On June 6, 2003 at 07:13 vjs(_at_)calcite(_dot_)rhyolite(_dot_)com (Vernon
Schryver) wrote:
"Bulk" is a group experience, I only know it is "bulk" because a lot
of other people received it. When I look at one msg on the screen I
have no idea if anyone else received it.
Bulk is a group thing, but the last sentence of that paragraph is not
right. Given a single message, you practically always know whether
it was bulk.
Replace "know" with "make a pretty good guess" and I'll agree. But
that was my point, you can only guess unless you happen to have access
to other mailboxes or equivalent (logs etc.) or proceed to resources
as you mention to investigate whether this was actually bulk. That it
passes the duck test doesn't really matter.
E.g., I've been hassled in my life by script kiddies running a bunch
of old spam at my mailbox to harass me.
That isn't bulk, but at first it looked like it.
Ok, I'll agree that most mail that looks like bulk probably is and
stop nit-picking, but there's a reason...
What I'm trying to say is that the "bulk" aspect isn't all that
important when you're fuming at yet another herbal viagra ad on your
screen, it's something that happened to you.
You'd have the same exact reaction, most likely, if you were the only
person on the planet who received that message.
So "bulk" is more of a social consciousness observation while
"unsolicited" is a personal observation.
It's like that movie "Spanish Prisoner" I watched the last third of
the other night so might have this slightly wrong.
But the main guy is a victim of a rather intricate Spanish Prisoner
scam (the Nigerian scams are Spanish Prisoner scams), it's gone way
over the edge to the point that he doesn't know who is helping him and
who is scamming him right down to his personal friends etc.
At one point he's trying to get help from an FBI agent who hears some
of his story and looks him square in the eye and says "Made ya feel
bad huh?!" in an icy way.
And it was clear right there what the agent was saying, that the FBI
is NOT in the "made ya feel bad huh?!" business.
And that's where we need to find a line if any of this is going to
succeed.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
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