Response to spam
DA Morgan
what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
=====================================================================
Iam sorry.
It wont be repeated.
James
On Jan 5, 2008 8:47 PM, DA Morgan <damo...@psoug.org> wrote:
james2345 wrote:
> SpamOracle.com is a great source for spam.
An apology would be appropriate.
The charter of this usenet group specifically forbids spamming:
The posting of purely promotional emails which is what you did.
Thank you.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org
=====================================================================
Please, everyone, join us in fighting the enemy of our people: Spam.
We won't win all the time. But there are good people, such as James
who just need a little nudge in the right direction.
Thanks.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
Oracle Ace Director & Instructor
University of Washington
damo...@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org
Martijn Tonies
> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
Although James replies in a positive way and I do appreciate anyone who
fights spam (in a decent way ;-), this is hardly "real" spam. James posted
to this group without knowing the charter, he got directed to it and replies
to that ( I've done the same in the past ). Big deal. This hardly is spam.
Let me explain why: it's not "bulk", its targetted messaging.
Spam? Fight the damn "MI5" spammer who posted his tens of messages
coming from different e-mail addresses all over the public newsgroups!
But the real spam is much harder to fight :-(
--
Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
John Mishefske
>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome of
>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
> Although James replies in a positive way and I do appreciate anyone who
> fights spam (in a decent way ;-), this is hardly "real" spam. James posted
> to this group without knowing the charter, he got directed to it and replies
> to that ( I've done the same in the past ). Big deal. This hardly is spam.
But Daniel couldn't determine if James knew the charter from that one post.
> Spam? Fight the damn "MI5" spammer who posted his tens of messages
> coming from different e-mail addresses all over the public newsgroups!
Agreed. The MI5 spammer gathers no sympathy to whatever cause he/she
spews. Folks just ignore, or worse come to oppose, his cause because of
the delivery method.
2 cents....
--
'--------------------------
' John Mishefske
' UtterAccess Editor
' Microsoft MVP 2007, 2008
'--------------------------
Arch
<jmishe...@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
>Martijn Tonies wrote:
>>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome of
>>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
>
>And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
>diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
>>
>> Although James replies in a positive way and I do appreciate anyone who
>> fights spam (in a decent way ;-), this is hardly "real" spam. James posted
>> to this group without knowing the charter, he got directed to it and replies
>> to that ( I've done the same in the past ). Big deal. This hardly is spam.
>
>But Daniel couldn't determine if James knew the charter from that one post.
>
>> Spam? Fight the damn "MI5" spammer who posted his tens of messages
>> coming from different e-mail addresses all over the public newsgroups!
I believe that guy is some kind of lunatic or nut job. There is no
point in trying to reason with him. The closest to an effective
solution is the one I've chosen - a newsreader with a regex
configurable kill filter.
>Agreed. The MI5 spammer gathers no sympathy to whatever cause he/she
>spews. Folks just ignore, or worse come to oppose, his cause because of
>the delivery method.
>
>2 cents....
Just 2 cents more from Arch
Michael Austin
Got 4 cents do I hear 10? gimme 10 - how about 10?
yeah, never was much of an auctioneer...
DA Morgan
> Agreed. The MI5 spammer gathers no sympathy to whatever cause he/she
> spews.
Spammers try to reach our community are more likely to be sensitive
to offending potential customers. The MI5 spammer needs antipsychotics
and a sleeveless jacket.
Martijn Tonies
> >>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome of
> >>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
> >
> >And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
> >diligence. And to James for understanding.
> >
>
> I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
> seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
Very true... And in e-mail as well, luckily, I have that filtered. Worse
solutions are floating around the net though.
> That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
> Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
Yep, but as I said, I really wouldn't want to call this a "real" spammer.
joel garry
wrote:
> > >>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome of
> > >>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
>
> > >And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
> > >diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
> > I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
> > seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
>
> Very true... And in e-mail as well, luckily, I have that filtered. Worse
> solutions are floating around the net though.
>
> > That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
> > Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
>
> Yep, but as I said, I really wouldn't want to call this a "real" spammer.
>
I do and I did.
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/28195d5610b67737/f8326235fb135c9c?lnk=gst&q=jg#f8326235fb135c9c
I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
to drive traffic to their sites spammers. And not a trivial form of
spam either, as this is the sort of thing that can become high volume
very fast, as everyone wants to make a million dollars from other
people googling.
The ethics of me not following the google webmaster help charter is
left as an exercise for the student.
jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=Mjk5ODMsLCwsLCwx
Shakespeare
"DA Morgan" <damo...@psoug.org> schreef in bericht
news:11997753...@bubbleator.drizzle.com...
