Record and Reverie

Yes, sourceforge.net has resorted to spamming its users. I have received a number of emails from this “Sourceforge.net Marketplace”. In the past, I just let the spam catcher correctly junk them, but today I got annoyed with it. I looked at the bottom of the email, and I see

This email was sent to: xxxx@users.sourceforge.net if you would prefer not to receive information about SourceForge.net Marketplace, please update your communication preferences by visiting the Profile Center.

(my username crossed out because I get enough spam there already)

So, I visit sourceforge, log in, and go to my profile. Nothing is listed for the marketplace mailings. I got visit the marketplace, and there is no profile there. So, what next? I spend several minutes trying to find the old ticket system for the sourceforge site. It used to be rather prominent, but now it more hidden. I file ticket 1884414. It seems that they went through great trouble to hide the fact that “Profile Center” is actually a link. I mean they used inline css to hide all attributes that give you any hint that it is a link; I guess in the hopes that you will not actually click on it. The link tag looks like this

<a style=”font-family:arial;font-size:11px;color:#999999;text-decoration:none;” …

So, I used to use sourceforge back in the day for open source projects. I moved my projects off of them because their servers were too unreliable and they took so long to adopt svn. Now, I host my own projects, one of which is bigger than any I worked on under sourceforge, and the stability is much greater. I guess sourceforge has noticed their pending obsolescence, so they started using their large user base to spam people. Perhaps it is time for me to delete my account there as I have no use for it anymore.