If you look at the bottom of the newsletter there is an option to unsubscribe.
Other than that, as far as I can see it's entirely real and simply repeats a list of the most recent news stories and some of the more popular forum threads.
I hardly think that one newsletter is enough to decry Morrus for "spamming" you - if he'd sent four or five in the same day, maybe.
Oh, well, since there's an 'unsubscribe' link, it's okay.
Not.
The point is, I should never have received the email in the first place -- if I wanted a newsletter subscription, I would have signed up for it from the ENWorld homepage.
As for labeling it "spam", it's an unwanted automated mass email. The fact that it's not hawking Viagra or diet pills is irrelevant.
I got two copies (probably for my two accounts), which did land in my spam folder. However, I also received a different email back on March 24th, which did announce that the newsletter would come:
I never got an announcement email. Either way, it wouldn't have mattered -- the announcement email didn't include an opt-out option, did it?
They were going out in stages, but I thought they had all gone out by now. Otherwise, what Eric said - it's legit, and if you don't want to receive it hit the unsubscribe link...
If I took the time to hunt for and click the unsubscribe link in every unwanted email that finds its way to my inbox, I'd never get anything else done!
Just because this particular newsletter email is not a
major inconvenience doesn't excuse Morrus for inconveniencing me in the first place.
That's why you use the "opt-in" methodology, not the weasely "opt-out". And no, registering for ENWorld forums is not an "opt-in" for newsletter emails.
Well-put. A newsletter can be a good thing...so long as you actually send it to the people who want it...and only the people who want it.
Although I agree in principle that you should have been able to opt-out before-hand, I think you're being overly harsh here.
Spam is a nightmare. I know. I have a hard enough time dealing with it myself. But this isn't some random farmed mass-mailer, this is a site to which you have already provided your email address and which (presumably) creates content you enjoy. One email in your Inbox, three seconds to find the link, 2 seconds to check it goes where it says it goes, and a few seconds to click it are not going to ruin your day, are they?
First - in principle, I should never have had to opt out. I should have been given an opportunity to opt-in (which, in my case, I would have forgone).
Second - you're underestimating the time it takes to deal with the newsletter. It's more like five seconds to start reading before going "What IS this ... stuff? I didn't sign up for a blinking newsletter!" Another five seconds to weigh searching the email vs. clicking "report spam", followed by 5-10 to search the email for an unsubscribe link (I'm a fast reader. Low-literacy readers would have to read the
entire email in order to find the unsubscribe link. Count it as 2-3 minutes for them.), and finally another 5 seconds for checking the link and clicking.
Plus the bad feelings about it that led me to post here and spend over ten minutes engaged in this thread, of course.
As I said earlier, just because it's a "minor" inconvenience doesn't grant license to incur the inconvenience in the first place.
