Don't post e-mail addresses

Subject: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 11:47 PM

I really shouldn't have to post a reminder about this, but I guess some people just don't catch on. On Saturday, somebody posted another Mudcatter's e-mail address in a political thread. It's true that the address had been posted elsewhere at Mudcat, but not in a controversial thread. I deleted the message as soon as I found it, but the damage had already been done. The Mudcatter's e-mail was swamped with e-mails that condemned her for her opinions - and the e-mails came from several addresses, none of which were registered as members at Mudcat.

If you post your own e-mail address or personal information at Mudcat, please be mindful that you do so at your own risk. I post mine, but I have good reason to. But PLEASE don't post anybody else's e-mail or phone or personal information in a public message, unless it is an e-mail address or information that is openly published at other locations for business purposes.

Thanks.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 12:44 PM

I have just read a chapter in a book entitled Degunking Windows (every PC owner needs a copy). The chapter deals with protecting yourself from spam. There are outfits out there in cyberspace who make their money by collecting e-mail addresses and selling their lists to spammers. E-mail addresses posted on web sites, forums (such as this one), and newsgroups are like gifts to them. Don't make their job easy, or you could very well wind up with hundreds of spam e-mails in your in-box every day! Just don't do it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Nick
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 12:50 PM

Good article about this written quite a long time ago here called "Why am I getting all this spam"

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 01:12 PM

The person who posted it should be sanctioned!

~S~

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 01:15 PM

Sanctioned, nothing! They should be beheaded.

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 01:30 PM

"the e-mails came from several addresses, none of which were registered as members at Mudcat."

Like it's hard to created a bogus email addy to register at mudcat with...

More than a few MBs I frequent require a 'provider' email addy to register...   Not hotmail... not Gmail... only the 'home' email addy you'd get from your internet provider...   And they have few if any problems with squabbles, spammers, or flames...

Mind you, their web forum doesn't crash once-a-day, every day either...

All these issues are such non-issues... or should be....

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: open mike
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 01:49 PM

anything with adn "@" in it is fair game for search engines to glom on to--best to spell out "dot" and "at" to confound the spy bots at least a bit..and Clinton this service does not crash every day..

sorry this happened....at most times we seem like a community here..
like minded folks just helping each other out....but there is always
a bad apple in the barrel....and.....

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:01 PM

I've been postponing and procrastinating my intention to post a profile. One thing that makes me hesitate (besides inertia/laziness, of course) is reluctance ~ or, at least, indecision ~ to publish my email address, which incidentally includes my real name.

As anyone who has ever gotten into a "PM" conversation with me knows, I'm not absolutely secretive about my real-life identity. In fact, this is the first forum I ever joined under a pseudonym; I'm known by my given name in several other places on the worldwide web. I only decided to use an alias here at the encouragement of the member who first encouraged me to join. Now, I feel pretty confortable about my "semi-secretive" identity here. I can reveal myself to selected real people while remaining completely unknown to robotic snoops.

If I were a fulltime working musician, of course, I would have reason to publicize myself as much as possible, including real name (or, at least, "stage name"), email, and website address. I would imagine that many folks in that position may maintain at least two separate email addresses: one for the vast anonymous public that they post on their websites, and another semi-private personal address.

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:04 PM

"this service does not crash every day.."

Ohhh... How defensive... Hit a little too close to the bone there for ya OM?

Thought so...

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Ferrara
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:31 PM

OM was just correcting a misrepresentation (or maybe just a misconception?) with a simple statement of fact.

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:41 PM

Last year I was talking to a friend in the mudchat room, a few others were present. i gave the person my email address (it was prior to my trip to austria & the UK, and we were organising stuff) and another catter in the room wrote down that email address and started emailing me.

while that person was very nice etc, it put me in an awkward situation.

i won't give out my email address in the mudchat room any more.

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:47 PM

And I was (slightly) exaggerating to make a point...

d'uh...

I could have gone the other way, and talked about how Mudcat is the Rock Of Gibraltar of The WHOLE of Cyberspace... it's SO stable that one thinks of it as the internet's Atlas... or as it's four dwarves, holding up the sky...

There's a literary term for that, but I forget what it is...

whatever...

Don't post emails... unless they're your own....

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 03:46 PM

Well, I'm the one who put it in the political thread. I will take Joe's advice on this issue in the future. While this may be difficult to believe, it had not occurred to me that the woman whose e-mail I had re -posted (from several other threads that I found quite easily while searching the screen name she and her husband partially share), would recieve any e-mails as a result of my having posted it. My bad, mea-culpa, etc. etc. etc.

I would like to say on my behalf, that my reasons were not in any way malicious. There was an innocent third party who was being accused of posting anonymously under multiple screen names, and this person was being blamed for the posts (and what some people in the thread felt was trolling), of the husband of the shared screen name couple. My only reason for posting the e-mail address was to illustrate the genesis of the screen name, and to show that it was a genuine one and not bogus, as at least one person was claiming.

Personally, I think this all-too-common practice of trying to "out" people who some members think aren't who they say they are is getting beyond ridiculous, and this case is a good example of that.

Having said that, I will now go stand in a corner with my dunce cap on for the required period of time.

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: Ferrara
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 03:49 PM

Ah, Carol, I once forwarded a highly controversial political e-mail without removing the originating e-mail addresses or putting the recipients addresses in the BLIND carbon copies area. Just lack of awareness -- and caution -- on my part but I had to send apologies, etc to a whole bunch of people. We live and learn.

Rita

Subject: RE: Don't post e-mail addresses
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 07:40 PM

Serious Business: Keep open and hope folks will take note