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Commenting once with multiple thoughts instead of commenting multiple times with multiple thoughts

You may be able to relate this concept to commenting. For example, imagine having someone called Bes post a new comment in response to every sentence in one of your blog articles. That would mean if your article had 10 sentences, Bes would respond to each line of that article in a separate comment, and end up posting 10 separate comments. Would you prefer having 10 single-lined comments by Bes to your article of 10 sentences, or would you prefer having a single comment by Bes with all the 10 lines combined into one or two paragraphs?

Replying immediately to each sentence versus waiting for someone to finish talking before responding collectively

The same idea can probably be seen in daily offline discussions also. You probably do not interrupt other people after every sentence that they say, but you wait until others have finished talking before you start talking yourself. Of course, in person, if you say something after each sentence uttered by somebody else, you may be seen as someone who interrupts others all the time. Compare that to waiting until a person has finished saying different things before you offer your opinion. Which one would you prefer?

Imagine if everyone was comfortable with the idea of being interrupted with an immediate response from you after they finished saying each sentence, which one would you prefer then? What is your opinion on this?

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The e-mail that Broc sent me was short, up to the point and polite. That throws me into a dilemma: should I look at that e-mail as one of the many e-mails Broc has sent to dozens of bloggers, or do I look at the e-mail as something that only concerns me?

Things I see if I observe mass e-mails as being part of a group

If I look at the overall thing that Broc did and is doing, I can say that he is mass e-mailing his contest to everyone he knows in order to promote his site. That is clear mass spamming in the eyes of many people, it not most, as promoting any idea through mass e-mails is spam in the minds of many, whether or not the e-mails in question are relevant to a blog or an individual. Thus, I notice the following points about mass emailings:

• The e-mail offers some value to me when I am part of a group
• The announcement was mass e-mailed to many people, thus I do not feel extra special
• The e-mail can be considered spam or non-spam, depending on how my group [the blogosphere group] looks at mass e-emails, regardless of the email content
• The e-mail can also be considered either spam or non-spam depending on the type of activities the group is involved in. For example, a group based on human rights activities may view a mass e-mailing about credit card offers to be spam, but may view mass e-mailings about credit cards that donate money to victims of human rights abuse as being good.

Things I see if I observe mass e-mails as an individual

If I look at the e-mail as an individual, from my perspective and observe things based on how Broc approached me and what he offered to me and my readers, it seems like a good e-mail that may benefit people in the long run. This goes along with what I am saying in the new Reader Appreciation Project. Thus, the points for this perspective are:

• The e-mail offers some value to me as an individual and to my readers
• The announcement was e-mailed to me directly.
• The e-mail can be either spam or non-spam, depending on how I view such e-mails and their content
• The e-mail can also be judged based on what I think about different things and how I feel. I may be tired and may view such an e-mail as being spam, while I may be exhausted but if I get such an e-mail from a friend, I may view it as being non-spam.

The way you look at mass e-mail probably depends on what you think about mass e-mails in general and the way you think. You may also judge e-mails based on how you are approached by different people in different situations.

Broc’s e-mail is both spam and non-spam

I think some people may delete or even block Broc’s email, as mass e-mailing regardless of having good or bad intentions, is still mass e-mailing. I prefer the concept of giving back to the readers without making them do extra stuff, like making readers join communities, but giving back something is a good step in the right direction that Broc is taking, compared to the thousands of bloggers out there who are not giving readers anything back.

What is your view on this? Do you look at incoming e-mails from your own individual and personal perspective? Or do you look at e-mails from the perspective of a community and see if everyone is being mass e-mailed or not with the same message and then look at any possible benefits?

As for me, I joined Broc’s MyBlogLog community myself in order to keep my opinion in the matter lean less towards calling the e-mail a form of mass “spamming“, and to bring up an interesting point that we need to think about when looking at mass emails. I also want to see if I get a printer along the way or not. Even though my current printer is on the verge of death, the printer from Broc’s MyBlogLog contest will go back to the readers through the Reader Appreciation Project.

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I just got a similar email, a snapshot of which is posted below. As you can see from the image, the main login link points to an ip address directly, instead of the main Paypal.com website. Interestingly, all the other links in the email pointed to the real Paypal site. Some people can easily hover over a few links in the email and see that the links point to the real Paypal website, and may click the actual phishing link and assume, without looking, that it’s also a link to the real Paypal site. Whether this is the intended effect of the phishers, or simply a mistake, I’m not sure.

One easy way to recognize such a fake email is by simply moving your mouse over the actual link that you’re being told to click on. That should show you the actual link that you will be taken to, either through a small text right next to your mouse cursor [as shown in the picture above, in which I'm viewing the email using Microsoft Outlook], or in your status bar [the bar at the bottom of your browser]. The best way to safely perform any action online is to open a browser window yourself, type in the address of the website in question manually, and perform the action right there, instead of clicking a link in an email, unless you’re 100% sure it’s a legitimate email.

If only the people who’re sending me these emails could upgrade their systems to keep a track of who they’re spamming, they would know by now that I haven’t clicked any such link so far, and thus hopefully never will. Maybe then they would stop emailing me. I wonder if they’re waiting for the night I get drunk, so I would go on a clicking spree and log into all of my online account repeatedly until the alcohol saturation goes below 90%. Hmmm.

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