Dissenting Views

[kevin_standlee]

Some of you may recall that a couple of days ago I discussed Montreal's reminder to its pre-supporters that it's time to vote and how one person declared it spam. At that time, I wrote several replies to madfilkentist, who has seen fit to not unscreen or reply to two of them. Given that he has posted new entries since then, I can only assume that he has no plans to ever clear or reply to them. It has been three days, so I'm going to post my replies here so someone can actually see them, even if he doesn't want to acknowledge them.

Reply #1, in response to a reply from madfilkentist:

You're wrong. I've gone into much more detail on my own LJ about why you're wrong.

Yes, I've been around the internet a while. I know about these things. I know that if I give a bid or convention my contact information, I'm telling them that they can contact me. In fact, I want them to contact me. That makes every contact from them solicited. I see nothing at all in such transactions that limits e-mail contacts to discussions of the financial purchase of the membership itself, as you obviously do. But then, I'm obviously not nearly as fannish as you are. And I wouldn't take that as a compliment if I were you.

I'll as you right here the question I asked over there: Pretend you're running a Worldcon bid. The by-mail voting deadline is so close that sending printed pieces of paper through the postal mail is too slow. How do you contact your supporters and remind them that it's time to vote? Remember that a whole bunch of your supporters really do not understand this whole voting process at all.

Reply #2, an afterthought to the first reply:

Actually, I will also pose the case that I cited on my own LJ. Assume for the sake of argument that you purchased a table in the current Worldcon's dealers' room. As part of this, you signed up for the dealers' room announcements list, where the DR coordinator sends out information about the dealer's room.

The DR coordinator then posts a message to you (and obviously, all of the other dealers) saying, "Our Worldcon has the following opportunities for advertising in our publications and at the convention. You might want to buy an ad to try and attract more people to your table. If so, see [address] to purchase advertising." By your standard, is this "spam" or not?

Comments

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

On a side note, see madfilkentist journal (http://madfilkentist.livejournal.com/187682.html) in which he talks about how his employer now sends and e-mail reminder of when he gets paid. Would this not be considered "spam" by his definition?

Guess he is just going to ignore his stupidity

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I think the Worldcon E-mail was a reminder to vote. I don't think anything was wrong because of it. I had already voted, so I didn't need the reminder.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the first case, but the dealers' room case counts as spam by my definition. It's using an announcement list that you signed up for for one purpose, to try to sell a different product.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the first case, but the dealers' room case counts as spam by my definition.

Well, not in law, though, any more than the e-mails I'm getting from the airlines asking for my support in getting China routes -- I'm on their lists because I'm signed up for their frequent-flyer newsletters. I think the applicable phrase is "existing business relationship." I'm not paying any attention to those airlines' e-mails, but I'm also not accusing them of being spammers. Those Russian-language e-mails and "Your e-mail has won $25millionUSDdollars" messages are real spam.

But I expect that as a result of exchanges like the above, some future conventions will end up with multi-page disclaimers in fine-print legalese (just like my credit cards and banks) on these subjects. Nobody* will read them, of course, any more than anyone pays much attention to Proposition 65 warnings anymore. They'll just be part of the background noise.
________________
*"Nobody" being equivalent to a statistically insignificant number of people.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Unsolicited mass e-mail = spam. It doesn't have to be from Russia, and it doesn't have to be a scam.

If I sign up for a dealers' room announcement list, I expect dealers' room announcements. That's what I'm soliciting you to send me. This is something else.

"Existing business relationship" is so much bull. You once bought something from somebody, they use that as an excuse to bombard you with ads for the rest of your life. It's spam.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Actually, I can see the justification for the "existing business relationship" rule. Here's an application from the case cited:

The convention plans to include a list of dealers in the pocket program, with a map showing where each dealer is. The pocket program editor has the bright idea of including the dealer's web site address as part of the listing. But the dealer room form hadn't included "web site address" as a field on the dealer application. So out goes an e-mail to the dealers explaining what the con plans and asking dealers to send their web site address (if applicable) to the DR manager and PP editor by thus-and-such a date.

Based on our experience in Glasgow, I expect that in a population size of a typical Worldcon dealers' room, you'll find at least one dealer who considers this request totally unreasonable and that it should never have been asked in the first place and declares the mere request to be spam, because the dealers' room list is solely for information about when dealers should be setting up their tables.

