Spam from gmail

[Aahz]

In article <mailman.194.1267045621.4577.python-list at python.org>,
Steve Holden  <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:
>Aahz wrote:
>> In article <87sk8r5v2f.fsf at benfinney.id.au>,
>> Ben Finney  <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
>>>>
>>>> Joan Miller is a regular poster; this is off-topic, but it's not spam.
>>>
>>> Non sequitur. Spam is spam, not by who authors or posts it, but by its
>>> distribution (to many people, e.g. via a forum like this one) and its
>>> content (off-topic and unsolicited).
>>>
>>> The message is important, its poster is a regular here; that doesn't
>>> stop the message being spam when posted here.
>> 
>> That seems to miss the point to some extent.  If I post my recipe for
>> spinach lasagne here, is that spam?  I don't think many people would call
>> it spam, just an off-topic post.  From my POV, spam is defined a bit more
>> narrowly.
>
>Spam is, at least from my point of view, UCE: unsolicited commercial
>e-mail. So anything that isn't commercial (like those "send these to ten
>of your friends" emails) isn't spam (but it might just as well be).

That's roughly correct, but I also think that if someone posts the same
message to five mailing lists, it's not unreasonable to call that
spamming.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Many customs in this life persist because they ease friction and promote
productivity as a result of universal agreement, and whether they are
precisely the optimal choices is much less important." --Henry Spencer