David Morris wrote:
Your logic breaks over the fact that you got the message because of who
you both know ... the ietf.org mailing list. It was not unsolicited mail
from a party with which you have no relationship.
Do you not receive messages in your private mailbox from people who read
the ietf list on the web? Or, from people who receive an email fwd? Or,
from people who get a hit worth pursuing in a google search? People who
are not themselves in the ietf list and yet send messages to you.
Thus, the fact that this list acts as a trusted introducer to you is not
the reason why I'm replying to you. I don't reply to a lot of the list's
traffic ;-) and I read off ietf_censored ;-)
Of course, I should also care who you know and even who you are. But
these should not be the deciding factors to _block_ email. An unsolicited
mail from a party with which you have no relationship has the potential
to be very important to you... even more important than from a party you
know. The more the surprise, the more the information (Shannon).
Again, the logic is that your message's content was the deciding factor
that made me send this reply to you. That's why I think we need to be
more careful in breaking email more than what it is already.
Cheers,
Ed Gerck