[blackshoe]

I write a piece of software to send a message to certain people. There's a bug in the software. It sends the message multiple times. Okay, I'm a lousy programmer. But I didn't spam anyone on purpose.

[Cascade]

blackshoe, on 2011-January-22, 07:36, said:

I write a piece of software to send a message to certain people. There's a bug in the software. It sends the message multiple times. Okay, I'm a lousy programmer. But I didn't spam anyone on purpose.

I am pretty certain that this is not what happened with bridgetopics.

1. A reasonable person who made such a mistake would make some effort to apologize for their actions. bridgetopics have made no such apology.

2. A reasonable person who made such a mistake and was contacted by someone affected would respond in reasonable time. bridgetopics have not responded to emails sent to them from me over the past three plus months. I did receive one response yesterday to one of the four emails that I have sent to them. That response answered none of the three specific questions that I asked of them. It seemed like a standard form response with some similar themes to Fred's response earlier in this thread, although it did address me by name but was in other ways impersonal in that it was not signed by any of their staff. It did not acknowledge any of my other emails that they have not responded to.

3. As with Frances in my case the email address that bridgetopics was used is not my primary personal email account. This address was harvested in some manner. It seems to me absent evidence to the contrary that my email address was added to their database by someone using their personal contacts or contacts from some other purpose (perhaps I once sent an email to one of these people on some unrelated matter) or that someone actively found publically available email addresses to send to. Possibly there is some other reason that I have not thought of however bridgetopics have resisted answering my reasonable request to tell me where they obtained my email address.

It seems to me that bridgetopics have not acted in a reasonable way with their promotional emails and that they continue to not act in a reasonable way by not responding to questions.

[gnasher]

Cascade, on 2011-January-22, 10:58, said:

I am pretty certain that this is not what happened with bridgetopics.

Me too. It's far more likely to be something like this:

I have a piece of software on my PC. It's designed for manipulating numbers, but I decide to use it for managing mailing lists.

I get a list of email addresses from somewhere, and I send them all an email. I don't think of checking the list for duplicates, so I end up emailing a few people twice.

I get another list of email addresses from somewhere else. I try to remove from this list anyone who was in the first list. However, I'm using the wrong piece of software, and I'm not very good at using it, and I don't understand that "joe.bloggs@gmail.com", "joe.bloggs@gmail.com ", "joe.bloggs@googlemail.com", "Joe Bloggs [joe.bloggs@gmail.com]", "Joe Bloggs <joe.bloggs@gmail.com>" will all go to the same address but will not be treated as equivalent by my software. As a result, I end up emailing some people a second time.

Later I get a third list of addresses. I match it against the first list, but I forget to match it against the second. A few people who were in the second list get emailed again.

Somebody complains about having been emailed twice. I realise that I'd forgotten to match the third list against the second. To avoid making the same mistake again, I combine all three lists into one.

Somebody else asks me where I got their email address from. When I combined the lists into one, it didn't occur to me that I might need to know where an address came from, so all I have is a list of addresses without anything to indicate the source of each address. I know I've got the original lists somewhere, but they were sent to me as email attachments, so they're buried in my inbox somewhere. I put it on my "To Do" list.

I'm part of a small, owner-managed startup with a new product to launch and no support staff, and I have many responsibilities besides e-marketing. I have a million things to do, so it stays on my "To Do" list for longer than it should. After a while, I realise that I've left it so long that it would be embarrassing to contact the enquirer, and anyway I think they've probably forgotten about it. So I do too.

[helene_t]

could some moderator please delete all posts in this thread that do not address the OP question, namely whether BT is worth the costs? Then those who like to discuss direct-marketing ethics can take their discussion to some business ethics site, or to the water cooler.

[inquiry]

helene_t, on 2011-January-22, 14:38, said:

could some moderator please delete all posts in this thread that do not address the OP question, namely whether BT is worth the costs? Then those who like to discuss direct-marketing ethics can take their discussion to some business ethics site, or to the water cooler.

This is a very reasonable request. However, it takes considerable time to weed through the post and move them around, and some post have both kinds of content (where would they go). Worse, if we start moving post and splitting threads that is all we would end up doing. I could also delete a rude post while I was at it, but then I have to do something with all the post that refer to the rude post -- not all of them are in this thread by the way. But maybe, just maybe your post and my reply will get this thread back on topic.

