[clug] Contract Position with Defence Available!!!

Kim Holburn kim.holburn at anu.edu.au
Tue Jul 13 23:35:01 GMT 2004


On 2004 Jul 14, , at 8:59 AM, Peter Barker wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jul 2004, Martin Pool wrote:
>>>> From the previous few months I believe the vast majority of the 
>>>> list don't
>>> mind RELEVANT and TARGETTED commercial postings to the list so long 
>>> as
>>> they are clearly marked as such. I may be wrong in that assumption.
>>
>> When I see a message titled "[clug] Contract Position with Defence
>> Available!!!" I have a pretty good idea of what it contains, and
>> whether I want to read it or not.  If it was not Linux-related, or not
>> in Canberra, or titled just "please help" then I might be more likely
>> to think it was spam.
>
> Hmmmm. I believe this does fall into what I would categorise as
> "unsolicited commerical email", also known as spam.

Ummm, no that'd be unsolicited *bulk* commercial email and this wasn't 
*bulk*.  Frankly these days I don't view as spam any email with real 
headers to which has a real return address to which a real person 
responds.  Despite definitions under laws.

> It was certainly commercial in nature.

I have seen lots of "spam" that wasn't commercial.  Chain letters 
anyone?  BTW is fraud commercial in your view?

> So I guess it comes down to, "was it solicited"?
> While in this case it seems nobody asked for the post, I guess it 
> might be
> that the list implicitly invites postings which are on-topic. So what's
> "on-topic"? Anything which says, "linux" anywhere in it? ("he4ba1 11nux
> v1ag4a" posts are going to arrive real soon now in that case...). Any 
> job
> which mentions linux in the job description?

Probably.  I'm sure there are list members who are looking for work who 
would be interested.  I think this is an important function of this 
list.

> IIRC, it was determined that the list would allow UCE so long as it was
> vaguely relevant and was marked as [FOR SALE].

OK, so we add [EMPLOYMENT] or some such (to the list page?).

> Reading back through my original contribution, I realise my language 
> was a
> tad harsh :)

Yes.

> Lastly, I still my response was warranted. This was a commercial
> recruiting company looking for somebody with linux experience. There 
> must
> be dozens of these companies in Canberra. They must get hundreds of
> similar job postings a year to fill - and this number is only going to
> increase.

As linux gets more mainstream it is going to increase.

> I'd suggest that the maths says it would be a good idea to
> encourage the posters of these messages to mark their messages in the
> appropriate /filterable/ way so that the perceived signal/noise ration 
> on
> the list is maintained.

Or you could get working spam filter.

> Oops. Seem to have had a stream of conciousness event.

Thanks for sharing.

Kim
-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Manager, Canberra Research Laboratory
National Information and Communication Technology Australia
Ph: +61 2 61258620 M: +61 417820641
Email: kim.holburn at anu.edu.au  - PGP Public Key on request
Aust. Spam Act: To stop receiving mail from me: reply and let me know.

Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961



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