BADGLEY-L Archives

From: Cheska Wheatley <>
Subject: RootsWeb Spammed Again
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 1997 08:33:51 +0000

Dear Badgley cousins,

You may have read on another mail list a message sent last night from
GenForum to most of the RootsWeb sponsored mail groups offering the
opportunity to post to one of their surname forums.

RootsWeb which sponsors this mail group has recently had many problems
with this organization. GenForum copied the Rootsweb surname lists in
their entirety including the variant surnames which were provided only
to Rootsweb by the individual listowners and set themselves up as a
surname forum. The 1,000+ list owners on RootsWeb have condemned this
practice by concensus. GenForum, as a result of the pressure applied by
the listowners shut down for a period and removed the variant spellings
from their lists but continue to use the Rootsweb surname list. They
also removed all messages that had been posted on their site by anyone
who mentioned anything about mailing lists.

Many who posted comments at the GenForum web site were warned, if they
contained the phrase "RootsWeb" in the message (and several other
keywords associated with existing mailing lists), that their message
contained objectionable language and that if they continued, their
internet service provider would be notified!

Some believe that GenForum's goal is to have a web site with a high
visitor count so that they can attract advertising dollars.

As a result of GenForum's mass mailing to the surname groups last night,
the RootsWeb mail server crashed resulting in the loss of messaging
capabilities to many of our lists. Hopefully, most lists are now online
again.

BADGLEY-L is now a private list. All postings must come from registered
subscribers. I requested that this be done after the previous spam
attack. As a result, GenForum was unsuccessful in contacting our
subscribers through BADGLEY-L .

If any of you use more than one account to send posts to the list,
please e-mail me the e-mail addresses of each of your accounts and I
will add them to the list of those whose messages will be accepted by
our list.

Dr. Brian Leverich, of RootsWeb, recently posted the following to the
list owners:
------------------

>As many of you are aware, GENFORUM.COM spammed all the RootsWeb lists tonight.
>
>It killed our mail server, and judging by the e-mail we've received it irritated a lot >of folks.
>
>Here's what we've done at RootsWeb:
>
>We captured and killed as much of the spam as we could, and I'm trying to bring the mail server back on line.
>
>I've written to Cliff Shaw to tell him we'll be sending him a bill for damages after we clean up the wreckage, and we expect him to pay promptly.
>
>I've also written to all the upstream providers of his Internet connection, asking them to share a personal growth opportunity with him.
>
>What a sleaze. *sigh* -B

---------------------

-=CHESKA=-
E-mail address:
Web site: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/6630/
Genealogists Against Copyright Violation & SPAM!

This thread:

• RootsWeb Spammed Again by Cheska Wheatley <>