[lug] Misleading FAQ for Linuxfreemail

[Trever C. Trader]

It's free.

On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Neal McBurnett wrote:

> To: linuxfreemail
> 
> Re: http://www.linuxfreemail.com/faq.html
> 
> At first I thought you offered just the sort of no-nonsense mailbox
> service I wanted, complete with IMAP support!
> 
> But it is worse than rude to not disclose up-front that you attach ads
> to the bottom of every message sent by your users from your web
> interface.
> 
> To top that off with this bit of misinformation leads me to
> worry about your degree of clue and/or motives:
> 
>  Question: Does LinuxFreeMail allow you to send your mail with your
>  favorite mail program?
>  Answer: No. At this time you have to use our web based interface to
>  send your mail.  Currently there are no plans to change this as it
>  would be too hard to control spammers.
> 
> Surely you recognize the many benefits of a real MUA rather than
> a web interface?
> 
> Surely you realize that it is possible to authenticate SMTP traffic,
> which would stop spammers as effectively as the web interface?
> 
> Surely you are willing to educate users about the many other ways to
> send email from other accounts with
> 	 From: user at linuxfreemail.com
> 
> E.g. it works fine for me to specify that and send mail from Netscape
> Communicator on a home.com host to a home.com smtp server.
> 
> Or perhaps you are willing to keep Linux users in the dark about their
> options in the hope that enough will believe your misinformation that
> it will pay off in traffic?
> 
> 
> Forgive me for getting upset about this.  But I do hold folks who take
> on the mantle of the Linux community to a higher standard.
> 
> And I do think that if you come clean up front (in the FAQ) about all
> the real options that users have and offer them something in return
> for ads at the bottom of their email, you'll get a more loyal
> following and grow faster and be proud at the same time.
> 
> E.g., offer more disk space to people who send email thru the web
> site, with ads on it.
> 
> Thanks for getting a lot of your service right.
> 
> And thanks for listening...,
> 
> Neal McBurnett <neal at bcn.boulder.co.us>  303-538-4852
> http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/      (with GPG/PGP keys)
> _______________________________________________
> Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
> Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug
>