"The end cannot
justify the means for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed
determine the nature of the ends produced."
Aldus Huxley, Ends and Means
A question was asked in NANAE and one answer bears repeating:
"If you had to offer one piece of advice to a
newly-hatched spam fighter, what would be the single most effective
spam-proofing tip you could offer?"
This one is easy:
The person who has to review your report is just that: a person.
Never forget that you're dealing with people.....even though that is incredibly
easy to do in this essentially written medium. Just because he [1]
is
manning the "abuse desk" doesn't mean that this is the company's
designated whipping boy. He's there to combat network abuse by his users.
Further, that admin is (and should be) working to protect his network (his
employer and their customers) from spammers and their ilk (whether that be
receiving spam from other customers or cutting off spammers before the network
is cut off from the rest of the 'net), not to protect you. You're doing
him a service, he's not there to do you one. We're lucky that things work
out that way. The admin gets to protect his system and you have one less
spammer to worry about.
Keep your abuse reports[2] succinct and always include headers. It's
probably not the only one sent in that day for your spam, so don't waste his
time by going into the cost shifting arguments. Leave that to the
political and corporate bean counter types who care about it. The *abuse*
admin doesn't care about costs that *you* are bearing, he cares about
*protecting his network*.
I know that sounds like more than one piece of advice. It isn't. It
all comes down to attitude. If you yell and scream for someone's head,
don't expect much. Treat the abuse admins as people and help them do their
jobs and you'll likely get where you want to go.
One last piece of advice, gratis. Get to know your own abuse admin. ...
While you're at it, listen to what frustrations they have generally and see how
you can alter your own behaviors to make the admin's life easier....
Hope that helped.
--
Mickey Chandler
President & Legislative Liaison
Forum for Responsible & Ethical E-mail (http://www.spamfree.org)
"Speech isn't free when it comes postage due." -- Jim Nitchals
[1] All references to the male gender in this post should also
be construed to reference the female gender as well as vice versa. <back>
[2] Note: I always call them "abuse reports" and not "spam
complaints". It's a frame of mind thing. You're reporting
incidents of network abuse, you're NOT complaining about a user.<back>
Posted with permission from
the author.
