Abuse response [Was: RE: Yahoo Mail Update]

Tue Apr 15 14:31:44 UTC 2008

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Marshall Eubanks
<tme at multicasttech.com> wrote:
>
>  On Apr 15, 2008, at 9:43 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> > That is one place that modern antispam efforts fall apart. It's the
> > same problem that afflicts tech support in general. The problem exists
> > for the same reason that large-city McDonalds workers don't speak
> > English: Anyone with sufficient clue to run an abuse desk is well
> > qualified for more interesting, important and higher-paid work where
> > they don't get yelled at all the time. Like administering mail servers
> > or writing mail software.
> >
> > There's a reason we pay garbage collectors a small fortune to do a job
> > that requires no skill whatsoever.
>
>  Do you _know_ any garbage collectors ? I do, and I would disagree with both
> clauses of that sentence.

Marshall,

No, but I know a few people who have (briefly) worked abuse desks and
neither the tech support nor the McDonalds problem are difficult to
observe.

Without conceding the garbage collection issue, let me ask you
directly: how do you propose to motivate qualified folks to keep
working the abuse desk?

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004