Slashdot Mirror
Dealing with Abusive E-Mail?
sheetzam asks: "I am the manager of the mail system for a reasonable (3000 employees) sized media company. Recently a website has decided to post the e-mail addresses of a few of our employees, and suggest readers send those people abuse. We know we have no legal recourse for removing the e-mail addresses from the offending web site. We can't filter the abusive e-mail based on header information because it is coming from many places. Our only choice seems to be to change the person's e-mail address. If this were an abusive phone call, we'd know exactly how to handle it. But e-mail is quite different. How are others dealing with this?"
Finally, why not post the URL for the website here on Slashdot?
That's assuming the website wasn't slashdot in the first place. It's not unknown for folks to post corporate email addresses here when in high dudgeon and suggest that other people make their feelings known. At least when it's done here, though, it's not abuse, but simply sticking it to The Man. :)
"Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
You may perceive it as abuse, but it is also a chance to put across your side of the story.
The first thing to do is to route the incoming mail correctly. Many mail systems permit redirection of mail "by rule", including by content of the body of the message.
The first step is to do this is to ask all the people affected by this feedback campaign to forward these mails to a single mailbox, and then to analyse the messages for words they use. Typically, with campaign-type mails, people use very similar phrases to those used by the writer of the campaigning website. So, if the writer says, "Write to corporation X, and tell them to stop oppressing the natives of Peru", a shedload of people will write in and include the phrase, "Stop oppressing the natives of Peru!" in their message.
Set up a rule and reroute the messages to a "Unsolicited comment" file. Keep an eye on what gets through and what doesn't, and refine the approach.
The second thing to do is to take all these e-mail addresses, and create a mailing list for issues connected to your company. Get a note or two pumped out saying, "We at Megacorp X take your comments very seriously and are doing A and B about them. Please mail me, Mr Bigcheese if you have any other concerns you'd like to raise." Set up a website yourself and engage these people in debate.
If you just ignore what is happening, it is likely that a number of the correspondents will take the time and trouble to trash your reputation in the market place. Much better to manage the feedback and reach out to its senders.
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
This sounds like the kind of question a spamming company might ask.
E.g one of the ones listed on my Shitlist.
So what is this "media" company and why are people angry enough to send abusive emails?
no sig.
I'm sorry, but harassing employees because of corperate decisions is never the correct thing to do. If you disagree with them, send your email through the normal email channels, and they will ticket/count your request/complaint as they do everyone elses. Abusing workers of a company only decreases employee moral and upsets a *real live person, who has a life outside of your gripe with the media company*. Not to mention your complaint will probably be ignored, and if your abusive enough you might end up with a policeman at your door tomorow morning.
Grow up.
I live in a giant bucket.