in reply to Sorting a list by frequency of items

I probably shouldn't reply to my own question, but I must confess I'm amazed at the number of people who have responded with "ha! you're an evil spammer" rather than helping with the (fairly minor) problem. The one helpful reply has since been deleted.

I work for an Internet company which provides services to a number of large and medium-sized ISPs. These people have legitimate reasons to send email to their customers, and that's what this script does. These people are asked *when they sign up* whether or not they want the email, and no, the question isn't buried at the foot of the page where you can't see it. The reason I'm optimising the script is because these people *complain* when they don't get it on time!

Previously, I worked for a political-lobbying organisation which also sent an email to 25,000 members each week. This wasn't spam: it was an essential part of the campaign these people were orchestrating. What I'm getting at here is this: there are legitimate reasons to send large quantities of emails to people, and the glib assumption that I'm sending spam is unfounded and, I must confess, very offensive.

If I had been engaged in spamming, I would have disguised the question. I didn't, because I have nothing to hide. It didn't occur to me (OK, I'm too trusting) that anyone would think that I was doing anything anti-social. I didn't preface the question with "this isn't a spam script" because, even if I had, I'm sure you'd all be here now saying "Oh yes it is! Why else would you do this sort of thing?" Same discussion, different route.

Does this mean there are some things which can't be discussed here? It seems so. I'll make sure I don't post anything about sending email in future, because that would be irrefutable proof that I'm spamming.

The script works as-is. I had hoped for a better insight into this problem, and that the discussion might help others -- which is what this place is for, right?? I would be grateful if anyone with the appropriate special powers could delete the question, because I think I've just wasted a good deal of my time, and yours too.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Some thoughts about this.
by extremely (Priest) on Mar 22, 2001 at 23:13 UTC
    You haven't wasted your time. You got some help, eh? And the people here are kinda gun-shy since we've been winged a couple times before.

    Also, if you are actually offended at glib assumptions then you are far too thin-skinned to be walking around without your rose-colored glasses on. They were right not to help you if they didn't want and right to call you out on the spam question and you were right to call em rude for it. And there are indeed things you can't discuss here. =) Just mention getting a TCL script to talk to your Scheme code and then watch the fan get buried... 

    ## tested now (had the sort backwards)
my %domain;
foreach my $address (@addresses) {
  my ($name, $host) = split(/\@/, $address);
  push @{$domain{$host}},$address
}
foreach my $host (sort { $#{$domain{$b}} <=> $#{$domain{$a}} } keys %d
+omain) {
  mailout(@{$domain{$host}});
}

    [download]

    --
    $you = new YOU;
    honk() if $you->love(perl)

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[d/l]
Re: Some thoughts about this.
by dws (Chancellor) on Mar 22, 2001 at 23:34 UTC
    While I appreciate that you would have disguised the question had your motives been impure, you have to consider your audience. Our experience is that new people wander in here on a weekly -- and sometimes daily -- basis, boldly asking some pretty dubious questions, ranging in type from the barely disguised "please do my homework for me" to "how can I use Perl to h4x0r orbital satellites".

    Until you've established a reputation here (and you do seem off to a good start), it's not reasonable to expect people to assume that your motives are pure. Particularly with questions that suggest spamming.

    Think of Checkov in the "Save the Whales" Star Trek movie, stopping a policeman on the street to ask "Can you direct me to your nooklear vwesselz?"

[reply]
      Thanks for taking the time to put me in the picture (and thanks also to "extreme"). I've spoken to a few people here about how the posting does press the wrong buttons - that "nospam" style email address is a bad example (although, believe it or not, some people do choose to enter that even though they're not required to sign up to the list).

      Anyway, next time I post something which looks a bit suspect I'll put in some background as well.

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Re: Some thoughts about this.
by Lexicon (Chaplain) on Mar 23, 2001 at 05:25 UTC
    Since no one else has thrown in on your side, I thought I'd toss in my 2 Yen. I personally think the response was rediculous, and maybe PM is a little trigger happy.

    I'll shoot from the hip myself and guess that any medium sized company could have a mailing list of 50,000 addresses...and be more common than Spamers. I work for a company with 20 people and even we have a couple thousand addresses just for our customers, not counting our potential clients.

    Even though I've never had any problems with Spam mail, I could certainly understand some caution...but /msg-ing in chatbox and then saying you still don't believe him?

    -Lexicon

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