As far as the site goes, I am not paying that kind of money for a once monthly newletter on topics that we have discussed to death here (of course, the content there is probably much more professional than what was discussed here). Now if they showed a lot of interesting hands... well that would be different. I would pay a lot for that.

[qwery_hi]

helene_t, on 2011-January-22, 14:38, said:

could some moderator please delete all posts in this thread that do not address the OP question, namely whether BT is worth the costs? Then those who like to discuss direct-marketing ethics can take their discussion to some business ethics site, or to the water cooler.

Deleting history is often a bad idea. It makes it difficult for a new user reading the thread to understand what's going on, and makes the life of moderators very hard. The way some forums deal with this problem is to by default not show posts that have a certain number of downvotes (4 for example). User interested in reading these posts would click an 'expand' button, but they would be warned that some number of forum users thought these posts are not worth the time to read.

As a stopgap, perhaps BBO could implement a feature where a moderator downvote would hide a post but not delete it. The assumption being this would not be too difficult for the moderators.

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-January-19, 15:23, said:

Well, they sent me one unsolicited email saying "this is the only unsolicited email we are going to send you, look at our site" Then they sent me another 3 unsolicited emails. Then I added them to my spam senders list.I don't know where they got my email address from, but I wish they hadn't. I have no idea what the content is like, but you can see why I haven't given them any money!

cherdano, on 2011-January-20, 11:01, said:

Uhuh, the "technical problems" excuse for spam.

barmar, on 2011-January-20, 13:48, said:

I think the intent was to excuse not replying to the complaints. Jan seems to be claiming that they never send any spam in the first place, only the opt-in newsletters. So either he's clueless about what's going on in his organization, he's lying, or a third party was sending this spam about his site without their knowledge.

the hog, on 2011-January-21, 19:53, said:

Spamming is poor business practise, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with deleting unwanted email. Look at the disreputable spam emails you get attempting to sell you dodgy things. Would you buy a used car from these men?

mtvesuvius, on 2011-January-21, 19:57, said:

The unthinkable has happened: I agree with the hog!

the hog, on 2011-January-21, 22:36, said:

Is that the same as being somewhat pregnant? I ask again, how can you innocently spam someone?

Cascade, on 2011-January-22, 10:58, said:

I am pretty certain that this is not what happened with bridgetopics.
1. A reasonable person who made such a mistake would make some effort to apologize for their actions. bridgetopics have made no such apology.
2. A reasonable person who made such a mistake and was contacted by someone affected would respond in reasonable time. bridgetopics have not responded to emails sent to them from me over the past three plus months. I did receive one response yesterday to one of the four emails that I have sent to them. That response answered none of the three specific questions that I asked of them. It seemed like a standard form response with some similar themes to Fred's response earlier in this thread, although it did address me by name but was in other ways impersonal in that it was not signed by any of their staff. It did not acknowledge any of my other emails that they have not responded to.
3. As with Frances in my case the email address that bridgetopics was used is not my primary personal email account. This address was harvested in some manner. It seems to me absent evidence to the contrary that my email address was added to their database by someone using their personal contacts or contacts from some other purpose (perhaps I once sent an email to one of these people on some unrelated matter) or that someone actively found publically available email addresses to send to. Possibly there is some other reason that I have not thought of however bridgetopics have resisted answering my reasonable request to tell me where they obtained my email address.
It seems to me that bridgetopics have not acted in a reasonable way with their promotional emails and that they continue to not act in a reasonable way by not responding to questions.

The comments on Bridgetopics by Frances, Cascade, Cherdano, Barmar, The Hog, and mtvesuvius are as informative and relevant as any others in helping BBOers to assess the site. All that Cascade has requested from Bridgetopics is a reply to simple questions.

[Cascade]

nige1, on 2011-April-04, 21:56, said:

The comments on Bridgetopics by Frances, Cascade, Cherdano, Barmar, The Hog, and mtvesuvius are as informative and relevant as any others in helping BBOers to assess the site. All that Cascade has requested from Bridgetopics is a reply to simple questions.

I received a reply from BridgeTopics on 22 January.

They did not answer any of my questions.

Their email finished with "Please do contact us if you have more questions"

I replied to their email with this simple text

"You have not answered any of my questions.

Is it possible to get an answer to those questions?"

I have not had a response.

[bluecalm]

My complaint about them is that I have no clue what kind of articles are in there.
Support double one is really basic and I am not interested in that kind of stuff. On the other hand Gazilli by Lauria could be interesting for me but there is no way to evaluate if it's advanced/detailed stuff or again something aimed more to beginners/intermediate players.

