Lighten Up

[Guest]

I just read that locked thread about Poor Carmine and his now defunct web site. Before I go and stick my foot in my mouth, is this all because he sent out those emails letting everyone know he is getting ready to make you guys all a bunch of free stuff?????? Unbelievable. I have had 3 telemarketers call me tonight alone, total pains in the neck, and harder than heck to get off the line with them. They all want me to BUY something, For some reason Carmine wanted to GIVE you all something, and you trash him. Go figure. I know, your going to tell me that your web address is your private area. Get real. I get more junk email than I can shake a stick at, what's it take 1 second to delete it if your not interested. Do any of you guys get junk mail through the post office? No probably not, I'm the only one. I stand by the trash can when I go through my mail and keep what I want and trash what I don't. No big deal. This world goes round because of enterprise, live with accept it, thats how it is, and probably always will be. I still can't figure out why these designers keep making free stuff, mine is not to question why, I just hit download and shake my head and smile. And yes I do buy payware, if nobody buys it they quit making it. Its called supply and demand. Sorry to go off like this but I've sat on the sidelines watching you guys get upset over the stupidest things long enough.

[Guest eko]

Well, if I could ban all the telemarket calls I get and all the junk mail I get in the mail, and all the spam I get (i have a dedicated dev/null e-mail account just to collect spam, and I GUARD my private e-mail with zealous tenacity), I would do it in a heartbeat. :)The logic behind your argument is quite flawed. You could easily extend the logic of your argument to... OK, well since everybody is now killing people, we'll just have to live with it and move on... just another dead person. Granted, an extreme example, but will adhere to your logic just perfectly.I think it is SHAMEFUL that people and companies that I do not know call me at home at all sorts of hours of the day and night and bother me, or stuff my mailbox with endless tree-killing amounts of paper. This is one area where I feel our US laws have severely not protected the common taxpayer.Anyways, all this philosophical banter aside... the problem stemmed where Carmine abused a policy that AVSIM has in place. When the smoke clears from all the verbosity, it comes down to that. Personally, would I have permanently banned him? No. I would have issued a reprimand and a temporary ban lasting the space of a month, with a very clear notice that any future activities which even resembled past ones would result in a perm ban. But then again, I'm quite a softie, and the offense that Carmine committed was, at best, a nuisance to the folks who received the e-mail. The amount of nuisance and problems it caused the AVSIM staff, is a whole different matter, and I presume that they probably were much more upset about the time they had to waste to deal with it. In this area, none of us can speak with authority. (Well, Tom can, etc. You know what I mean!!)Carmine decided to shut down his site strictly of his own accord. And I think it was wise to do so. He saw that this situation had totally spinned out of control, and was in full damage-control mode. He's done the "smart" thing by declaring a "virtual" Chapter 11. Hopefully, when the tubulent waters of this storm die down, he can come back from the ashes and get a fresh start. I hope he does.

[Guest]

You're the type who gives your full name and address every time you buy something at Radio Shack - I can tell. :-)I'm happy you're resigned or satisfied with all the spam, telemarketers and junk mail you receive. Truly, if it doesn't bother you, more power to ya. I, on the other hand, quite enjoy my privacy... And not having umpteen thousand databases around the world tracking my movements, buying habits and proclivities. You simply have no idea what I could find out about you in 30 minutes on the web.If you don't want to stop spam and its ilk, and enjoy your personal information floating around in more databases than you can possibly believe (including the most intimate details of your life), thats fine with me: keep giving out your information everywhere you go and being satisfied throwing away those trees into your trash can. I'll decline, and more, fight back every chance I get - thank you.That Carmine quit is quite Carmine's problem... He most assuredly didn't have to. It was his decision to spam, his decision to allow unruly forums (of which he had every right to run them as he wished - they were his after all), his decision to apologize quite kindly and his decision to quit in the end. More power to him to do whats best for him in all circumstance. Ce-la-vie.Take care,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest]

>>>> I think it is SHAMEFUL that people and companies that I do not know call me at home at all sorts of hours of the day and night and bother me, or stuff my mailbox with endless tree-killing amounts of paper. This is one area where I feel our US laws have severely not protected the common taxpayer.Interesting. Here in the UK we have some systems where you can have your phone number and address listed in a kind of public database for people who do not want to be bombarded with unwanted junk calls and mail. It works for me about 99.9% of the time.We are also getting junk faxes as I expect the Americans are. Recently a similar effort has been made by some public body to stop such faxes being sent unless the recipient has specifically agreed to allow them. There is a public office you can now call to report any unwanted faxes being sent. Since this started about two weeks ago I have not received one junk fax - amazing.Don't you have anything like this in the USA? It seems to be fairly effective here.David

[Guest Scott Campbell]

