WHAT IS SPAM, that thou art mindful of it? asks Brendan O'Neill. Well, actually he tells the story of some blogger who sent him a nasty email saying "stop spamming" because he sent that person (I don't know who it was) emails about his new postings.
I'm pretty mellow about this -- which is a good thing, since I get a lot of those. I don't want to get an email every time somebody posts something new, unless they post pretty infrequently, but I've never sent anyone a nasty reply. I just kinda quit reading. I like to hear from people who have interesting posts, or new weblogs. There are so many blogs that I can't possibly notice them all anymore, and if someone has something particularly up my alley I like to hear about it. (Two amusing things I find occasionally in visiting weblogs for the first time -- "that bastard Reynolds is ignoring me," from people who've never contacted me, and "so-and-so posted this story 5 minutes after me so they must have stolen my idea," when the link is to a story on Slashdot or in The New York Times or some other obvious source; some people have a rather high opinion of their own originality).
On the other hand, if you're sending me multiple emails a day, well, that's kind of a lot. I get about 300+ a day. And nobody is as impressed with what's obviously a mass self-promotional mailing as with something targeted to them personally that obviously takes account of their interests.