[nige1]

Some spammers rely on the adage "All publicity is good publicity".

[Free]

Cascade, on 2011-January-20, 20:42, said:

This is the entire content of the first email

"Can you please tell me where you got my email address from?

Thanks"

Wayne, are you really on a quest to find out where they got your email address from, while you're posting it in plain text on this website? You even have your phone number and mobile on there!!!

[Cascade]

Free, on 2011-April-06, 03:03, said:

Wayne, are you really on a quest to find out where they got your email address from, while you're posting it in plain text on this website? You even have your phone number and mobile on there!!!

I don't really care.

I am someone annoyed that they choose to spam as their marketing policy.

I don't think they do themselves any favours by not responding to reasonable emails.

[Free]

Cascade, on 2011-April-06, 03:10, said:

I don't really care.

I don't think they do themselves any favours by not responding to reasonable emails.

Why should they care to waste time to respond if you don't care about the answer anyway?

Cascade, on 2011-April-06, 03:10, said:

I am someone annoyed that they choose to spam as their marketing policy.

This is the only valid argument you've presented imo. Spam is definitely annoying.

Note however that in the time you've wasted to send 2 emails you could've prevented any more of their spam forever.

[blackshoe]

Free, on 2011-April-06, 03:42, said:

Note however that in the time you've wasted to send 2 emails you could've prevented any more of their spam forever.

Not so. He could perhaps have prevented his seeing any of their spam, but the spam would still exist (and would still be collected by his mail client).

[matmat]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-06, 07:22, said:

Not so. He could perhaps have prevented his seeing any of their spam, but the spam would still exist (and would still be collected by his mail client).

this is that "falling tree in the forest" thing again, isn't it?

[bluecalm]

Btw, I find it sad that Eric Rodwell writes articles about support doubles at very basic level. I could do that just as well and probably many forum posters could too. As one of the best in the history of the game ER has certainly a lot to say about playing at the highest level, designing high level systems/treatments/conventions or even telling stories about what high level bridge is and what is important there. That would be unique and worth a lot of dollars to many bridge fans (like me, for example).

[Cascade]

Free, on 2011-April-06, 03:42, said:

Why should they care to waste time to respond if you don't care about the answer anyway?


This is the only valid argument you've presented imo. Spam is definitely annoying.

Note however that in the time you've wasted to send 2 emails you could've prevented any more of their spam forever.

Maybe I should have been more explicit.

I don't really care where they got my email address from. I do care that they are harvesting email addresses, mine and others, to send unsolicited commercial email. They continue to act like an irresponsible business by not responding to reasonable requests about their marketing strategies that cause inconvenience.

I had a much more responsible reaction from another business a few months ago. A business who like bridgetopics appear reputable but nevertheless sent me unsolicited email:

1. The responded to me promptly

2. Although initially they were insistent that I must have provided them with my email address and consent to send such emails they made an effort to check that fact

3. When they found that I had not consented to their commercial emails they immediately apologized

4. On their own initiative they sent me some petrol vouchers as a gesture of goodwill

Again I don't care about the petrol vouchers however at least I am sure that they took the matter seriously.

Not so BridgeTopics they have continued to act as if they don't give a damn that they spam email addresses an action which is quite possibly illegal (it certainly is where I live and I imagine is in many other places).

I repeat I have had one response from them it looked to me like a form letter rather than a personal response that addressed none of the questions that I had asked them. They invited me to ask them further questions and I did so but they haven't bothered to respond. If these are the actions of a reputable business then I will eat my proverbial hat.

[blackshoe]

matmat, on 2011-April-06, 11:07, said:

this is that "falling tree in the forest" thing again, isn't it?

Probably.

[nige1]

Even if you regard spamming as harmless fun, IMO, you should respect the views of others who resent the time and money that it costs them.
Would-be users of Bridgetopics should be grateful to Cascade for his timely information: a vendor guilty of spamming that denies it and obstinately refuses to answer questions from a potential customer.

It is hard to understand is why no Bridgetopics representative has posted an apology here. It would be such a simple and efficient marketing exercise. Or would some label that spam too?

[matmat]

I wondered over to see the site. Meh.

It tells you who their emarketing coordinator is. so perhaps you could track down this particular individual and harass them personally frequently until you get taken off the mailing list?