Wednesday, December 05, 2007

SIAM is Spamming Me

Many of us received a note from SIAM today, starting with:

Dear Speaker:

We are so pleased that you are going to be a part of the ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA08).

Please be advised SIAM has not yet received your conference registration. Although you may register on-site, SIAM requests you register in advance to confirm presentation of your paper.

I had to search my e-mail, to confirm my memory that I had in fact registered. I sent a note back to the sender explaining I had an e-mail confirmation, and got back this response.

Dear Michael Mitzenmacher,

Please note that this is a mass mailing. It clearly states and the end of the registration reminder

“If you have already registered please disregard this message”.



Indeed it does. But why then send a mass mailing saying clearly at the beginning of the message that they haven't gotten a registration, instead of just sending a reminder that speakers need to register? What makes this SIAM conference person (whose name I'm politely removing) think this is OK? It's not to me. I've sent a complaint, and I plan to complain further to SIAM staff at the conference.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

They sent out emails like this last year as well. I am surprised you read it though -- I don't think anyone actually reads these emails :-)

Anonymous said...

I also would be pissed, especially with the reply email you got. However, I think you are overreacting by complaining and intending to complain again. People deal with these things differently though.

Michael Mitzenmacher said...

I sent a note back to the sender saying I wished to make a formal complaint. In case the message didn't get passed on, I'll find somewhat appropriate to mention it to at the conference is all.

The key is that they get a message that their message is not acceptable, and don't do it again next year...

Anonymous said...

I also got that email regarding SODA08. I noticed the internal contradiction in the email, first saying that they hadn't received my registration, and then saying that if I already registered, please disregard the message. To be on the safe side, I wrote back asking to check that I'm indeed registered. I got back exactly the same somewhat rude reply that you got.

Anonymous said...

... It's nice to see that someone got more pissed than me...

Anonymous said...

At least it's not as bad as the hard-copy spamming they do, with the flyers in the plastic wrap. Ugh.