Maybe if we all get an MI5 e-mail address and start replying we can drive
him over the edge...
gazzag
>
> Spammers try to reach our community are more likely to be sensitive
> to offending potential customers. The MI5 spammer needs antipsychotics
> and a sleeveless jacket.
> --
> Daniel A. Morgan
> Oracle Ace Director & Instructor
> University of Washington
> Puget Sound Oracle Users Groupwww.psoug.org
Give the guy a break! Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean
the b@%*$s aren't watching you... :-P
Martijn Tonies
>> > >>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome
of
>> > >>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
>>
>> > >And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
> > >diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
> > I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
> > seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
>
> Very true... And in e-mail as well, luckily, I have that filtered. Worse
> solutions are floating around the net though.
>
> > That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
> > Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
>
> Yep, but as I said, I really wouldn't want to call this a "real" spammer.
>
>
>I do and I did.
>http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread
/thread/28195d5610b67737/f8326235fb135c9c?>lnk=gst&q=jg#f8326235fb135c9c
Hmm, good call :-)
--
Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
>I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
hjr.p...@gmail.com
<m.ton...@upscene.removethis.com> wrote:
> >> > >>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome
> of
> >> > >>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
>
> >> > >And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
> > > >diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
> > > I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
> > > seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
>
> > Very true... And in e-mail as well, luckily, I have that filtered. Worse
> > solutions are floating around the net though.
>
> > > That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
> > > Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
>
> > Yep, but as I said, I really wouldn't want to call this a "real" spammer.
>
> >I do and I did.
>
> Hmm, good call :-)
>
> --
> Martijn Tonies
> Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
> MS SQL Server
> My thoughts:http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
> Database development questions? Check the forum!http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
>
> >I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
> >to drive traffic to their sites spammers. And not a trivial form of
> >spam either, as this is the sort of thing that can become high volume
> >very fast, as everyone wants to make a million dollars from other
> >people googling.
>
> >The ethics of me not following the google webmaster help charter is
> >left as an exercise for the student.
"I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
to drive traffic to their sites spammers"
Good definition. It means all those silly people who have just
participated in the "8 things you didn't know about me - pass it on to
8 others" nonsense in the Blogsphere are also spammers.
The worry is reading some of the names who have been sucked into the
innocent-sounding "blog tagging game" as one deluded individual called
it.
It's not a game, though: It's a complete waste of time and, worse, it
drives good information out of the blog aggregators faster than it can
arrive.
If a pyramid letter suggesting you can earn a million bucks by passing
the letter onto 10 others is spam, so is this crapola.
If you have an Oracle blog and you are "tagged" by one of these
idiots, please don't "pass it on". By all means share your 8 initimate
secrets with the world at large, but don't encourage others to do so,
especially as the general idea of blogs was, from the outset, that
their authors would share all sorts of information, intimate secrets
and otherwise, without encouragement!
joel garry
> On Jan 10, 12:02 am, "Martijn Tonies"
>
>
>
>
>
> <m.ton...@upscene.removethis.com> wrote:
> > >> > >>> I know that quite often members of the group don't see the outcome
> > of
> > >> > >>> what some of us do to fight spam. Here's one positive outcome.
>
> > >> > >And kudos to Daniel for showing us a positive outcome and for his
> > > > >diligence. And to James for understanding.
>
> > > > I have to agree, wholeheartedly. It is very easy to grow frustrated,
> > > > seeing the seemingly endless stream of spam spewed upon the forums.
>
> > > Very true... And in e-mail as well, luckily, I have that filtered. Worse
> > > solutions are floating around the net though.
>
> > > > That makes it easy to give up and stop sending in the abuse reports.
> > > > Daniel has showed us that it might not be totally futile.
>
> > > Yep, but as I said, I really wouldn't want to call this a "real" spammer.
>
> > >I do and I did.
> > >http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_...>lnk=gst&q=jg#f8326235fb135c9c
>
> > Hmm, good call :-)
I meant to add I posted in that other group before I saw Dan's post.
>
> > --
> > Martijn Tonies
> > Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
> > MS SQL Server
> > Upscene Productionshttp://www.upscene.com
> > My thoughts:http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
> > Database development questions? Check the forum!http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
>
> > >I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
> > >to drive traffic to their sites spammers. And not a trivial form of
> > >spam either, as this is the sort of thing that can become high volume
> > >very fast, as everyone wants to make a million dollars from other
> > >people googling.
>
> > >The ethics of me not following the google webmaster help charter is
> > >left as an exercise for the student.
