08 What can i do about inappropriate postings? (bionet.info-theory)
Description
This article is from the Biological Information Theory and Chowder Society FAQ, by Thomas D. Schneider toms@ncifcrf.gov.
08 What can i do about inappropriate postings? (bionet.info-theory)
The short form of this news group's name, bio-info, can be confusing to some
people inexperienced in network communications or with little knowledge of
the discipline (if there is any :-) of biological information theory. It can
and has been mistaken as a news group for general biological information.
Our readers should be aware that when such postings come to our attention,
the discussion leaders do attempt to inform, privately, the people who make
these inappropriate postings of the error of their ways and suggest
alternative or more appropriate venues.
Subjecting the writers of inappropriate posting to public excoriation is not
a good policy because it may be an inadvertent mistake and follow-up
postings will only add to the irritation of our regular readers. When others
publicly reply to such posts in this news group, although they may think
they are being polite to the original poster, they are still annoying our
regular readers. We suggest that a better policy for readers who do wish to
reply to inappropriate posts is to do so privately or to an appropriate news
group.
If you have nothing better to do with your time and feel you must reply to
an inappropriate posting, either because you think it might be a sincere
though misguided request for information, or because you want to express
your opinions on the poster's ancestry, cool your jets one minute and
carefully consider the poster's address. Look in the mail header for the
"From:" line, the "Reply-to:" line, the "Message-id:" line, and the
"Posting-Host:" line. If the "From:" or "Reply-to:" lines contain obviously
forged information, like
From: Anonymous@net.bio.net (Unknown)
Reply-to: No.one.@net.bio.net
or if the address looks legitimate but contains inconsistent node addresses
like
From: ReadMe@ReadMe.net
Message-id: <4upgib$af8@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>
(the part after the "@" in these two lines is not consistent), do not waste
your time. The poster will never read your reply. The posting is either a
"spam" or an attempt to sabotage the system whose address has been forged.
More importantly, do not waste other scientists' time and money (yes, some
people do pay for the e-mail they receive) by replying to an inappropriate
posting through the bulletin board. No one else will be interested in seeing
your inappropriate reply to an inappropriate posting. They may, however,
note for future reference your lack of courtesy and good judgement.
For information about how to deal with intransigent cases, see:
http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/blacklist.html
For dealing with Make Money Fast schemes, see:
http://www-lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/mmf.html
Another anti-spam resource is at
http://www.canismajor.demon.co.uk/antispam/antispam.htm
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