Searchable archives once again.

["Gerard Cappers" <cappersg@domain.elided>]

To all Stag list readers.

With growing amazement I'm following the discussion about the searchable archives. I was very pleased with the initiative from the
start, and I don't agree with the "spam fearing" community.

There is only one way to avoid spam completely: never ever get your address in a public place like newsgroups, free gift actions or
mailing lists. But that policy makes you miss lots of the fun things of Internet. Participating in the Internet "public life" is
taking a risk of some spam, just like in real life where phonebooks are ripped for random phone numbers by tele-marketeers.

I'm active on Internet for about 4 years now, and have never been very carefull about leaving my address. About one out of every 50
e-mail messages I get at the moment is spam. It takes me about 0.5 seconds to use the "delete" button to get rid of them...... Of
course it irritates me, but unsollicitated phone calls take more time and are much more annoying. The world isn't perfect, absolute
privacy is hard to get and only obtainable by making choices and avoiding risks. You don't want spam: never get your address on the
net. You want the benifits: accept some annoyance. It's like real life....

When I see what precautions the Stag mailing list and the searchable archives have taken to avoid spam I'm impressed. It's in fact
IMHO a good example for "real life" distributors of personal data! If anyone gets the adresses out of this archives he or she was
probably able to get them another way too. A simple membership is easier for example, hacking the server is even more profitable and
in lots of places also quite easy.

Bottom line: please get the searcable archives online again. Look at the bright side: tt will avoid another kind of semi-spam:
renewing discussions every 6 months..........

Gerard Cappers, Groningen, Netherlands
Webmaster Club Triumph Holland
Triumph Stag 1972, imported form USA
email: info@domain.elided
web: http://www.triumph.nl
private Triumph Stag restoration project site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~cappersg