>
> "I consider people who perform actions of specific misposting in order
> to drive traffic to their sites spammers"
>
> Good definition. It means all those silly people who have just
> participated in the "8 things you didn't know about me - pass it on to
> 8 others" nonsense in the Blogsphere are also spammers.
Are they really trying to drive traffic to their sites, or just a bit
deluded as to the consequences? I think I would have fallen for it
had I a regular blog.
>
> The worry is reading some of the names who have been sucked into the
> innocent-sounding "blog tagging game" as one deluded individual called
> it.
>
> It's not a game, though: It's a complete waste of time and, worse, it
> drives good information out of the blog aggregators faster than it can
> arrive.
I don't generally use the aggregators, so I was a bit late to this
party. I thought it was quite amusing. I thought that since the
number of Oracle bloggers seems relatively small, it would limit
itself early being something close to a power of 8. You may have
changed my mind.
>
> If a pyramid letter suggesting you can earn a million bucks by passing
> the letter onto 10 others is spam, so is this crapola.
>
> If you have an Oracle blog and you are "tagged" by one of these
> idiots, please don't "pass it on". By all means share your 8 initimate
> secrets with the world at large, but don't encourage others to do so,
> especially as the general idea of blogs was, from the outset, that
> their authors would share all sorts of information, intimate secrets
> and otherwise, without encouragement
I kind of thought you taking your site offline was an overreaction,
but am explicitly making no such public judgement. In general, if
something looks to me like an overreaction, I try to assume either
I've missed something, or there is some other motivation that I don't
know about - but usually would like to, as it is likely to be
interesting or informative. Have you had something specific happen
having to do with chain letters?
Of course, we all overreact at times, that's not anything to get
excited about.
jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080105/news_lz1dd5news.html
hjr.p...@gmail.com
When I posted something which simply pointed out that 8^4 is 4096 me-
too '8 things' posts, I got replies that I needed to chill, stop being
grumpy and that I was dictating what others could do with their blogs.
In response to me pointing out, therefore, that there are practical
and detrimental consequences from this blog explosion, I got two
people telling me what they assumed my emotional state to be and one
telling me that my concern at actual consequences was just me trying
to fling my weight around.
What do you propose I do when the blogging community of which I am
allegedly a co-equal part doesn't take the points I make seriously
(which is different from agreeing with them, I hasten to add) but
instead immediately reaches for the personal attack?
> In general, if
> something looks to me like an overreaction, I try to assume either
> I've missed something, or there is some other motivation that I don't
> know about - but usually would like to, as it is likely to be
> interesting or informative. Have you had something specific happen
> having to do with chain letters?
No, of course not. What an odd suggestion. I don't have to have had
weird experiences in the past to be aware of what is happening to
OraNA right now. Posts containing good content (not all of it
technical) are being shunted at a rate of knots down the page and off
the page, because of the constant arrival of new me-too '8 things'
posts. That's a practical consequence and not one I just made up.
The response to this has been (from Tim Hall) "It's my blog and I can
do what I like with it" (stuff anyone affected by what he does with
it, too, I suppose).
Tim's other thoughtful response was "I don't care. I never asked to be
included in the blog aggregator in the first place". Very civically
minded.
The response (from Jake who started it all) was "filter out the posts
you don't want to read"... once he tells me how I can do that on
www.orana.info, I'll certainly take that advice, but I suspect it
might be just a bit tricky to filter stuff out of a webpage I don't
control!
Other responses have been "don't read it if you don't like it" (great:
they pollute the waters, but the answer is that I shouldn't drink it
if I don't like it. Very considerate).
Then there's the "Oh, blogging is supposed to be fun! Don't be so
grumpy about it!" as if my complaint about what is happening at OraNA
has anything to do with whether I think blogs should always and only
be about Oracle technical stuff (I don't, and I've posted vast
quantities of frivolous and personal stuff myself in my time, so I
would have thought the point didn't need making).
They don't even register the point that there's no problem with 16
personal things about 16 different people on 16 different days, but
there's a major problem with 320 different things about 40 different
people in 2 days, and with the promise of an exponential growth of the
same sort of stuff to come. (And no, I haven't bothered to count
whether they're the actual numbers. It's just what it feels like).
What you consider to be an over-reaction is actually just a considered
reaction to noticing and experiencing the positive *damage* this silly
'game' is causing, as well as to the dismissive, personally abusive
reaction some of these people have had when someone has dared ask them
to re-think their participation.
>
> Of course, we all overreact at times, that's not anything to get
> excited about.
