🚀 go-pugleaf

Sundial Services wrote:
> 
> I'd like to offer these suggestions for postings of a commercial nature:

I'm glad to see you want to make new proposals how to deal with this thing.
And to be determined, wanting to see if there still could be some ways how 
you could use newsgroups for sending your commercial material free. That 
determination is Ok with me.

Yet, I'm afraid that the few people who are participating this discussion,
_we are not able to give you what you want_. It is not under our authority 
to give you or your company any of those special rights or freedoms about 
this.

I'm not sure if you know how the Usenet works. It is quite a big task if
you even want to create a new Usenet newsgroup, several open votings for
everyone, agreements etc. 

If you want to change the whole netiquette rules about advertizing, I'm 
afraid it will be a _much_ bigger task to perform. Yet you can try it. 
Here's one link to start with, send mail to these guys, and tell them 
what kind of changes you want to these rules:

>IF YOU HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS:
>
>http://www.netannounce.org/news.announce.newusers/archive/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1
>A board of experienced Usenet users stands ready to help suggest
>non-destructive ways to use Usenet for your commercial purposes.  Send
>mail to mailto:commerce@acpub.duke.edu if you have questions or would like help. 

You said something about one man police forces,
> (4) Please don't take it upon yourself to be a one-man "bit policeman,"
mhh, maybe I'm one of those, at least with this cross posting, newsgroups 
advertizing, (=spamming), etc.

Even though your company would be on a niche market, as millions of other
small companies round the world, it still is no obligation for others 
to pay their, or your advertizing bills.

Markku Nevalainen

JRS:  In article <383BFBE9.32F9@sundialservices.com> of Wed, 24 Nov 1999
07:53:29 in news:comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc, Sundial Services
<info@sundialservices.com> wrote:
>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.  Be sure that your posting is
>not a thinly-disguised advertisement... in other words, "would you be
>recommending this if you didn't happen to sell it?"

Unsatisfactory.  Those with off-line newsreaders will have already paid
to download the stuff.

Stick to giving useful, knowledgeable answers in the normal manner, and
use a signature of standard size with correct preferred separator for
your commercials.  Put sales material on your Web site.
 
-- 
� John Stockton, Surrey, UK.  jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk   Turnpike v4.00   MIME. �
 Web <URL: http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
 Proper 4-line sig. separator is as above, a line exactly "-- " (SonOfRFC1036)
 Do not Mail News to me. Before a reply, quote with ">" or "> " (SonOfRFC1036)

Markku Nevalainen wrote:

> Yet, I'm afraid that the few people who are participating this discussion,
> _we are not able to give you what you want_. It is not under our authority
> to give you or your company any of those special rights or freedoms about
> this.

I don't want to help continue this thread, especially since you have it cross-posted to
several forums, but I think your objections to Mike's occasional self-promotions are more
objectionable than the posts themselves.. for better or worse, there is no "3rd party tools"
section here, as there is in Inprise's Delphi forum, and this *is* the best place to post Pdox
tools announcements.. as at least one other person has stated, if it weren't for the posts
here, *many* people would not know about ChimneySweep.. and that alone makes Mike's posts
worthwhile..

Give it a rest <smile>

--
Steve Green
Corel CTech - Paradox
Diamond Software Group, Inc.
Waldorf, Maryland  USA

http://www.diamondsg.com
Greens@DiamondSG.com

Sundial Services wrote:

If I may briefly elaborate on my own posting, point three:

> (3) Be sure the product or service you're referring to is of direct
> interest to the newsgroup readership.  We -do- work in a niche market
> here; good products are to be found everywhere in the world, where the
> books and magazines we buy just don't reach.  Good products and services
> are worth knowing about. 

To me, the Usenet newsgroups are the =single most important= source of
information making me aware of, and giving frank evaluations of,
commercial and shareware  software products.

[Hmm, where do we draw this line between "commercial" and "shareware,"
anyway?  It's all one-and-the same, folks.  And look at what "giving
stuff away" did to Microsoft and Red Hat, Inc.  We buy all the time, and
are happy so to do.]

Some of the best tools in the world are created in second bedrooms.  

I vividly remember my first experience with a high-speed data import
utility for Paradox for DOS, which replaced FLIMPORT (bow, wow...) and
shaved many hours from a weekly processing job.  A valuable tool (from
Kallista) that I could easily not have even been =aware= of.  I did not
pay the slightest bit of attention to how much it cost because it
enabled me to go home on-time on Thursdays.

