Spamming (Good or Bad?)

[snow]

On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 6:04 PM 8/21/96, Gary Howland wrote:
> >Often I'll ask a stupid question too ("Does your software work in
> >France?").  If more people did this, then they'd have to choose their
> >victims a bit more carefully in the future (assuming of course they're
> >trying to sell something).
> 
> As I said in my last message, I don't even do this--I just bounce it back
> to them.
> I see no need to "ask questions" (such as "Does it work in France?") to,
> perhaps, "establish legitimacy." If they sent it to me, I can send it back.
> Simple.

     I think that the purpose of asking a question is to consume _more_ of their 
time. If they read it, they have to decide if and how to respond. Cousme more 
of their resources. It might even be interesting to write a script that automatically
inserts a silly question (like "does it work in france") and mails it back with the
single stroke of a key. 

Petro, Christopher C.
petro at suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow at smoke.suba.com