Hi All,

It was with some surprise to see the disparate views put forward to the 
list regarding my recent post. Firstly, let me say that my views on non 
solicited e-mail have hardened somewhat in recent times given that my 
Melbourne based mailserver has been down for the last few days due to a 
'spam hijack' and my web based Yahoo mail address now receives 150 spams 
a week rendering it operationally almost useless.

I note Josh's explanation that, and I quote,

>Option (3) is pretty much what I did with the aid of the public auDA member list >(http://www.auda.org.au/about/members-list.html), my personal email contact list and Google.


Option 3 referring to the Ron Stark penned

> To mail those members who are on his personal mail list, in an effort to be discreet

Josh, I cannot be on your 'personal' mail list ... we have never met 
before to the best of my knowledge and sparing posts you have sent to 
this list you have never e-mailed 'personally' before. Applying this 
sort of logic,  you clearly would be happy to receive e-mail from one 
John Winston Howard or extolling the virtues of your local Liberal Party 
candidate before the next election because someone at NOIE made a 
'personal e-mail list' with the aid of various public lists and Google 
..... I think not.

Skeeve Steven's proffered the view that:

>Josh's email to the voting body of auDA is NOT spam.

Skeeve ... I am most pleased to receive official auDA e-mails from the 
auDA members list but these e-mails are fundamentally different from 
those from Director's seeking election or re-election as the case may 
be. Likewise, Skeeve I assume you would be happy to receive e-mail from 
the Episcopal Church in the US attempting to lobby you to convince 
Archbishop Peter Jensen to change his views with respect to the newly 
elected Bishop V Gene Robinson because someone had put a personal e-mail 
list together including your e-mail address found using Baysean WWW 
search technologies that happened to scan text contained within your 
<www.skeeve.org> WWW site .... I think not.

This all brings me to broader points relating to "equal air time" for 
auDA Board candidates and the solicitation of proxy votes.

As an auDA member I received an e-mail from the Chief Policy Officer on 
or around the 23rd of October advising me of the forthcoming AGM. It 
hyperlinked to a list of candidate statements appropriately limited to 
100 words that I dutifully read. This allowed me to consider each 
candidates position without having additional unsolicited e-mail fill my 
e-mail account ... That is of course before Josh chose to send me an 
annoying and unwanted electronic epistle. To add insult to injury it 
contained substantially the same information in his candidate statement 
.... Josh, have you been reading Marshall MacLuan lately .... the medium 
is the message seems to be your modus operandi :-). My substantive point 
here being that the 100 word candidate statement appears to me to be an 
attempt to allow each candidate 'equal air time' ... Unsolicited e-mails 
to members from aspirant Director candidates is contrary to the spirit 
of this.

Further, Josh had the brazen nerve to request that my proxy vote be 
nominated in his name and his address. Every candidate should get the 
opportunity to solicit proxy votes in their favour which would require 
the availability of their addresses somewhere on the auDA WWW site so 
the proxy form can be filled out correctly, not just those that put 
together personal e-mail addresses of auDA members and send unwanted (at 
least in my instance) e-mails seeking their votes.

In short sum, it may as I identified in my initial post be a moot point 
to whether Josh's e-mail to auDA was spam, however there is no doubt it 
was unsolicited and unwanted in my case. Equally importantly it raises 
issues of election fairness that may well usefully be considered further 
by the incoming auDA Board.



-DGT