asrg(_at_)bobf(_dot_)frankston(_dot_)com wrote:
This list is, in my definition, spam.
It is effectively spam because the email system and tools makes it too
difficult to manage and work with the messages.
You have somewhat of a point here. Most mail readers are abysmally bad
at handling high volumes. It's instructive, for example, to look at how
some of the better/more powerful Usenet newsreaders (eg: trn/gnus, _not_
netscape or IE. I'm sufficiently unfamiliar with other Windows-based
Usenet newsreaders to venture an opinion. Maybe "Agent" fits the bill)
allow one to handle considerably higher volumes than this list is.
Indeed, many people gateway mailing lists to local news servers simply
because the reader tools are better for high volume. I do that with
many of the mailing lists I receive.
It works well.
However, this only makes the flow of gunk marginally less obnoxious.
Finding the signal in the noise is less difficult, but still difficult.
Usenet spam was a problem before Email spam was (and some blame me for
the existance of email by forcing Jef Slaton off Usenet... :-(. And
secondly, this doesn't address the "overwhelming flood" doomsday
scenarios represented by Striker or our spamtraps.
So, as such, changing mail reader metaphors would indeed be a short-term
fix (and not a fix at all for some scenarios), not a long-term one. We
have to recognize that spam volumes are indeed threatening the Internet
infrastructure, and a long-term that doesn't include reducing volume
means total failure.
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