Note wrote:

( This is not electronically generated spam - it was posted "by hand" to
rec.gardening by a subscriber)


You seem to misunderstand what spam is. Spam is unsolicited commercial
messages.

It doesn't matter that you posted "by hand". What matters is your content
was entirely commercial. Your intent is to sell your wears in a
non-commercial discussion group. That is spam.

If there was a discussion about how some sellers are stealing their bulbs
from the wild, endangering the environment, and you wanted to offer your
opinion, and mention that you sell bulbs that are not harvested from the
wild, that would probably not be spam. (That's assuming you're adding to the
discussion, and not just taking the opportunity to post an advertisement.)

But when you jump in and start talking about what you have for sale in a
group that wasn't chartered as a forsale group, it's spam even if what
you're selling is related to the topic of the discussion group, and even if
you posted the message "by hand".

Perhaps I'm giving you too much slack here because you also included one big
sign that the message is spam: You denied it was spam right in the message.
That makes me wonder whether I'm being too nice. If you didn't already know
your message was spam, why did you need to deny it was spam before anyone
even called you on it? The answer probably is that you already knew it was
spam, and I wasted my nice guy attitude on a spammer who's so dishonest that
he lies about being a spammer.

Bottom line: Your message was spam.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
Have an outdoor project? Get a Black & Decker power tool::
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