OK, we all hate it....or at least *I* do.<P>so - it's NOT dance, but it IS likely to affect all of us, in our internet activities RE dance....<P>so i've been trying out a few strategies i read about, and wanted to pass them on, and also to pick up on other useful tips people may have....<P>1. recently, when i receive junk mail, instead of just clicking 'Block Sender' and deleting the ofending item, i've been forwarding it to the sending ISP, by typing abuse@ and then copying whatever ISP address it came from. often, this appears to be likeley to get some action at the ISP end, as most ISPs have no-spam type policies for their customers, as far as i understand it....however, sometimes the sending address has been faked, so you get nowhere then...<P>2. until i adopted this approach, i would always use any offered option to remove myself from any list. that seemed the polite approach to take as a first option! apparently, so i've just been told, this is NOT smart, as all i am doing is confirming to the sender that my address IS an up & running current and correct address! <P>3. very very ocasionally, i am curious enough to click on a link in a junkmail message, just to see what its about before i remove myself or block sender, BUT- apparently THAT's not wise either, apparently the software may obtain verification of my email address when i click on that link...so i better not do THAT anymore! <P>4. BTW, what i get almost always falls into one of two categories: 'consolidate your loans' (i don't have any) and 'lose weight now' (well, i should, but i'm sure clicking isn't going to help achieve THAT - in fact, it's staying at the computer that's the problem!) <P>oh, yes: i HAVE had 1 or 2 'Viagra promotions' sent me!<P>5. hotmail advise setting up a separate email account/address, to use for when you join bulletin boards, newsgroups, listserves, etc. this advice comes far too late for me, but may be of use to some of you reading....i guess this is where my approach fell down, because in other ways i have always been fairly careful about making sure i don't go on lists, don't make my address available, etc.<P>6. trog - if you are out there, i noticed that you alter your email address at aab, for this purpose. can you advise how best to do that?

Could you let me have that Viagra promotion e-mail address Susan?

My SPAM consists of "watch hot teens doing........." Well, I have a problem with that - what do teens know?<P><p>[This message has been edited by Basheva (edited October 28, 2000).]

Grace,<P>I mung my email address on alt.arts.ballet by simply entering the fake one in the email address field in the configuration tab of my news group software (Forte Freeagent). Ng's are trawled by automatic email address gathers so you can be sent all sorts of spam. A fake email address cuts it down a lot.<p>[This message has been edited by trog (edited November 14, 2000).]