Hi Kat & Joanne,

I believe Spammers are more interested in quantity than specifically
targetting certain sectors. Once your e-mail address becomes "known"
and added to a CD offering 200 million e-mail addies for $99 then any
pottential spammer who buys that CD will spam you. Its slightly
different than Junk-Mail, where there is a cost penalty associated
with the communication - so it is in the senders interest to at least
try to target his audience. With e-mail, once you have purchased your
broadband access there is no cost difference between sending 1 email
or 200 million - where's the incentive to try to be specific.

Giger MD (who spammed several CP Lists with their "Cure for CP"
e-mails) are a slightly different case. They saved themselves $99 by
culling the e-mail addresses themselves.

Porno spammers are more likely to use this scatter gun approach than
try to target individuals, after all, if anyone wants pornography,
their sites are not too difficult to find!! In effect, if it is
indeed possible to "target spam", porno spammers are MORE likely to
target away from healthy discussions about sex, since they are
looking for NEW clients.

It is true that our list is entirely open to view by all and sundry.
Personally I think this is a good thing, it may serve to "cool" the
temperature of some posts since whatever we write is open for
scrutiny by the world. Of course we could run a "closed" list (more
like Kat's on Yahoo) where archives were closed to members only (or
no archives at all), and membership was vetted before being allowed
to join, even going so far as appointing "moderators" for all
posting. I rather like the thought that someone idly browsing the net
and finds themselves in our archives, may think, hey, these  guys
(and gals) are just like (read "mad as") everyone else!!

As regards the purpose of the list, it's title is  "St. John's
University Cerebral Palsy List"  - wonderfully vague but possibly
lacking something when compared to:-

        "BULLAMANKA-PINHEADS
        Tricia vs. Julie!! Rosie is gay! Travertine falling! When will it
        stop?? "

The 107 subscribers must veer a bit "Off Topic" sometimes!!

C-Palsy was one of the first lists at St Johns and was designed for
all things CP. A few years later CPParent was set up, so I figure the
quote from Joanne is a little out of date. The List is still used for
all things (CP or not!!) so it hasn't really changed that much.
Personally I am honoured that there are some parents on the list, it
must add a different view on things (all to the good).

Is sex a valid topic for the list? If it's by, for, about a person
with CP then it certainly meets the "charter" of the list, so why
not? Personally I'll be replying to Linda privately, not because I
don't think its appropriate for the list, but I don't want you lot
knowing that the closest I get to giving my wife a multiple orgasm
these days is showing her the size of my bonus cheque (street cred
and all that you know!!).

Rock & Roll??? (I just put that in the header so spammers send me
cheap CD offers) ;-)

Cheers

Deri