The question of what is commercial enterprise on the Internet, and what
is collegial sharing of information is, understandably, a very important
issue. It is, as you have probably discovered, emotionally charged, and
therefore not entirely amenable to reasoned discussion.
Examples:
on the several lists that I have subscribed to, and many newsgroups that
I browse from time to time, messages will appear on the order of "Brides
by Mail, penpals wanted by lovely [Chinese/Russian/whatever] lady...."
OR a rather famous example where a legal firm sent messages out to every
conceivable Internet list and newsgroup advertising assistance for the
green card lottery held by the Immigration service last year. They made
big bucks and went on to write a book about how they did it, and made
more money.
That kind of stuff is junk mail and I toss it as I toss most paper junk
mail that arrives at my home or office. Some of it - paper or electronic
- is of some interest, and I'm glad to be made aware of the product or
service. Not often, but sometimes.
The electronic junk mail causes problems with the service, just as paper
junk mail is clogging up the US Postal Service. If I'm away for a few
days and too many messages back up in my mailbox, the system closes me
off until I get back and clear them. For some e-mail recipients,
particularly in Africa, there are real costs in receiving e-mail, often
substantial sums. Junk mail is especially bad then.
However, the message that precipitated this discussion is different, as
far as I can see. I actually forwarded it to a list of Africana
librarians, because I thought it might be of interest to some of them.
I would recommend maintaining a fairly loose policy toward the ambivalent
cases, while filtering out the obvious ones if possible (is H-Africa
monitored?, i.e. does someone vet each message before posting?) I'd
object to a proliferation of mail bride offers and other extraneous
stuff, but would like to see items, semi-commercial or not, related to
publications about Africa.
Gretchen Walsh
African Studies Library
Boston University
gwalsh@acs.bu.edu