+Cacheola Crew Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 When I was planning a CITO event, I posted in the regional boards for my area. However, in addition, I looked at local caches and familiar names and sent out "geo-mail" through the geo-cache web site. I was discussing this with another person (NOT one of the people I emailed) and they mentioned that doing something like that might be considered "Spam". What is the proper etiquette for something like this. Since there IS a way to email people without them having to disclose their email, I never thought it could be a problem. I am interested in perhaps starting an email loops for my area's geocachers and can't think of any other way to notify them, except this way, as many do not read the regional forums (especially since we hav Virginia as being in the Northeast) Or should I post an "event" cache with the address of the Yahoo group, etc, if that is the way we decide to go. Just wondering. Would you consider an email from a fellow cacher as spam? Or internet stalking? Janine "You have brains in your head; You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...." Dr. Seuss Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 I don't know to be honest. I've never thought of it that way. I have written back to cachers that have found my virtuals and mentioned the GGA to them. Many have then joined our group. If you want some information regarding starting a group we have a piece on our GGA website. http://www.ggaonline.org/clubdocs.html There are some good suggestions there. We do tell you to email some of the cachers out there. I really don't think that involved cachers would mind it and would want to be a part of the group. Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 I don't consider it to be spam unless I can't stop it, or the sender won't stop sending it. In your case you're sending people something that would in all likelyhood be of interest to them. If you sent it out to thousands of non-geocachers, or if someone asked you to stop and you didn't, that would be spam in my book. What I want to know is who are all these people who think I'd be interested in cheap Viagra (or some substitute), or that I'd be interested in partnering with some strange Nigerian ex-diplomat who wants to deposit millions of dollars in my bank account, if only I'd send them my account number (which BTW, check this out. It's pretty funny to those of us who get a lot of that type of spam). "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day" - Dave Barry Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 I wouldn't consider that SPAM. They after all know when they sign up that they may receive email concerning geocaching. If your email was not soliciting for funds, then I wouldn't worry about. From what I read on your message was that it was letting them know about an upcoming even, correct? It was a one time email and there was not a list purchased to just email a general crowd. These people were targeted specifically for this purpose. I wouldn't worry about it. If someone sends you a reply back to take them off your list or gets offended by it, then apologize to them. Those who get so much garbage spam will be happy to see a legite email. Those who don't get very much and are offended by it, then need to consider themselves lucky...lol Brian Wood Woodsters Outdoors http://www.woodsters.com Quote Link to comment
HJS Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 I don't think it's SPAM. Geocachers already communicate by e-mail, like verification of a virtual or questions about a cache to the owner. On one of my early caches I had several mishaps on the same cache hunt, so I shared that with the owner by e-mail. If it's geocaching related it's not spam. And feel free to e-mail me about geocaching in the Hampton Roads area anytime. Quote Link to comment
+GeneralBracket Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 I must take a dissenting point of view here. I think it's spam. Unsolicited Bulk Email. Your suggestion seems to fit every word of that phrase. I don't want to spend all day explaining myself, but suffice to say that an email such as you describe would certainly be less unwanted than the Viagra and penile implant emails. Still spam though. Now for the constructive part... why not start a listserv for your area? We have one here run by AZGeocaching.com. It's very easy. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 Actually, if the individuals were emailed through the geocaching.com website, it wasn't spam, by your definition. The messages were sent individually to carefully targeted individuals. Since they were not sent in bulk, they do not fit your definition of spam. Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 Went to www.spamlaws.com , read some things briefly on it in the Federal section, but the summaries I read, they are referring to SPAM as unsolicitated bulk COMMERCIAL email. Of course there are different Acts that state different things....some interesting reading there.... Brian Wood Woodsters Outdoors http://www.woodsters.com Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 OK, since these messages were neither commercial, nor sent in bulk, they are not SPAM. Quote Link to comment
