On 12/24/2015 1:16 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 12/23/2015 03:03 PM, Don Y wrote:

[snip]

When we sort through our messages, we sometimes encounter "dumb"
robodialers that just recite their "payload" without regard to
whether or not there is anything listening. The local public
library is like this. And, must know how stupid their approach
is as the repeat the message several times -- in English
and Spanish -- in the hope that ONE of them is caught by
whatever is "listening"

And, when you use an answering machine, they're too stupid to WAIT FOR THE
BEEP. Some or all (depending on length) of the message isn't recorded.

The more amusing cases are the (real) folks who ramble on and on -- until
the machine hangs up on them!

We had a friend who would call after having a few drinks. One time,
she talked to the machine for so long that the *tape* (back when
you had dual cassettes in the machine) ran out! (half an hour or more!)

BTW, I once tried one of those "challenge / response" systems, where the caller
gets a "please press 1" message. Using it made the "dumb robodialer" problem
worse (considering that the ring-ring-message-beep sequence becomes
ring-ring-messsage-ring-ring-message-beep).

Handling incoming calls -- wanted and unwanted -- is an amusingly difficult
problem!

Historically, it's been such a ubiquitous medium that it was hard to
impose any rules/constraints on callers; someone legitimate might
call and be incapable of complying with whatever "system" you'd
imposed!

[I had a scheme35 years ago where you had to key in a number.
Worked great -- except for my folks (who had a dial-pulse telephone!]

As a result, I've decided that *you* have to bear the responsibility
for making it work; you can't just "impose" something on your callers
because they're not accustomed to "having to comply" with a
dictatorial phone system!

[How many folks lean on '0' when faced with endless voice menus?]

OTOH, with email, I can "force" certain contacts to use PEM if
they want to correspond with me -- without imposing that on
other contacts!