autoresponding for email migration

[gusl]

Another obvious idea:

When changing email addresses because of too much spam, you could set up an auto-responder directing the contact (and the spammers!) to your website, where your email is safely displayed in a GIF.

Does anyone know a webmail with a permanent autoresponding feature? Yahoo's vacation mail doesn't support vacations longer than 6 months.

UPDATE: my host, buydomains.com, has an autorespond feature. It requires you to choose a forwarding address, but I'll just direct them all to Yahoo and never read them. Problem Solved!

Comments

[breyten.livejournal.com]

I think that's bull. If you do that, why don't you give up e-mail all together ?. It severely diminishes the utility of e-mail if I have to take twice as many actions just to send you an e-mail.

(And what about mailing lists? And what about people who are vision impaired?)

[arun3.livejournal.com]

If it is an HTML mail, you could take advantage of the alternate text feature.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

how did you find my journal, btw?

[arun3.livejournal.com]

I believe indirectly through the INTP mailing list. Either you posted your livejournal account or someone else posted their site that linked to yours.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

That sounds odd. Any idea who's linking to me?
I haven't had any visitors referred by personal sites in the last 10 days.
I never post to that list.

Just yesterday, I got a request for confirmation to join one of the INTP lists. As if I had signed up myself...

[arun3.livejournal.com]

This was some time ago on the chesirecat.net list, I haven't been subscribed since January. I've been lurking awhile, no reason to comment yet.

It may have been someone linking to your www.optomizelife.com site.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

You only have to look up my new address once.
Also, if you get email from me, the Reply-To is already the new email.

People who are vision impaired will have the same problem reading any email address that's displayed on a GIF. The alternative would be to give my address away to spammers.

If you can't do it, criticize it.

[rainbrot.livejournal.com]

It's a one time thing, and I doubt he's trying to accomodate strangers. I suspect he'd know if any of his friends were vision impaired (and considerate enough to think of it -- he's a really thoughtful guy), and I know he's smart enough to change any mailing list subscriptions on his own. I don't think he was proposing this solution for everyone. To me, it seems like a reasonable solution, but I'm sure it could be improved.

Besides, there are many ways to contact him other than email (like LiveJournal). If someone really did have a problem with his solution, there would be a workaround.

I think you may be falling into the common trap of criticizing other people's solutions so you can feel superior. Saying "I think that's bull" seems to support my speculation that you may be trying to put him down rather than offer any real value.

Spotting ways in which something could potentially break is easy for an INTP (I know -- I'm INTP, and I do that for a living), but the real value comes from finding solutions (which I also do for a living, because there's not much of a market for telling people about problems they can't solve).

Gustavo is a pretty damn sharp, ambitious, and focused guy, so I can see how if you were to measure yourself against him, you might feel the need to find ways in which he is inferior. I think in this case you've failed.

Your criticism reminds me of something I experienced a few years ago. I had a spam catching email address posted on my web site for a while, clearly labeled with something like "if you want to be blacklisted as a spammer, please send email to this address."

Out of curiosity, I would occasionally skim through and see if anyone but spambots had sent anything there. Once I got an email saying something like "this approach is flawed. I bet you're missing legitimate emails directed to you, such as this one. You should find a better solution." The problem with that argument is that I didn't actually care to see that email. If a complete stranger came to my site and failed to comprehend the blacklist note, I doubt their email would be particularly interesting to me either.

So, if you REALLY want to feel superior to Gustavo, I suggest you propose a solution that better solves his problem. Personally, if I wanted to get in touch with him, I wouldn't feel irritated at having to get his new email address from a web site. If I didn't care enough to follow through, I doubt he'd care either.

I dislike seeing people zipping around the net flinging criticism at anyone they can find. You triggered that. Why not do something constructive instead? (I'm not implying that you DON'T do constructive things -- just that you could stop dispensing harsh criticism and get better results.)

If it seems like I'm engaging in the same activity as you, reconsider. I've proposed alternatives to your behavior, suggested possible motivation for what I view as a destructive pattern, and I've also used this opportunity to tell Gustavo that I think very highly of him.

Re: If you can't do it, criticize it.

[breyten.livejournal.com]

Hey,

Gustavo is perfectly able to defend himself. The fact that he only responded to the content, and not the (awful) way in which the message was worded should've given you a hint that flaming me was unnecessary.

On a rare occasion as this, I tend to lash out (Sorry Gustavo!). This can happen when a nerve is touched, such as giving in to spammers :). My current e-mail is the one that I've been using for more than eight years now. I've used this address a lot in public spaces, and it definitely has ended up on the radar of spammer. Yet, the number of spam messages that survives the combination of the spambox of my provider, and Thunderbird's Junk mail folder is about one every month. I'm not sure about Gustavo, or you, but it's obvious that using my e-mail address publicy has cost me little.

Going further into that, I'm very pessimistic about spammers. I've recently had a comment spammer on one of the websites I maintain. You'd expect that'd be an automatic process right? After deleting the at first, a few hours later he put them back on. And that repeated a few times. Someone was actually monitoring what was happening. Also, the spamming stopped immediately after I disabled the comments. If it were an automatic process I'd have warning messages in my logs everywhere. So, spammers will go at great lengths to get your e-mail addresses, or to get a higher Google Page ranking. Now, suppose that you've put the system Gustavo speaks of in place, the moment your address will fall in the hands of just *one* spammer, all your effort will have been worth nothing. My solution: just use your e-mail address. It isn't worth the hassle.

On to your other points: I'm not an INTP, nor am I a logics person. I met Gustavo about a year ago at the University, and from time to time we hang out there. I just saw him yesterday, and gave him my phone number. I'm not some person that picks on random people to make me feel better. And yes, I do think Gustavo a smart and nice guy. And I do agree with what you're saying about him. I just don't agree with all of his ideas (again, sorry Gustavo ;).

It's interesting that you talk of destructive patterns while engaging in these patterns yourself. You think you can psycho-analyze me on three lines of text? If you'd have looked at my LJ, or userinfo page then perhaps you would have made different conclusions. The comment above is not really typical for me.

I'll keep in mind to always think about providing constructive criticism however. But sometimes I just make mistakes. I'm only human you know :).

Re: If you can't do it, criticize it.

[rainbrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read my comment again a few hours after I posted it and decided I'd gone way overboard. Being human must be going around. Good job standing up for yourself.

Re: If you can't do it, criticize it.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Being human must be going around.

I hope I manage to stay clear of it!

Re: If you can't do it, criticize it.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Now, suppose that you've put the system Gustavo speaks of in place, the moment your address will fall in the hands of just *one* spammer, all your effort will have been worth nothing. My solution: just use your e-mail address. It isn't worth the hassle.

It *is* worth the hassle, because it's possible (and not that hard) to prevent spammers from getting hold of your address. In fact, I can blame all my spamful addresses on friends who put me in a huge To / CC list, most of which contained a cute joke or something of the sort.

I have a very active address that stayed spam-free for 8 months, until a friend of mine gave it to some spammer. Giving someone my email address is an issue of trust, which is why I really wish GMail could let me use different addresses to send from.