mark@cbosgd.UUCP (09/29/83)
I've been reading a lot of articles lately about cars (and other misc items unrelated to computers) for sale. A lot of them seem to be posted to btl.wanted, and one I read today was posted to btl.wanted, bell.wanted, and nj.wanted! I want people to realize that when they post to such newsgroups, they reach a lot of people clear across the country that could not possibly buy their misc items even if they were interested. With the possible exception of computer equipment or other highly specialized stuff for sale, "for sale" items should be restricted to the geographic area of the seller. For example, the "car for sale" ad above probably should have been posted ONLY to nj.wanted. Posting to btl.wanted reaches people in Illinois, Ohio, Penn, Georgia, as well as New Jersey. Posting to bell.wanted or att.wanted also reaches people in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and probably a few other places. Posting net.wanted reaches not only the entire USA but also Canada, Europe, and Australia. People this far away do not want to read about your car, and are likely to become upset at the cost to transmit such things over the net. So what do you do? Well, if you are in a geographic area that has its own foo.wanted newsgroup (e.g. nj.wanted), use that newsgroup ONLY. If you do not have such a newsgroup, but do have a geographic area newsgroup class, use the distribution feature, e.g. Newsgroups: net.wanted Distribution: ba which, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, will post to net.wanted but restrict distribution to "ba.all" (e.g. within the Bay Area). If you have no more reasonable newsgroup class than "net", you should set one up - at a bare minimum each state, province, and country should have a geographic class for this purpose. Posting something to the entire net that would require the buyer to travel to your location, if such travel from across the country is unreasonble, is bad manners. Please don't do it. Mark Horton