/88)
Winnebagos, condos, houses? Well, they all have kitchen sinks, and after all, that *is* emacs's icon :-) (Root Boy) Jim Cottrell <rbj@icst-cmr.arpa> National Bureau of Standards Flamer's Hotline: (301) 975-5688 The opinions expressed are solely my own and do not reflect NBS policy or agreement Careful with that VAX Eugene!