Slashdot Mirror
Handling Email Overload in Congress
DedHerring writes "A piece from Roll Call, a newspaper on the hill, that describes how Congressional offices are working to identify which of the many bulk emails received are actually from constituents of their district. Worth a read to know if the click-through online petition you participate in is ever going to be considered by the recipient legislator. Confirms many posts in Slashdot on this topic."
Here's a new way to fight spam: Paste your Congressperson's email all over your popular website. Soon they'll be getting tons of spam, and they'll get so fed up with filtering out the real mails they'll start passing anti-spam laws.
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This confirms my belief that the simplest forms of communications are often the least effective.
Email is most anonymous and potentially anonymous, and hence has the least chance of being taken seriously.
A phone call is better, and even more so a letter. But the best (and for obvious reasons), the hardest to to is a face to face meeting.
A solution to the problem mentioned: In australia we have an electoral roll, and I am sure you guys in the US do aswell. Why can't they just allow e-mail addresses to be added to the electoral role. Obviously some privacy protections would be needed, but it is surely possible.
On the otherhand, does it really matter if people are constituents or not? Is broad public and global opinion more important that those of an individual community, county or state? Hrm... an interesting question is posed here..... damn I don't have the answer to this one.
lounge around on the blue couch
I collect up and forward all my spam onto various MPs every so often. It certainly seems to be doing the trick with this MP ;-)
And I quote: "The MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey told The Register that he is "sick of the excuses" and wants something done to curb the amount of spam pouring into people's in-boxes.
In particular, he's concerned about the rising quantity of pornographic spam and the impact it may have on children using the Net. "
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.