What is the unicyclist.com definition of spam?

[kfuchs]

Hi Gilby,

This relates to my post

"skate_park_moraga@yahoo.com has been declared a spammer on rsu"

(sent 14-jan-2004 8:03 PM) being put into the spam bin.

A post talking about how spam affects rsu is not in itself spam,
in my opinion at least. Every rsu poster should be able to make
their opinion on this subject known without their opinion being
labeled spam and thus removed from the rsu forum.

Considering that I'm the rsu mailing list owner, spending time
every day fighting spam, I would have thought that my own
posts on this subject wouldn't be labeled spam.

I'll assume for the moment that my post was put in the spam
bin by mistake and will be put back in the rsu forum shortly.
If I'm wrong about this, please explain via this thread.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>
unicycling (rsu) mailing list owner & rec.sport.unicycling proponent
mailto:rsu-request@unicycling.org?subject=help
http://www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu/
news:rec.sport.unicycling

[Gilby]

Your post is a reply to spam, and we remove those posts from the forum as well unless there is some real information in the post related to unicycling. The original skate park messsages were clearly spam, posted to multiple newsgroups, multiple times and had no mention of unicycling. The same post was also posted before on the 11th. Your post is also an admin message directed at the rsu mailing list and not directed at the newsgroup or forum users. You were mentioning to the mailing list members what you were filtering out from the posts that come from the newsgroup and this filtering has no effect on the forums and therefore does not need to show up in the forum.

[kfuchs]

I don't completely agree with Gilby's definition of spam. However,
I respect his decision of declaring the post in question (quoted
below) as spam with respect to the forums just as I'm sure he
respects my decision as to what constitutes spam (the subject
of the post quoted below) on the unicycling mailing list. I guess
I'm just more conservative when it comes to defining spam.

skate_park_moraga@yahoo.com sent 8 identical messages today concerning a
skate park in Moraga. These posts have no connection to unicycling as
far as I know, and they may be simply promoting a skate park, so
skate_park_moraga@yahoo.com has been declared a spammer by the rsu
mailing list owner. Posts from this address will not be permitted on
the rsu mailing list, starting today.

I'm sending this notice, since some list members may not consider these
posts spam. If anyone objects to skate_park_moraga@yahoo.com being
declared a spammer, please respond to me by private e-mail to me or if
you prefer rsu (some people may not like to see replies on this issue
though).

Normally, posts are either clearly spam or clearly not spam. I simply
block posts that are clearly spam without comment. The content of these
8 posts was not clearly spam. Some list members might like information
about skate parks that allow unicycling, but there is no reason to
believe this one does, in my opinion at least.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>
unicycling (rsu) mailing list owner & rec.sport.unicycling proponent
mailto:rsu-request@unicycling.org?subject=help
http://www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu/
news:rec.sport.unicycling

Here's a link to the thread in question:

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29926

There is a bright side to the above post being declared spam in
the forums. After 10 days, it is in the fourth position in the spam
bin and probably would be in position 80+ on page 4+ in the
rsu forum had it been left there

[Your post is a reply to spam, and we remove those posts from the forum as well unless there is some real information in the post related to unicycling.

The above post was not a pointless "reply to spam". It was a
post about a particular sequence of "spam" and the declaration
of the source as a spammer and it gave anyone on rsu (mailing
list, newgroup or forum) the option of voicing a contrary opinion.

Your post is also an admin message directed at the rsu mailing list and not directed at the newsgroup or forum users. You were mentioning to the mailing list members what you were filtering out from the posts that come from the newsgroup and this filtering has no effect on the forums and therefore does not need to show up in the forum.

This is sufficent reason alone to move the post from the rsu forum
to somewhere else. I just wish that such posts of limited interest
to forum users were put in a "non-spam/maybe non-uniicycling"
forum rather than the "Spam.... Eeew!" forum. Well, the spam
forum is a better destination for such posts than /dev/null. :)

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>
unicycling (rsu) mailing list owner & rec.sport.unicycling proponent
mailto:rsu-request@unicycling.org?subject=help
http://www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu/
news:rec.sport.unicycling

[kfuchs]

In all my posts on this subject, I forgot one important fact. One
post I read, said there were some unicyclists in a few of the
pictures. This was in response to the initial Jan 11 post which
wasn't clearly spam as can be seen in this thread:

http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29862

Just because a post is cross posted to several newsgroups
doesn't make it spam.

The above thread doesn't contain the post saying there were
some unicyclists in a few of the pictures and I didn't see any
unicyclists in the pictures. After a flak attack of 8 nearly
identical posts, it was clear to me that they were all spam. I
probably just wanted community input (or lack of contrary input)
regarding the my declaration of them all as spam and the source
as a spammer; maybe I missed the unicyclists in the pictures, if
any.

In my rule book, a message is declared SPAM only by content
or links to content that are solely SPAM beyond reasonable
doubt.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>
unicycling (rsu) mailing list owner & rec.sport.unicycling proponent
mailto:rsu-request@unicycling.org?subject=help
http://www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu/
news:rec.sport.unicycling