In recent months the volume of spurious e-mail called “spam” has increased alarmingly. If you use e-mail, you may have been dealing with it to some degree. Because several public Web sites contain links to the GLEANER e-mail address, approximately 90 percent of the e-mail received at this address (100 or more messages daily) is spam.

In order to deal with it, we do not open each individual e-mail message but simply select whole sections that look suspicious and delete them all at once. Anything that is not clearly identified in the subject line as GLEANER material goes. If the subject line is blank—it goes!

A favorite trick of persons with malicious intent (e-mails containing viruses) is to either leave the subject line blank or do anything to trick the recipient into opening the e-mail. They try to make it look like it’s coming from an acquaintance or a legitimate business. Indeed the message may have come from a name we recognize whose system has been infected by the virus and is now sending it out to everyone on their address list.

The only way to be sure your message is recognized as GLEANER material is to clearly identify it as such. So in your subject line, be sure to type GLEANER announcement, GLEANER obituary, GLEANER classified ad, GLEANER story, etc., so your e-mail won’t be deleted and lost.

All GLEANER submissions will receive a personal reply from the copy coordinator within a few days. If you have not received a reply after a week, it is possible your article has been deleted along with other suspicious-looking e-mail, so please follow-up with another e-mail or phone call to confirm that your article has been received.

Despite the challenges we have with e-mail, it is still the preferred way to receive GLEANER submissions. You may e-mail your submissions to gleaner@nw.npuc.org.