New online article

Greetings, friends and fans:
I'm taking a moment or two from my dvd rollout to circulate this online article I wrote about the new netiquette and current marketing ethics. What is spam and what isn't? It's a complicated issue that should reverberate with anybody who has ever or will ever buy or sell anything over the internet. I am posting it here on the blog for your convenience. Feel free to copy and paste it around, maybe stir up a little positive action.
And stay tuned to Fletcher Rhoden.com for more on our exciting dvds and other releases!
Fletcher Rhoden

Moon Over My Spammy
An online article by Fletcher Rhoden 5/20/2009

Spam. Here’s how J.D. Falk describes it on spam.abuse.net:
“Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.
There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancelable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at ‘lurkers’, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.
Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.
One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.”
So this is what spam is. But how about what spam ISN’T?
I am a writer and producer with a stream of new releases through Createspace. I have ebooks and video files available for download, all on my site, which has been rebranded as a digital media superstore (Fletcher Rhoden.com) Like many others, I am promoting my products, which include dvds of acclaimed plays LAST TANGO WITH MARLON (https://www.createspace.com/259516) and SOUL CANCER, among others. Where better to market my digital media than the internet? There are lots of like-minded people out there surfing the web who would want to know about my acclaimed works and live performances (maybe even you, dear reader.) And while other types of advertising are becoming less effective and more expensive, the internet provides near-limitless choices and venues and ways to reach people. This is the very heart of the internet, giving voice to the individual, circumventing the gatekeepers and allowing a true democratization of our world society; one person, one voice, one vote. No longer do the rich and powerful record companies, film studios and publishing houses get to decide what’s available for sale, which authors get to share their vision with the world. Now we can all have our say! So, when I recently published THE REBELS OF OZ (http://www.fletcherrhoden.com/therebelsofoz.htm), my digital download graphic novel, I alerted a variety of sites and many of them posted information about the book. So far, so good, no spam to worry about.
Then I went to the user groups. For those who don’t know, these are groups (most are on Yahoo! and Google, though AOL and MSN host quite a few as well) founded by fans of one thing or another and featuring related media and chatting about that thing. There are forums that offer basically the same interactive, message- and file-sharing functions. There are plenty of Wizard of Oz user groups and forums out there, as there are for all kinds of subjects of interest. (And I use this as a hypothetical example, as I relate nothing specifically about any of the Wizard of Oz groups. I’ve posted at Marlon Brando groups, homeschooling groups and others, depending on which product I was marketing.) But after posting a notice about a given product (and my work is widely acclaimed) and where to find it, I was often hit with a request not to, “spam the group.” Often my message was never allowed to be posted.
This is where I get confused.
It’s true, my messages were basically commercial in nature, whether marketing an Oz book to Oz fans or my novella THE TRIAL OF DAVY CROCKETT (http://www.trafford.com/01-0132) to students of American or Latin/American history. But look at the definition of spam again. I never posted any of these messages 20 times (not more than once per group.) I’m sure the group moderators didn’t search all groups to count other postings, as they never numbered even close to 20. Also, my messages were always related to the interests of the group, so it wasn’t like I was sending penis enlargement ads to groups concerned with freeing Tibet. Relevance is key.
Falk says the cost of such advertising is covered by the recipient, and this makes it wrong. But what cost? I have a Yahoo account and several groups and they’re all free. I pay for the internet service, but I’d be paying that anyway. If somebody goes to my new Rist and Rhoden Yahoo! group (http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/ristandrhodengroup/) a place for the individual and joint projects of my friend Robbie Rist and I, and they post an ad for Brady Bunch costar Maureen McCormick’s book, that doesn’t cost me a single penny. So there’s really no harm financially, even in the worst-case spam scenarios. Falk says that some people pay for their internet by the minutes used, and so extra emails cost them money to open and read. But these emails have subject headings, and one glance at them will tell you if its something to invest your time and money in. If the subject appeals and you don’t like the email itself, it seems like a matter of getting what you pay for. If you don’t want to waste your time and money reading it, just delete it en mass with the others you don’t want. And this is just for user group and forum post-related emails. People who send automatically generated spam mail directly to users usually find their goods winding up in the mailbox SPAM box anyway, right? I don’t defend them, in fact I separate myself from them for the purposes of our new parameters. But in any case I haven’t set eyes on one of those for years, or even bothered to empty my SPAM box (it happens automatically.) And in any case that is not the nature of my posts or of posts like mine from other young producers and artists. These are not multilevel marketing schemes to defraud people, rather the faint echoes of an underdog artist’s noble struggle to reach an audience and live out the true meaning of the American dream.
Falk refers to reaching out to, “Lurkers” who read but don’t post. But what’s wrong with that? Maybe they’re bashful about sharing their information (who wouldn’t be?) but still want some good information about the group’s subject of focus? Why shouldn’t they find what they’re looking for?
Falk maybe right that spam makes it difficult for moderators to moderate, but they can allow or disallow comments on a case-by-case basis with relative ease by deleting the membership of the true spammers and letting the rest of us industrious types grab a little face-time.
People have insinuated that these posts interrupt the flow of conversation in the message sections of these groups and forums. But it’s not an interruption in the traditional sense because you don’t have to stop and read it, nobody is physically interrupting anything. Just reply to the message you’re replying to and ignore the ones in between. It’s just a headline on a newsletter, not a pop-up ad! Why is your conversation the only one worth occupying that section of the group?
Of course these uninvited posts do wind up in somebody’s mailbox often enough, but these members choose to have the emails from the group sent to them. They can arrange a daily digest and skip the articles not part of their conversation, if receiving uninvited emails is really a problem. I don’t see why that slight inconvenience has to prevent me from being able to share my work with a potentially interested public. They might even be interested in the work themselves if they’d take a look.
And what harm does even a slight interruption do? An isolated post every now and then about a relevant subject shouldn’t prevent anyone from enjoying their discussions in these groups or forums.
But some of these moderators of those groups disallowed my messages and labeled me a spammer, which may be their right, but they do so not in accordance with the above definition. I know these are privately moderated groups (I’ve founded about five myself), and I’m not suggesting people be forced to allow posts they don’t want. I’m just trying to help clarify this year’s netiquette so we can all enjoy (and yes, USE) the internet to greater effect. The internet is not serving us all the way it should. Instead of greater freedom of expression and more opportunity to reach out and share our lives with others, we have less freedom and more rules, different gatekeepers deciding who can say what to whom. Of course I’m not advocating yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded (internet) theater, or that any forum should be able to be abused by anyone for any reason. But I do think a person promoting animated children’s programing should be able to post their dvd url on a group dedicated to animated children’s programing, such as my new dvd BALLOONZEE (https://www.createspace.com/265047).
So how difficult is it for us all to agree on a parameter? Falk provides us with a good one above (if flawed in spots), one which allows for a person like to me post (within numerical and contextual guidelines) without infringing on the rights of others. If only we could all agree to these parameters, it would be a big step forward in self-governing this wonderful world wide web.
So let’s have a compromise: Group moderators, let the reigns up a bit, give a person a chance to spread his wings and promote their relevant products and services. What’s a plug or two gonna hurt? Promoters, keep it brief and relevant, don’t repeat the same post in any given group. Updates should be allowed if there’s truly new information, but let’s keep it reasonable. You true spammers out there, with your search engines and your email list thefts and your penis enlargement drugs and your get-rich-quick, multilevel marketing schemes, you should be paying for your advertising anyway. Stop ruining it for the rest of us.
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Other online articles by Fletcher Rhoden can be found at this site and at www.fletcherrhoden.com/onlinearticles.htm