OT Re: [Nottingham] Re: Tux Games mail is still unread

[Michael Simms]

*sigh* Sorry, Ive had enough with this guy, so expect flames below. If
you dont want to waste time on flames, dont bother reading.

On Mon, 2004-05-24 at 23:42, Derek Huskisson wrote:
>  Hi there 

OK, I told you off list that we should keep this off the list as it was
off topic but you persist - so lets play this game. Im up for it.

> It might be OT as much as beer, perl or designer tee-shirts 

Perl, beer and T-shirts are hardly off topic, this is a LUG mailing
list, anything to do with Linux in Nottingham is on topic. If you were
an active LUG member then you would know this. Are you, an active LUG
member, or are you just here to complain?

> but consider this:
>   Tux say they are getting too much spam (I've got sympathy there)

The company is 'Tux Games'. You didnt even read the email did you.

>  How much is too much ? -- they don't say 
>  Lets say 50 a day.

Currently we have 5,215 spam emails from the last 9 days sitting in our
filter system. That is well over 10 times as much as you guessed would
be a large amount of spam.

>  What do they do about it. 
>  Well they send an email to each one of the spammers saying "please register 
> on my Whitelist" so I can read your email. 
>  The spammers don't oblige -- there're not interested in Whitelists.
>  Three days later Tux sends a reminder email
>  The spammers don't read this email either
>  Seven days later Tux sends another email with a final ultimatum " join my 
> whitelist or your email will be deleted"
>  The spammers ignore this -- or never receive it.

Incorrect, we send an initial email and then we send a single reminder
after 7 days.

>  So what has happened? 50 spam emails have now become 150/200 spam emails.

OK, you believed it was 3 responses for each mail so simple maths states
it is 200 mails in total, if you are going to complain, take the time to
calculate your 'facts'.

>  We need a few more people to be doing the same and we can really give the 
> email system constipation.

OK, the internet works like this. Email is just another part of the
whole internet. It uses the same transmission protocols as anything
else. To clog up this would be to clog up the whole internet.

> 	Tux have got rid of their spam problem, they've just spread it around a bit.
> 	Good news for disc drive manufacturers and providers of internet bandwidth. 
> Not such good news for other people is it.?

Email is a MINUTE percentage of internet traffic. You could multiply
email by a hundred and it wouldnt even be a blip on the radar compared
to things like http images, file transfers, or video streaming. The
average porn server probably generates more bandwidth usage than all the
email in the world.

Even if the bandwidth we use is a lot, - hold on, we pay for the
bandwidth at my end, we can do whatever we like with it. Who are you to
tell me what we can do with the bandwidth that we pay for.

Or maybe you are worried about the spammers end - are you really
shedding a tear about the bandwidth expenses of a spammer? I question
your judgement if you are.

Or maybe you are losing sleep over the infrastructure inbetween. Well it
is being paid for by the amonts that I pay my upline provider and the
spammer pays their upline provider, and those providers pay others, it
is all paid for, nobody gets a free ride online any more.

So who loses out? Nobody. If someone emails us and actually WANTS to
contact us, they will either register with our spam filter (which only
has to be done once) or if they cant be bothered they obviously dont
want to contact us that badly. Spammers end up having their mailbox
filled and their bandwidth used up. I weep for them. Oh, no, I dont!

Some people have asked why we dont use a filter like spamassassin. A
fair queston that deserves a fair answer. I only wish YOU had asked it
instead of so much complaining.
We use the challenge filter we wrote because we run a business.
Spamassassin or other keyword or scoring filters are completely
inappropriate for a business, no business should have a system that can
generate false positives and lose customers email.

Check out the AOL spam filter system. Ever tried to send email to AOL
from a dialup line or in fact from anything other than a fixed IP leased
line? You cant! AOL blocks ALL email from dynamic IP addresses. Is that
a great system or what!

So we decided to make a system that cannot generate false positives.

You obviously havent emailed anyone on one of the many companies that
are doing just this kind of thing recently. You will see it more and
more over time, get used to it. Dont like it, well, stop the spam and
I'll remove our filters.

So, now we get down to cases. You have gotten a bee in your bonnet about
getting the spam filter messages. I have acknowledged that this was a
bug and it was fixed within 20 minutes so no further emails would be
held in that way. We solved your problem. 

You could have said thankyou for our prompt response. You could have an
email calling us muppets for getting the coding wrong, had a laugh about
it, and Id have bought you a beer at the next LUG meet to make up for
it.

But no. Instead you have decided to spam this list, which really has
better things to be doing than listening to off-topic complaining and
moaning, again and again and AGAIN. You have received a couple of emails
that shouldnt have been sent to you. This list has, lets say
conservatively 100 members and you have sent or generated about 10 or
more emails on this topic, meaning you have been responsible for 1,000 -
ONE THOUSAND - emails - conservatively. 

And you complain about *US*! Get yourown house in order first.

You could have more properly done one of the following.

1 ) Actually read the responses, and saw that it was a bug that has been
fixed, and just dropped it

2 ) Actually sent an email to the company that was sending the email,
instead of sending it to an inappropriate mailing list..

3 ) Actually spent 20 seconds responding to the spam filter instead of
20 minutes sending pointless moaning replies.

> <trawl>
> 		Is Bill Gates on the right track when he says people should pay for email
> </trawl>

If you had much left, you really would lose so much credibility here.
However as it stands, you have nothing to lose so hey, go for it. 
I say in response - Should I invoice you for the amount of time you have
wasted for me? I usually bill at £50 per hour for my time.
Should the rest of this list do the same? 
No we wont because the rest of us have a grip and dont see the need to
do such dumb things, or make pointless comments like that.

*plonk* - the sound of a moron being dropped into my killfile.
-- 
Michael Simms - CEO, Tux Games
http://www.tuxgames.com