I haven't over-reacted. I politely asked perhaps 4 or 5 people who had
'passed it on' to ask their 8 names not to perpetuate the thing
further. I then blogged about it, in which I pointed out the dangers
of an exponentially-increasing volume of me-too blog posts to a blog
aggregator like OraNA, and then I got personally abused for my
trouble. Meanwhile, it is difficult to find anything of worth on OraNA
at the moment, and I resent being told to change my reading habits and
software just because others fancy having 'a bit of fun'.
When the "community" decides to behave in such an irrational fashion
(in any other context, this exponential flood of content that prevents
a site like OraNA publicising good content would be called a
distributed denial of service attack), I simply want no part of it.
Which is why the site and its content will remain inaccessible until
some semblance of sanity prevails.
Those who dislike not having my material available should perhaps
consider that I dislike not having OraNA available to me in a fit and
usable state. And as far as I can tell, so far, I'm not alone in that.
>
> jg
> --
> @home.com is bogus.http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080105/news_lz1dd5news.html
joel garry
Not so odd, it explains a lot of the militarism against spam here. I
had a very wise boss once, he was responsible for dealing with the
most pissed off customers, and he would maintain his composure with
such assumptions, and usually be able to ascertain what the real
problem was as a result.
>
> The response to this has been (from Tim Hall) "It's my blog and I can
> do what I like with it" (stuff anyone affected by what he does with
> it, too, I suppose).
>
> Tim's other thoughtful response was "I don't care. I never asked to be
> included in the blog aggregator in the first place". Very civically
> minded.
At one point, I was considering aggregating oracle-l into a newsgroup,
as I don't like the available formats. Trying to be nice, I asked
Steve Adams if I could, and he said no. I honored that, but I think
Tim has a reasonable point here. It may be too much to ask to hold
content providers to every possible format that is downstream of their
publishing. And what really would stop me from ignoring Steve's
wishes?
To use a somewhat ridiculous example, I was at a pizza party for some
kids Saturday night, and one of the other parents was showing me his
crack, er Blackberry. (He's a SS DBA, and was getting problem texts,
I kept the chuckling to myself). So I told him about twitter, and
told him to navigate to Awad's posts. It seems you have to log in to
get the phone version, so we went to his regular twitter posts. Now,
should I blame Eddie for a crapload of thumbnail images that take
forever to load over a slow wireless connection onto a slow device?
The more I consider it, the more I think you are just totally wrong
about that.
>
> The response (from Jake who started it all) was "filter out the posts
> you don't want to read"... once he tells me how I can do that onwww.orana.info, I'll certainly take that advice, but I suspect it
> might be just a bit tricky to filter stuff out of a webpage I don't
> control!
That should be a feature of aggregators, and google groups for that
matter. A campaign for that might be a positive result of all this
hoopla.
>
> When the "community" decides to behave in such an irrational fashion
> (in any other context, this exponential flood of content that prevents
> a site like OraNA publicising good content would be called a
> distributed denial of service attack), I simply want no part of it.
> Which is why the site and its content will remain inaccessible until
> some semblance of sanity prevails.
Well, as we're not allowed to say, the difference between rape and
seduction is salesmanship.
>
> Those who dislike not having my material available should perhaps
> consider that I dislike not having OraNA available to me in a fit and
> usable state. And as far as I can tell, so far, I'm not alone in that.
Should it not be obvious to anyone, a google search can be used to
access the material in cache.
I'd probably be with you if I used orana.
jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
hjr.p...@gmail.com
> > No, of course not. What an odd suggestion. I don't have to have had
> > weird experiences in the past to be aware of what is happening to
> > OraNA right now. Posts containing good content (not all of it
> > technical) are being shunted at a rate of knots down the page and off
> > the page, because of the constant arrival of new me-too '8 things'
> > posts. That's a practical consequence and not one I just made up.
>
> Not so odd, it explains a lot of the militarism against spam here. I
> had a very wise boss once, he was responsible for dealing with the
> most pissed off customers, and he would maintain his composure with
> such assumptions, and usually be able to ascertain what the real
> problem was as a result.
All I can tell you is, I have no odd experiences that have made me
feel this way. In fact, when the whole thing first happened, I was
rather looking forward to being tagged. And then one morning I posted
something on the blog, checked it looked OK on OraNA and couldn't find
the damn thing... because it had been shunted off by the incoming '8
things' posts. That's when I realised this wasn't actually a game of
laughs.
> > The response to this has been (from Tim Hall) "It's my blog and I can
> > do what I like with it" (stuff anyone affected by what he does with
> > it, too, I suppose).
>
> > Tim's other thoughtful response was "I don't care. I never asked to be
> > included in the blog aggregator in the first place". Very civically
> > minded.
