Message-Id: <mailto:199503241149.FAA10912@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 04:52:21 -0800 From: Stuart Glogoff <mailto:sglogoff@LIBRARY.ARIZONA.EDU> Subject: Re: Junkmail on Imagelib To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
For those of you who have not been subscribing long to listservs or newsgroups (Usenet access to electronic bulletin boards/EBBS), here's some thoughts re: the junk mail we've been getting on IMAGELIB.IMAGELIB is an umoderated listserv. This means that there's no human being who sees what gets posted before it hits the list. We rely on good "cybercitizenship" and, therefore, can be victimized by poor citizens.
A recent posting was sent out via NETNEWS, the gateway for listserv<->news. In other words, someone can prepare a message that has no business being posted to any EBBS, much less IMAGELIB. The gateway between Usenet passed the message on to our listserv, and it appeared everyone's in-basket.
Here at the U of Arizona, we have a great support team in the computing center. I regularly check with Mark Westergaard, who has been tremendous in helping sort out and try to track down the offending culprits. Since this is Tucson, maybe I should say varmints. When we can make out the "home" address for an offending message--ie, @U.CC.UTAH.EDU, we can send a message to postmaster@UTAH.EDU asking if they will try to track down an offender.
Mark says that the most recent miscreant, "spammed" many news groups. It gets tiring and is one of the downsides of being on an Internet EBBS. It's bad enough getting 10 pieces of junk mail at home each day, another 10 in the office, but getting more in our email in-baskets ....
- /| -->ACK! \`O.o' ÿ__} ` U '
What can we do to lessen the load? One thing I suggest is that we avoid the impulse to fire off a flame to IMAGELIB. Chances are pretty remote that the varmint is even on our list. It's probably some lonely person who has spent the last 18 hours on Internet Chat and lost all perspective after that 6th can of Jolt. In his/her mind, if the message can reach 30,000 in-baskets, someone might actually reply.
Hope this was helpful. Regards,
Stuart
************************************************************************ Stuart Glogoff | Asst Dean, Library Information Sys | A302 Main Library | mailto:sglogoff@dizzy.library.arizona.edu University of Arizona | 520-621-6433 Tucson, AZ 85720-0055 | FAX: 520-621-9733 ************************************************************************ "Momma Says, `The Internet is like a box of chocolates ...'" ************************************************************************