+GeneralBracket Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 quote:Actually, if the individuals were emailed through the geocaching.com website, it wasn't spam, by your definition. The messages were sent individually to carefully targeted individuals. Since they were not sent in bulk, they do not fit your definition of spam. That's exactly what spammers say. I guess I actually did sign up for all those emails, eh? quote:Went to www.spamlaws.com , read some things briefly on it in the Federal section, but the summaries I read, they are referring to SPAM as unsolicitated bulk COMMERCIAL email. Of course there are different Acts that state different things....some interesting reading there.... Hmmm... you got me there. It isn't commercial. My feeling it that it's still spam though. Wanted spam maybe, but spam none the less. <heh> I guess it's all in the semantics. One mans spam is another mans information, as it were. Quote Link to comment
+Cacheola Crew Posted July 7, 2003 Author Share Posted July 7, 2003 quote:Now for the constructive part... why not start a listserv for your area? We have one here run by AZGeocaching.com. It's very easy. General B., a list-serve or similar is what I want to do (yahoo-group, EZboard, something like that) But how did you originally let folks in your area know about it? I honestly think that you cannot just rely on the regional forums, cause so few people actually post there. Even relying on the general forums is not going to be that productive. In order to reach those that participate on the website, but not in the forums, you almost have to email those folks. So how did you pass the word about your group? Janine Cacheola Crew "You have brains in your head; You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...." Dr. Seuss Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Cacheola Crew:...But how did you originally let folks in your area know about it? ... Just send everybody in your area an email about it. No one is going to get bent if they get one email about this. If they do, you probably don't want to interact with them in the future anyway. Quote Link to comment
+GeneralBracket Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 It's not actually my group. It's run by a couple cachers here in AZ. I think maybe we're not talking about the same thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong. A listserv is an email distribution list. People sign up and then every "post" to the listserv gets emailed out to the everyone on the list. A person "posts" to the listserv by sending an email to a designated listserv address, or replying to an email from the listserv. As far as getting the word out, you can post a message to the general and regional forums and rely on word of mouth from there. You can also tell other cachers as you meet them. This method is pretty effective. More so than you might think. Other cachers in your area are likely looking for just this sort of thing. You could even get it listed in the state section of GC.com as a local org. If you need assistance getting it going I can provide a little. Email me if you like. quote:Just send everybody in your area an email about it. No one is going to get bent if they get one email about this. If they do, you probably don't want to interact with them in the future anyway.I can agree with that I guess. Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 or you could contact cache owners in that area and see if they will place something in their cache that has the information on it....you may have to provide the "somehting" to put in it...or you could ask the cache owners who are willing to participate in it to put something on the cache page about it as well... Brian Wood Woodsters Outdoors http://www.woodsters.com Quote Link to comment
+Verboten Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 I vote not spam. You are talking about a single (non commercial) solicitation, not a daily or weekly automated email blast that you have to "opt out" of. By virtue of registering at geocaching.com you have made yourself available by email. The email address you use is not restricted, so if you don't ever want to hear about anything geocaching related, use a free web based email address and don't bother checking it. It's just an email. If you're not interested, delete it and get on with your life. -Vb Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 Listserve is great at first, but then you start getting a ton of email and it is very difficult to categorize and review unless you open each email up. Yahoo groups or EZBoard are easy ways to develop topics of discussion and you can go back to them when needed. New post sort to the top on the EZBoard. One reason the GGA didn't like EZBoard was because they have the worst search engine on the net. But it is really cheap and you can open a community chest and people can contribute a few bucks when they want and you can keep it ad-free. If you want to see an example of an EZBoard you can see our archives here. There are no ads there at this time, but please don't post there since it is strictly an archive. We had a listserve, but the emails became overpowering -- almost like spam. Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted July 7, 2003 Share Posted July 7, 2003 Exactly Verboten....There is some great information in that web address I posted. I think a lot of spam gets through some cracks there. I've read that of course they have to have the "opt out"...have you tried that? They don't always go to a legite opt out program. Another thing that caught my attention was the ones that have a deceiving subject but is something else in the body. Besides my woodsters address I have another website that has a domain name that is more common. We get tons of SPAM because of the previous owners of that domain name. The bad thing is that any email goes to the main email address of the website. Except for the email addresses we made up and specified....These folks received some crazy stuff.... Brian Wood Woodsters Outdoors http://www.woodsters.com Quote Link to comment
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