>
> At one point, I was considering aggregating oracle-l into a newsgroup,
> as I don't like the available formats. Trying to be nice, I asked
> Steve Adams if I could, and he said no. I honored that, but I think
> Tim has a reasonable point here. It may be too much to ask to hold
> content providers to every possible format that is downstream of their
> publishing. And what really would stop me from ignoring Steve's
> wishes?
Decency, I think. And being a responsible member of a wider community.
Similarly, decent community-awareness means that, whilst you (anyone)
personally don't use OraNA; and whilst you didn't personally ask to be
aggregated to it; nevertheless you recognise that lots of others do
and you have been. Therefore, you behave decently and responsibly as a
result.
If I got onto my train of a morning and decided to listen to Olivier
Messiaen at full volume on a ghetto blaster, am I not responsible for
the ensuing annoyance to others? I think most people would say, 'yes'
to that. Yet I didn't ask those people to get on the train, to be in
my carriage. So why should I care about what they think?
Well, I think the answer to that is a long one to do with mutual
rights and responsibilities, and we needn't go there. Rather more
simply, I do agree that it would be too much to expect a blog owner to
change their template, CSS or content just because it screws up a
downstream aggregator's look or feel or the owner of an aggregator
site's view about what is suitable content. But encouraging a
potentially exponential growth in me-too posts is nothing to do with
your content, and everything to do with your behaviour, which has
detrimental consequences for others you should be aware of and should,
decently and responsibly, want to mitigate or avoid.
Analogy: we all have the right to develop in whatever language we
like, to write whatever code we like and to have fun doing so. We even
have the right to write a computer virus if we like. But we don't have
the right to release it to the wild and it's a criminal offense in
most jurisdictions to do so. Given that, although you have the right
to write a virus in the privacy of your home, is it a particularly
responsible thing to do so?
We have, I think, all seen posts in technical forums, too, that go
something like this: 'I am having difficulty starting my instance.
What should I do'... and the answer some wit posts is 'format c:' or
'rm -rf *'. Is that a responsible reply? Doesn't the author have some
sort of moral responsibility to not post what he thinks a very obvious
joke because someone very inexperienced might act on it one day?
I believe he or she does. I don't claim it's hard-and-fast and
blindingly obvious, black-and-white stuff. Clearly, there are degrees
and nuances. But ultimately, yes, I think an Oracle blogger does have
a responsibility to be aware that their content is used in situations
not of their own devising. I certainly remember cringing with guilt,
for example, when I was, a couple of years back, forever changing my
content management system and breaking all my feed URLs every few
months or so: poor old Brian Duff was forever getting emails asking
him to change the OraBlogs pickup as a result. I didn't stop changing
content management systems (to some extent, I had no choice), but I
was certainly aware of the grief and inconvenience I was causing
'downstream' and I **was** very apologetic every time I wrote!
> To use a somewhat ridiculous example, I was at a pizza party for some
> kids Saturday night, and one of the other parents was showing me his
> crack, er Blackberry. (He's a SS DBA, and was getting problem texts,
> I kept the chuckling to myself). So I told him about twitter, and
> told him to navigate to Awad's posts. It seems you have to log in to
> get the phone version, so we went to his regular twitter posts. Now,
> should I blame Eddie for a crapload of thumbnail images that take
> forever to load over a slow wireless connection onto a slow device?
Again, that's a question of content, and I have never said there's
anything wrong with posting 8 personal things about yourself. I'm not
arguing against the content. I'm arguing against the pyramid scheme
nature of the thing, the viral wrapper in which this content has been
placed.
Or rather, I was. That cat's out of the bag now and isn't coming back
any time soon.
So now I just to look in disbelief at the community-mindedness (or
lack thereof) of a number of people in the Oracle blogging community
who I thought would be better than they have been.
Fortunately, I also look at some of the really big names in that same
community and note that, at least as yet, they haven't stooped to
participation in this act of vandalism. Or someone like Richard Foote
who posted his twist on the 8 things theme ...and (the important part)
**didn't** 'pass it on'. That sort of thing tells me that I'm not
completely off my rocker on this one, and I notice some comments on
http://awads.net/wp/2008/01/10/i-am-a-spammer-and-so-are-you-if-you-played-the-tag-game/
that seem to suggest the same.
> The more I consider it, the more I think you are just totally wrong
> about that.
I think that's because you've not quite got the distinction I'm trying
to make (and obviously failing) between mere content and the viral-
like wrapper that's being put around that content.
No-one's asking anyone to stop posting certain stuff. No-one's
dictating to anyone what their content should be. I am, however,
complaining that the pyramid scheme nature of the 'game' has caused
damage to important information sources, and those participating in
the game should, whether they like it or not, acknowledge that fact
and modify their behaviour (not their content) accordingly.