On 25 Oct 2001, Paul Vixie wrote:
another test for "welcome" is "if everybody did this, would the recipient be injured?" clearly this is the same profile as "unequal benefit to the sender" and the answer in the case of these pings is "yes, ouch."
As the saying goes, even too much of a good thing can be bad. So looking at this from the 'too much' side, how can you tell if it was bad because it was all bad, or if it was just too much good, and that made it bad? I don't think you can infer that because the extreme case (everyone doing it) is bad (unequal), therefore the singular case is also bad/unequal. Most things tend to be viewed as 'equal' or otherwise tolerably 'fair' within certain ranges we call 'reasonable', and outside of those ranges is where they are considered unequally balanced.
this criteria. it *is* possible to know before initiating communication whether it's implicitly "welcome" by this standard, even if you have no direct relationship to the recipient whose terms and conditions would explicitly tell you the answer.
By this reasoning, I could never send an email or make a phone call or go visit everyone (especially a new acquaintance), because if /everyone/ sent them an email, or called them, or visited them, it would certainly be unwelcome (and possibly cause injury). My singular action is within the range considered fair and reasonable, where everyone doing it (or in fact, even just a few dozen people doing it) would probably not. Pete.