Bryan,the US Telecommunications bull has addressed the telemarketers. It's called the "Do Not Call List."I don't let the telemarketers get one sentence out before I say: "Give me your full name, your company, and the 800-number." After I get that, I say: "Put this number on your Do Not Call List." If I ever hear from them again, Bang! 500 bucks is mine. Second time, Bang! $1000 is mine. Third time: I own the company.It's gotten to where I just say: "Put this number on your Do Not Call List," and that's it. I never hear from them again. Period. I went from 500+ telemarketers a year to less than 20.There's another thing about telemarketers. Most auto-dial systems what's called "Time on". This is the amount of time they speak with you. Marketers know that the longer you let them talk, the more prone you will be to buy. When you don't let them talk, they can't sell you anything, they have no interest in calling you, and you get removed from the national lists.So with "Time on" being zero, and me telling them "Put me on your Do Not Call List," I don't get bothered anymore.The other thing you can do is get a Telezapper. Immediately sends a "Delete Number" pulse to the computer dialing system. You never get called again for any reason. Deleting from one, deletes from all.As for Carmine - I was really annoyed. Annoyed that a system as secure as AVSIM wasn't enough to stop him from individually getting everyone's e-mail address (and it was all manual, not with a computer). Annoyed that he wrote to me to advertise his site. Annoyed that with all the talk of spam, and the secure system, he didn't get the reason of hiding the information from spammers.I was really happy to see his site is gone. I want this done with ALL Spammer sites. That's why I liberally also use Spam Cop - to which I sent all his information. I'm sure his ISP got a few reports.Another eason I am annoyed by spam? I pay for my e-mail. Every spam in there costs me money.

[Guest Dominik Mann]

I, too, received the mass email from Carmine, but I admit I never read it - you know, I'm wary against any email with a sender that is unfamiliar to me. Although I have the anti-spam option which my email provider offers me enabled, I, too, receive the occasional spam email, but when I receive them I always delete them straight away. To be honest, I never even knew that Carmine might in fact have been related to FS or any FS-related site - I thought that he/she was just some clever geek who might have collected email addresses from the AVSIM forums to promote, well, p0rn stuff or something like that. Only when I stumbled across those spirited discussions on this forum I recognized that he/she was in fact somebody from the FS scene.I don't want to add any fuel to the fire which I see is still burning. I just wanted to let you know what I did with this email - I did not feel personally offended by it in any way, I just thought it could have been just another XXX spam mail, and deleted it without any further thought.Just my

[Guest]

Have you ever said something to your spouse in the evening and woke up the next morning wishing you hadn't said it? Guess that's why I usually sit on the sidelines and watch others discussions. Actually, I'm surprised and pleased that what I thought would be a visious response was really, well, helpful. You mean that you don't have to give Radio Shack your info when they ask for it? LOL. People can always tell when I'm not honest, I thought the guy had a gun under the counter and if I made something up I was in trouble. LOL. I'm going to look into this antispam stuff you guys are talking about. I did know most of that about telemarketers, I guess I'm just too nice (plus I'm in sales so I enjoy turning the tables on the telemarketer) Anyway, thanks for your responses without taking my head off.

[Guest]

I take a different approach with telemarketers, spammers, etc. I talk the only language they understand. I contact every company/organization/whatever that engages in this activity directly. I don't talk about "don't call" lists I talk about "don't buy" lists. I let them know that I will never do business with them, ever (along with a number of friends who I will tell about it). For example, my wife and I are shopping for a new car (will probably buy today). I was surfing local car dealerships on the net and checking inventory, prices and so on. One of them required me to enter my name and e-mail address. It said this was for verification only and would not be used for any other purpose. Not even 5 seconds elapsed before the first spam from them hit my e-mail account. I called the dealership and told them why I would not be buying a vehicle there. After I do buy a car (somewhere else) I'll contact them again to tell them what I bought and who I bought it from, just to hammer the point home that their business practices are actually costing them business. They're not far away, so I may even stop in with my new vehicle.I've had companies offer me big discounts or free merchandise to comne back, and I've never been contacted again by the companies that have.If everyone did this, and followed thru on it, telemarketing and spamming would vanish overnight. It doesn't help to just not do business with these companies, you have to tell them WHY you're not doing business with them.Mike Stone

[Guest Scott Campbell]

Bryan,I'm in marketing, that's why I don't give them the time of day. ;-)When I was married, just saying "Good night" would start an argument, so I stopped all that altogether. "Hung up" on that spam if you will. :-lol

[Guest]

:-lol :-lol Thats a very very good idea Mike! I may have to start trying that, especially when they wake me up at 8 a.m. :-fume Anyway, thanks for the idea, I hope you dont mind if I use it ;)Scott

[Guest]

I maintain 2 email addresses. 1 for private(so I thought)messages and 1 for when I make purchases, etc. that require email info. It's worked pretty good keeping my primary clean but within the last 3 weeks or so i've been getting quite a bit of garbage on my primary address. Is Spam Cop good for cleaning this up or would you recommend something better? Thanks.