RE: flying pigs considered harmful

Mr Salsman,

> Spam?  The W3C claims to solicit public input.  Spam is 
> unsolcited bulk mail.  None of the messages have been 
> bulky in length.

The W3C does indeed solicit public input, but obviously some sorts
of input are not solicited.  For example, if I were to fire-bomb MIT
in response to the latest XSL working draft, that would be
unsolicited, unwanted input.

The W3C solicits civil, thoughtful input from people who are not
victims of propaganda.

But the recent petitions to this list is not civil:

1.  They are manifestly going to the wrong places (see the Status
section of any HTML spec to find out where you should direct your
comments.)

2.  They are all either fictional (in which case they are patently spam)
or they are from people who were encouraged to send the mail under false
pretenses by some lying creep with Machiavellian delusions of grandeur.
(That would be you, of course.)

Nor is the spam thoughtful, as is obvious from its typical content.


By the way, "bulk" refers to the number of recipients, not message
size.


It is discourteous in the extreme to solicit e-mail from
a mass audience to a public forum.  No one here is interested
in receiving these e-mails.  They serve no purpose except
to annoy.  That makes them spam.

I don't like unnecessary bricks lying about near my apartment,
even if I could just step over them; nor unnecessary barrels
sitting out in the middle of the expressway, although I could
just drive around them.  I wouldn't appreciate unnecessary
ads appearing every time I launch a program on my computer,
even if I could "just ignore" them; I don't like unnecessary
noise, or animation, or people being unnecessarily rude, even if
all these things are momentary and ultimately unimportant.

So, likewise, I don't like getting 20 or 30 messages from
saps who got duped, or from some emotionally disturbed creep who
got a few accounts on anonymous servers, from which he can spam
a whole mailing list.

Receiving such mail is an irritation and isn't healthy.  None of
these things are healthy or contribute to leading a meaningful life,
which, by the way, I wish you all the best in pursuing.  Elsewhere.


> Don't the browser vendors have a right to know the extent 
> of the demand for device upload?

I'm sure they're falling over themselves to thank you.

Heavens knows none of these companies do their own market
research, much less the objective and quantifiable sort of
experiment provided by your petition.  The only shame is that
you can't be compensated as you so richly deserve.


> "Tilting at windmills"
means fighting an enemy that doesn't exist.  There is indeed an
implication of mental illness.

-- 
Yours most sincerely,
Jason Orendorff

* not associated with the W3C in any way, except as a fan *

Received on Friday, 3 March 2000 17:48:12 UTC