🚀 go-pugleaf

> I'd like to offer these suggestions for postings of a commercial nature:
>
> (1) Make sure the subject line says "announce:" so that readers can
> easily choose whether to read one or not.

Subject flags are useful - as well as ignoring certian messages, it allows
people to killfile certain types of message and never see them at all.

Trouble is, as a system it's almost impossible to enforce. Without
becoming a "bit policeman", of course <g>

> (2) Don't post it over and over again.

Or crosspost. Ahem.

> (3) Be sure the product or service you're referring to is of direct
> interest to the newsgroup readership.

On-topic, IOW. This *should* apply to all messages.

> (4) Please don't take it upon yourself to be a one-man "bit policeman,"
> guardian of netiquette on behalf of the entire world.  If you don't
> agree with it, don't read it.  Let it slip right on by.  For every one
> participant here there might easily be 100,000 silent readers.

Spoken as one who occasionally makes commercial announcements
in these groups <g>

True, self-appointed netcops can be annoying, but most people don't
bother finding out the "rules" of a particular group, so often they have
to be told. (*Someone's* got to point out that DejaNews exists, for
example <g>).

And wasn't your post a form of pro-active netcopping?

--
Jeremy Collins
Kansai Business Systems
http://www.kansai.co.uk/