
Ask HN: Should I use my old mailing list? - jakejake
I was just cleaning out old files on my server when I happened across an old mailing list for my CGI scripts (remember when CGI scripts were a thing?!)<p>They are all legitimate sign-ups to receive updates from me, but I probably only ever sent out one or two messages. Otherwise it&#x27;s been unused for over 5 years. To my shock I checked the data file and I have somewhere around 30k people who signed up.<p>Obviously a good percentage are probably dead emails now. But I was wondering whether I should just trash the file or keep it and perhaps send an email for a related service. My original scripts were all webmaster-related stuff and I do have newer things that I&#x27;ve released.<p>Just wondering what the wisdom of HN has to say about it?
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olefoo
It depends on your comfort level with advertising and related ethical
questions.

My suggestion is that if you do send anything:

1\. Include a reminder of what they were initially interested in.

2\. Ask permission to tell them more about your related offering.

3\. Include links to an explainer page as well as to your new offer.

4\. Have an "I do not wish to hear from you again." link.

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jakejake
That sounds pretty reasonable. I'm anti-spam to the point where I never even
want to send anything to my own list!

I think I was more shocked that I actually had that many sign-ups because I
never really monitored it. Now that I read about startups here, it seems that
30k signups can actually be a pretty big deal when getting something off the
ground.

Thanks for the reply!