It's the very fact that things are not black-and-white that leads to things like "existing business relationship" rules.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

But the dealers' listing in the pocket program is directly relevant dealers' room business. There's no need to cite an "existing business relationship" to explain the relevance of this. And if a retailer needs to tell people who've special-ordered an upcoming product that it's been delayed, there's no need to cite an "existing business relationship" either. It's the actual customers for the actual product under discussion.

No, the use of the phrase "existing business relationship" is a pretty good sign that you want to send spam to your past customers. And trying to sell ads to people whom you only theorize might be interested only because they happen to be your dealers, if you send them indiscriminate e-mail, is spam. Like Justice Stewart, I know it when I see it.

The fact that some people might object to totally legitimate messages doesn't prove that less legitimate messages aren't spam, any more than the fact that some people won't object to the most blatant spam proves that legitimate messages are spam.

[dancingguy.livejournal.com]

You signed up for announcements about being a dealer at the con. This is an announcement for dealers at the con.

You know, there's a difference between "mail I don't care about" and "spam". The two aren't synonmys, but that appears to be how you're treating them

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

ANything could be justified as "an announcement for dealers at the con" on that basis, if you don't limit it to matters relevant to their capacity as dealers. Yeah, they might want to buy ads, but who knows, they might want to buy V1@gr@ too. They signed up for announcements, not to have commercial pitches thrown at them.

"Mail I don't care about" could easily include relevant announcements. But mass unsolicited commercial e-mail = spam.

[dancingguy.livejournal.com]

Um, you signed up to receive email directed at dealers. It wasn't called the "information about setup and teardown email list", after all.

I get over a thousand emails a day, mostly spam. I loathe spammers.

People sending you information after you've signed up to receive it from them isn't spam.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

No, the premise was not that you signed up to receive "email directed at dealers." The premise, and I quote, was that you signed up for a "dealers room announcement list." Nobody said anything about a "setup and teardown" list, and in fact Kevin postulated an email about the pocket program's dealers list.

The pocket program's dealers list is a dealers room announcement. The attempt to sell you an ad is not a dealers room announcement.

Anything could be justified as "email directed at dealers," if that were the premise of the list (which it was not). We could sell your email to every other con in creation. After all, they all have dealers rooms, you're a dealer, you might be interested, therefore it's "email directed at dealers." But it's also spam.

You can use the same fallacious reasoning to justify spam for investment opportunities. Everyone has a potential need for investment opportunities. Or Viagra. Just about everybody either has a penis or knows someone who does, so they might have need for Viagra.

Mass unsolicited commercial email = spam.

[caindog.livejournal.com]

This is not about some weird hypothetical where a crazed convention staff is trying to sell you graymarket drugs or help out a Nigerian prince with cash to move. This example is a convention conducting legitimate convention business with its vendors.

If a convention added a big name author to its guest lineup, would it be spam to let the book dealers know in case they wanted to stock up on her works? I think a reasonable person would understand that a convention will send out occasional messages about the convention to people who have paid to join the convention, even the dealers.

The local convention which I help run generally has a short waiting list for tables in the dealer's room. While our level of mass communication is quite low and we have a tight privacy policy (we share our info with nobody), if we had a dealer raise as much fuss about a single relevant e-mail as this then I'd bet we'd be able to find another dealer to replace them the next year.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Spam doesn't have to be about Nigeria. Spam is spam. It is a characteristic of spam that it seeps in under pseudo-legitimate cover.

However, legitimate dealers room business is not spam.

You postulate the convention sending the dealers an updated list of attending authors. That is relevant, legitimate dealers room business. That is not spam.

Somehow you have weirdly jumped to the conclusion that I would find that, or perhaps any e-mail at all to the list, to be spam. But no, I'm distinguishing between legitimate use of the e-mail list, and spam.

A dealer who raised a fuss about the attending-authors e-mail would indeed not be justified. But that's because it was legitimate, relevant business and not spam.

It was the attempt to sell the dealers an ad, not because it was an announcement for the dealers per se but because dealers might be interested in taking ads, that was spam.

If your convention doesn't send spam, good for it. It won't get legitimate complaints, then.