People who reply to spammers [was: Re: I need some cleanings tips and advice.]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:11:58 +0000, Colin B. replied to a spammer with:

> Let's see if I get this right.
> 
> You create a website for a subject that you know nothing about. Then you
> try to solicit content in a bunch of programming language newsgroups.
> 
> Wow, that's pretty pathetic, even for a google-groups poster!
> 
> Begone with you.

You know, my ISP did a pretty good job of recognizing the original post as
spam, and dropped it, so I never even saw it until your post came along.
So I wonder, who is more pathetic -- the spammer, who at least is hoping
to make money from his rudeness, or idiots who try to reason with spammers
AND include the spam in their reply?

Thanks a lot Colin, I really appreciate you finding a way to bypass the
spam filtering. Not.

(You know, if I were a spammer, I would disguise my spam as an indignant
response to spam, thus guaranteeing a vastly greater audience.)

Colin, if that doesn't convince you to STOP ENGAGING SPAMMERS IN
DISCUSSION, no matter how witty you think your reply is, let me
point out that by rudely including the text of the spam in your
post, you are associating your name and email address with spam. That
might not be such a good thing to do as more and more people use Bayesian
filtering. 

Follow-ups set to comp.lang.python.



-- 
Steven.