Is anyone getting spam from the PDGA through their contact email on the course directory?

This is only my educated guess... but before I go telling the PDGA that their "send a mesage" needs a little more authentication like the stupid little enter the text from the image code I want to make sure I'm not the only one getting the spam.

I've gotten some spam from [email protected] that I know didn't come from Jon.

Never so much as a spec of spam.

Never so much as a spec of spam.



Are you listed as a contact for a course in the course directory? this is where I think the spammer is sending from.

i get spam regularly with pdga.com original addresses. i assumed it was from someone scanning the html for email addresses. are you sure it originated from pdga.com or was it just spoofing the sender name?

what I am talking about is directly related to the course directory. I am listed as the contact for McClain Park in San Antonio TX. I originally had my contact email address set to my old personal address and was getting emails that included the labels Name:, Pdga number:, Phone: and Message:... I changed my email address to one directly related to the www.mcclainpark.com (http://www.mcclainpark.com) website and now I am getting those messages at that address. This leads me to believe that someone is using the course directory contacts link to send spam.

this is not email that has pdga.com as the address.

it's hard to explain... and if you are not listed as a contact for a course in the directory, I don't think you will get the spam I am refering to.

Come on folks. I get 2,000+ email messages a day. Most are spam. If your email address is on the Web, you will get spam. Suck it up. Or . . . forget about customer service.

A bigger problem: A year or two ago, I asked the PDGA techies to give me a list of email addresses for the course contacts, so I could send them a message from the communications director.

Amazing! I got a handful of email from "course contacts" who objected to getting email messages from the PDGA.

Let's think about this. (Sorry if it hurts anyone's delicate brain.) You are a listed "course contact" on the PDGA course directory, you get a message from the PDGA and you object to getting a message from the PDGA. Okay. Dissonance. :D Let's get a new course contact.

Come on folks. I get 2,000+ email messages a day. Most are spam. If your email address is on the Web, you will get spam. Suck it up. Or . . . forget about customer service.
...
Let's think about this. (Sorry if it hurts anyone's delicate brain.) You are a listed "course contact" on the PDGA course directory, you get a message from the PDGA and you object to getting a message from the PDGA. Okay. Dissonance. :D Let's get a new course contact.



What customer service am I forgetting about other than reducing spam? You can kiss my @$$ if you think I am just complaining about getting spam or about getting email from the PDGA... I am trying to find out if there IS a problem here and help get it fixed. Why do you have to be so rude about it. Spam is what it is becuase people just accept it as common place. the PDGA site doesn't have to give it one more outlet. If I went around kicking you in the balls every hour would you eventually accept that too? Lets think about this... NO.

I believe "course contacts" SHOULD get messages from players looking for help and SHOULD expect to be contacted... about disc golf. If someone is listed as a course contact and they don't want to be contacted then they are obviously too stupid to deduce the meaning of the title.

My delicate brain isn't hurt at all by this and if a small insignificant change to the process can get rid of your so called dissonance, then why not try it.

If the website enables spammers to send mail through the site they should consider looking at a way to stop it. It's not hard and would improve your precious customer service.

If your post is your version of customer service... I would hate to see you in charge of public relations :D.

Well, "slow1der," did I mention you by name? I thought not. My post was not about you and I am sorry that I was not clearer about that. It was about some course contacts, though, specifically those who don't seem to want to be contacted by the PDGA even though they are listed in the PDGA online directory.

Your thread was an opportunity for me to comment on course contacts who don't seem want to be contacted. I intended no implication that you were one of those was intended, and as you posted, you are not one of those.

I don't think that a captcha - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha - is for certain a small, insignificant change, though. It's a good way to keep automated thingies out of databases and functionalities, but I am not so sure that it's worth the angst for users just to protect people's email addresses from spam.

Come on folks. I get 2,000+ email messages a day. Most are spam. If your email address is on the Web, you will get spam. Suck it up. Or . . . forget about customer service.


Or use Thunderbird which has a built in spam filter that actually works. I get virtually no spam.
Or you could just stay off the porn sites, they're the ones selling your email address... :)

slowider - how would you recommend they "fix" it, i see your bio says you work in IT, got any suggestions. there are only a few thousand websites that could use your help on that one.

: ) :

I would like to start by issuing a formal apology to Terry... I did take it personally and I am sure you did not mean it that way. I am new to being a course contact and wasn�t sure if the spam was typical. I have never received spam from the PDGA before.
In response to what I would suggest�. There are countless ways people try to stop spam. Some cheap, some expensive, some make sense, some are just stupid. If the source is truly through the PDGA contact form then I think the captcha concept is a great start and I am sure the techie guys at the PDGA could come up with something home grown that would work great. Other ideas would be to block messages that include web addresses in any of the input fields. It seems almost all spammers are just trying to get their web address sent out.

I know that the PDGA site isn�t going to single handedly stop the spam and if it is too costly to try these things I understand� I was just trying to inform the association if they didn�t already know.
As for Course Contacts� if anyone is listed as a course contact and you don�t want people contacting you� you should hand that responsibility off to someone who actually cares about that course.

I assure you if people think you are a jerk you will not receive unwanted email unless it is in the nature of a complaint or solicitation.

something that might help is to list the email address as:

blah at blah.com - a lot of the spam is done by searching out the @ sign and listing e-mail addresses without this @ sign will at least stop the "automated" spammers