Terrence M Marks <normal@grove.ufl.EDU> 01/25/97 04:04pm >>>

Could you PLEASE stop this "complain about the spam" thread?
I'm getting tired of reading it, and it's been a while since the spam was
here, so be quiet alreqady.

{and he wrote}

Hey, no one is *forcing* you to read the spam.
If you don't like it, just delete it.   Don't blame the authors for it.
It's your fault if you're offended.

I hate to do this, but these messages warrants a response.  

This is the height of hubris.  When I posted my message asking for an
end to a certain recent spamthread, not only had it not "been a while
since the spam was here", but when I logged in after the weekend, I
found it hadn't even slowed down until a considerable time after I posted
my message.  And as for your "getting tired of reading it", I frankly think it
paled into insignificance relative to the misery you and others inflicted on
the rest of us with all this unmitigated bleat.  Therefore, for you to affect
the attitude that you are "tired" of requests that you stop spamming, and
to intimate that those of us who are so requesting are somehow culpable
for the miserable state of the ML in the last week or so, is really
incredible in its arrogance.  Finally, you say that "no one is *forcing* you
to read the spam" and to "be quiet already".  I might turn that around and
say that no one forced you to read our requests that you stop spamming,
and that if you and others hadn't been so profligate in your spamming on
a useless topic, you would not have had to put up with those tiresome
requests that *you* "be quiet already" or take it to private email.

In any event, concerning SPAM, when I subscribed to the FFML, I got a
message in reply with the following text included:

"* WHAT IS SPAM?

SPAM is junk mail/ off-topic conversation.  DON'T SPAM a lot.  We're a 
pretty easy-going bunch about this but if you don't stop when asked, 
you'll be kicked from the list.  SPAM includes 'me too's, threads where a 
few people are replying to each other more than twice a day, and
anything  that would be better off emailed privately."

Yes, this message I am writing even now constitutes SPAM.  I think most
people on the FFML know that I spam only very occasionally, and this
consitutes one such occasion.  As such, I apologize.  But I consider the
occasional "stop spamming" messages much less worse than an
endless regurgitation of two sides talking at each other (as opposed to
talking to each other).  As I've said before, I normally don't mind spam, but
this ML is not an appropriate forum for political/religious/social arguments.
 It is simply a place where people can post anime/manga fanfiction and
(hopefully) receive constructive criticism.  Let's keep it that way, eh?

tom