Usenet groups bring us all together for a common purpose:  to use the
tools we use, more effectively.  That also means "build vs. buy"
decisions, or "buy vs. do without" decisions, are made all the time. 
Part of what we are trying to avoid here is having them be made "by
default," because someone didn't know any better.

I firmly believe that the "real" participants here -- can police
themselves, thank you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sundial Services :: Scottsdale, AZ (USA) :: (480) 946-8259
mailto:info@sundialservices.com  (PGP public key available.)
> High-speed, script-driven, table repair/support for Paradox/BDE...
> ChimneySweep{tm}:  "Click click, it's fixed!" {tm}
> http://www.sundialservices.com/cs3web.htm

> 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/

Sundial Services skrev i meldingen
<383BFBE9.32F9@sundialservices.com>...
>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.  Be sure that your posting is
>not a thinly-disguised advertisement... in other words, "would you be
>recommending this if you didn't happen to sell it?"

...then your first "announce:" should be a freeware, well-featured news
reader with a checkbox dropping all "announce:" - messages.

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

...If every manufacturer of "relevant" stuff would announce their
products in this NG even ONE time, the noise would become overwhelming.
Because - it's free. Today, I believe it could be a little stupid to
announce here. I, for one, would have my doubts about the poster's
seriousness, and I never check out those products.

>(3) Be sure the product or service you're referring to is of direct
>interest to the newsgroup readership.  We -do- work in a niche market
>here;

..It's not a niche market; all we have in common is that we all are
Delphi programmers. I find somewhat 10% of the normal postings
interesting, and if this percentage should drop substantially, I would
sign off.

>good products are to be found everywhere in the world, where the
>books and magazines we buy just don't reach.  Good products and
services
>are worth knowing about.

..the good thing about Internet is that you go for the info as you need
it. Place your products on Torry's and DSP and/or other channels, and
we'll find them. Remember, we do searches for stuff all the time. Just
see how often products and URL's are suggested...

>(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.

If, one day,  posting an announcement is perfectly fine, NG's like this
loose their effectiveness. It's like knocking at peoples doors late
saturday night to arrange Tupperware Homeparties because "they're
already there". We owe noise-free environment to the people who kindly
reply to questions, sharing their valuable knowledge for free.

>For every one
>participant here there might easily be 100,000 silent readers.  You
>really must not be the judge of what is or isn't "relevant."

The only difference between the silent readers and the active ones is
that none of the first have an ambition to answer relevant questions
every day. And - unless you know anything about them, don't claim that
they agree with you.

>Usenet newsgroups derive their greatest power from free and unfettered,
but
>always on-topic (in somebody's opinion) exchange of ideas.

That's why we don't want Borland, MS, me, you or anyone else to
advertise in this NG. To keep noise away.

--
Bjoerge Saether
Consultant / Developer
Asker, Norway
bsaether.removethis@online.no (remove the obvious)

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:53:29 -0700, Sundial Services wrote:
>I'd like to offer these suggestions for postings of a commercial nature:

[snipped in toto]

Netiquette is not (thank God) enforceable.  But remember, all netiquette
is just corollaries of one basic rule: People will read what you post,
and judge you by it.  Some of those people will turn out to be ones
whose help or good opinions you want.

-- 
"The privileged being which we call human is distinguished from other
animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in charity we
can only call 'inhuman.'" -- Epiktistes

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:53:29 -0700, Sundial Services
<info@sundialservices.com> wrote:

>I'd like to offer these suggestions for postings of a commercial nature:
[suggestions snipped]

[Answering from comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc]

Strictly, I believe ads are against the charter for these groups, so
you would need to go through the acknowledged voting process to change
that.

What's wrong with the comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce group? I had
the impression it's purpose was announcements (as the name indicates).

IMO the other groups should be kept free from advertisments! It may be
OK to refer to a product when answering a specific question, but
'spamming' the group with ads is not nice.

If you find that your coverage is to small in the free ad-groups, well
it's your problem - don't make it our problem, please.

Asking us not to be 'bit-policemen' is like saying: "OK I know this
goes against the charter, but please, let _me_ do this...". I find
that attitude very irritating.

As an off-line reader, who pays for the connect time, I heartily
dislike _all_ unsolicited advertisments, be it in e-mail or
newsgroups.

(Yes, I have a sticker on my (snail-)mailbox: "No unsolicited ads,
please", and it works there. If it were only that easy on the Net...)

Sorry for a long way to say 'Please, no'!

------------------------------------
Anders Isaksson, Sweden

BlockCAD: http://user.tninet.se/~hbh828t/proglego.htm
Gallery:  http://user.tninet.se/~hbh828t/gallery.htm