2008/11/7 Andrei Popescu
<andreimpopescu@gmail.com>
On Fri,07.Nov.08, 20:57:08, Sam Kuper wrote:
> If one of the imported email addresses is, say, the debian-user mailing list
> address rather than, for instance, a friend's email address, then the user
> has abused the facility. Reverbnation is quite right to provide an abuse
> link. It's actually much like the confirmation email the debian-user list
> sends to people who sign up: to avoid a person subscribing someone who
> doesn't wish to be subscribed.
No it's not, because the default is "you are subscribed". Only spammers
do this.
Except that Reverbnation has obviously had confirmation (wrongly, but nonetheless) from I Am Three that debian-user already opted in. So in a sense the site is less at fault than, say, Hotmail, which allows people to send emails to anyone without an easy option for recipients to report abuse.
So the spammer here is I Am Three, and reporting their abuse of Reverbnation's mailing list is all I did.
Frankly, I could have just done it without bothering to notify the list, but I thought it would be more polite to tell the list.
> So, frankly, given that at least one person on debian-user (me) doesn't want
> to be emailed concert dates, album release info, etc, from I Am Three*, I
> think that my choosing option three was entirely appropriate.
No it was not. Besides, you can't write on behalf of debian-user (only
the listmasters can).
Well, was I acting on behalf of debian-user or on behalf of myself? I don't want debian-user to be spamming me any more than I want reverbnation to forward me I Am Three spam. Best to cut it off at the source, I say. So that's what I did.
If you really want to do something about spam then
*bounce* it (some mail clients call this "redirect") to
report-listspam@lists.debian.org
My mail client doesn't have this feature, so that's clearly not a terribly usable means for reporting spam.
Above all, I'm pretty annoyed at the suggestion that I've done something wrong here, rather than doing the community a favour.
I considered my action carefully, researched it sufficiently, and notified the community of it. Furthermore, in other cases when I've had spam sent to me (direct from spammers, rather than from legitimate mailing-list services being abused by their users) via the debian-user list, I've reported them according to policy - again, doing the community a favour.
That's as much time as I'll spend on this thread.
Sam