Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
the bottom line is that any message that a human
receiver does not want - does not consent to, is
considering spam according to that person.
I don't buy it. Such a definition erases the distinctions
between different kinds of unwanted messages and in so doing removes
from discussion what may be useful information.
It may be "politically correct" to say that all unwanted mail is
spam, however, I strongly believe that taking such a fundamentalist
position is not conducive to the normally objective process of design.
If you force all "unwanted messages" into the single category of
"spam" then you have either ignored existing distinctions or you have
just declared "spam" to be synonymous with "unwanted message". Thus,
your definition: "spam is any unwanted message" is simply a tautology.
i.e. "Spam is Spam".
No, this is no more of a tautology than to say "Fish are aquatic creatures
with fins". You may say that "Fish are scaly creatures with swim-bladders
and spots", in which case we have somewhat different definitions (one a
subset of the other). That's all.
The purpose of the group is to discuss the problem of "consent-based
communication". For these purposes people often use "spam" as a convenient
sorthand for "communication without consent". If you get rid of this "spam"
then your kind of spam will cease to be a problem.
To use a broad definition of the kind of message we're interested in
stopping DOES NOT make it impossible to talk about subclasses, anymore than
defining Mammals removes our ability to talk about Cats.
But it's a silly argument anyway...
--
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