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Is this spamming and is it right?


rockhead15

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No. It is not spam. Spam involves sending e-mails to lots and lots of people. Posting a note on a cache page is not spam. It does seem, however, to violate the commercial guidelines. And is very tacky.

'Spam' was originally defined as UCE or Unsolicited Commercial Email. In popular usage the term has expanded to any sort of unsolicited commercial pitch, typically in an area where commercial appeals are not typically used. In my experience it's not unusual for the the term 'spam' to be used in forums and the like for unsolicited appeals.

 

Since this is an unsolicited commercial pitch in an area where commercial pitches are not the norm, it seems perfectly acceptable to call it 'spam'.

 

Spam spam spam. I disagree. From what I know, Spam was first invented on Usenet by immigration lawyers. And it had nothing to do with email. That's OK though, Geocaching was invented on Usenet. And that one I'm sure of. :)

 

I was a pretty active participant on usenet when that incident was going around. I also participated in a group that also included Seth Briedbart (and have met him IRL several times), the creator of the Briedbart Spam Index, a formula used to produce a tool that was used to cancel articles on usenet.

 

Spam did predate the Canter/Siegel incident. I recall quite an uproar about one of the first ISPs (portal.com) automatically including their contact information in the footer of every usenet posting that was made from their servers). Canter/Siegel didn't just spam, but made an aggressive campaign to justify and encourage spamming on usenet.

 

Interesting. I had dabbled in Usenet back then, but don't really remember their spam. But lots of people referenced it in the next few years after that. I believe the "University Diploma" spammer was most prevalent when I started to spend (too much) time on Usenet, probably 1996 or so. And I fondly remember the day there was absolutely no such thing as email spam, back when my email address was like a 15 digit number on Compuserve. :wub:

 

But I see Eartha has weighed in. If Eartha thinks it's inappropriate, then it's inappropriate. I agree with the Gofster, no need to pile on the coin owner, who obviously made a bad choice.

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Whether we can technically call it spam or not, it's still pretty messed up. I'm curious to see what TPTB decide to do in regards to this, not because I want to see anyone punished, but because I'm curious about their views in regards to this sort of thing, so I would know how to react should I see something like this in the future.

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It's spam.

 

By the way, they also posted it on a number of Alabama events.

 

I submitted this to TPTB through the "submit issue" form. It vanished, I submitted it again, it vanished again. No note saying "thanks, we're on it," or "we already know about it." Which is a little irritating to say the least.

 

The offenders should know better. They've been at this for five years, they have over 8,000 finds. And they are apparently pretty unapologetic about it. Maybe folks should just wait until they host their next event, then start posting notes for Amway, Herbalife, etc...

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It's spam.

 

By the way, they also posted it on a number of Alabama events.

 

I submitted this to TPTB through the "submit issue" form. It vanished, I submitted it again, it vanished again. No note saying "thanks, we're on it," or "we already know about it." Which is a little irritating to say the least.

 

The offenders should know better. They've been at this for five years, they have over 8,000 finds. And they are apparently pretty unapologetic about it. Maybe folks should just wait until they host their next event, then start posting notes for Amway, Herbalife, etc...

 

I submitted to TPTB and only response was "were looking into it" and there have been no additional updates (or changes to the account that are publically visible)

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The same note was posted on GeoWoodstock and many southeast events I checked including my own. I deleted it and didn't hear anything from them. One of the coins was not dipped into my event, just the posted note.

 

Yeah, I thought I'd seen it on the lunch event, too. Goo, I'm not as crazy as I thought I was... :ph34r:

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First, as a computer tech, "spam" as a computer term is evolving, and generally means a "junk" or "unwanted" message from someone selling or advertising something, regardless of how or where the message is sent.

 

No longer does it just mean "unsolicited mass emails"... nowadays it can mean junk IM messages on a messenger (I usually get 2 or 3 per day on yahoo messenger), it can be messages on a social site (facebook, myspace) that involves junk messages like posted here, it can be that friend on facebook who posts something new every half hour (usually the drama queens), even paper based real mail that you get in your mailbox/POBox is being called and considered spam now.

 

It can be someone peddling their product, no matter how legit it is, the fact they resort to posting it or sending the message to lots of people they do not know simply makes it spam.

 

Second, to me it sounds like someone has the means to make the coins but is just going about selling them in the wrong manner. It sounds like someone told them to try selling them online and the sellers were never given a "netiquite" lesson on how to properly do that.

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