SPAM (Re: EMUSIC Playlist)

[JDMcEachin]

At 08:50 PM 6/6/97 GMT, brad at mechanica.com wrote:
>wbf at aloft.micro.lucent.com (William_B_Fox) was saying...
>
>>About every other week, I receive a request to be removed from the
>>EMUSIC Playlist distribution list.  Unfortunately, I can't honor those
>>requests individually for people who get my playlists via one of these
>>email list services:
>>	new-age-radio	space-music	synth-l
>>	emusic-l	analog heaven	ambient
>>	mirage		synth-diy	sgroup
>>	xpansions	vectory
>
>Question: Why not simply add these names to your OWN mailing list? All
>it takes is a simple audit request of the mailing list. It's perfectly
>simple; I know,' cause the (other) spammers seem to have no problem
>doing so.

>Then, you COULD honor these requests. Problem solved, and there'd be
>no need for these bi-monthly apologies.

Exactly.


>>  You might want to know that I'm not just spamming
>>a bunch of lists.  I've targeted lists where there is not only a high
>>probability of space music fans being on the lists, but a high
>>probability of space artists being on these lists....

>Every spam in my mailbox begins and/or ends with words to this effect.
>"Your name was chosen from a list of people who have shown an interest
>in the following..."
>
>Spam is spam. 

Yup. Spam Spam Spam SPam Spam Spam Spam Spam Baked Beans and SPAM!


Mr Fox wrote:

>>1.  bring musicians who are in the listening area out of hiding

Add a simple one line sig to any REAL contributions you can make to the
list, for instance:

"In the WDIY listening area?  Email me for details about my weekly
electronic music show."

This will cut down on your current glut of non-contributions.  Let's face
it, your radio playlist doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the Mirage,
Xpander, Prophet VS, or even DIY lists (or are you going to tell me that you
can GUARANTEE that a Mirage, Xpander, VS, and homebuilt synth are used on at
least one track of each of your shows?).


>>2.  inform my list friends what I'm up to
>
>You're pushing the envelope with the "friends" part; one sure way to
>AVOID making friends is to regularly spam mailing lists.

I have no problem letting my friends know what I'm up to w/o spamming 11
maillists.


>>3.  promote space music on lists having members who are most likely to
>>    be listening to or even making space music.

See the sig suggestion above.  Given the exceedingly small percentage of
listmembers in your listening area, you're promoting the premature failure
of a lot of delete keys at present.


>Unless you can include realaudio files (and supply me a cheap ISDN
>line) your playlist does no such thing. It is SELF promotion, pure and
>simple.
>
>>4.  I'm letting artists know that there is an outlet for their music.
>
>If you'd audit the mailing lists every week you could simply spam the
>NEW members of these distribution lists. Those that were interested
>could inquire, and those that weren't could tap the "delete" key ONCE,
>without being pestered every week. 

But this would require effort on Mr. Fox's part.


>>5.  I'm letting space music fans know about artists and CDs of which they
>>    may otherwise be unaware.
>
>See my response to (3), above.

See sig suggestion.


>>6.  I'm encouraging would be artists to release product.

Huh?

>I hardly see how. When will "you people" learn that SPAM is a bad, BAD
>thing? At best it's a mild annoyance - at worse it drives people AWAY
>(as it has done me). If I were a campaign worker, the first thing I'd
>do is get a list of email addresses of my competitors supporters, and
>start spamming away with "friendly words" FROM my competitor. That'd
>be SURE to drive many of'em into my camp - or at least AWAY from my
>opponents.

My sentiments exzctly.  You're making more enemies than friends, dude.


>>I hope that you see these as positive things and that you'll be able to
>>tolerate seeing my playlists once a week.  Thank you for your kind
>>indulgence.

Frankly, I'm sick and damn tired of deleting six copies of the same message
every week.  (that's down from eight at one time - I've been on an
UNSUBSCRIBE spree).

JDM