mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (05/22/85)
As experience with net.announce develops, I've been finding myself
being asked to post some articles to net.announce which did not
seem to me to be in the spirit of net.announce. Over half of the
submissions are currently being denied, usually with a suggestion
for another place to post the article. At least one applicant
believes that my policies are too strict. Since these policies
are here to protect you, the reader of net.announce, it seems only
fair to ask your opinions, and to reshape my policies if they don't
reflect your wishes.
The policy I'm currently using is that net.announce submissions must be:
(a) short - preferably they should fit on one crt screen, including headers.
(b) important enough to at least have their header shown to everyone on the net.
The posting should be more of benefit to the net than to the poster.
(c) not posted to any other newsgroup - net.announce by itself is supposed
to be sufficient to reach everybody, and nobody should have to read
an announcement more than once.
(d) signed - the author should be clearly evident.
(e) not commercial, political, or religious in nature.
The moderation mechanism is working, you wouldn't believe how many people
have posted a followup to net.announce, including an entire article,
followed by only "REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE." These get mailed
to me instead of posted to the net.
However, the last restriction is not crystal clear. The posting about
South Africa was borderline political, and it generated two complaints
from the net (a borderline number.) If I had it to do over, I'd probably
redirect the poster to net.politics. The Stalin/Holocaust article which
some of you have seen on net.general was more clear-cut.
The really unclear issue is what to do about commercial messages.
I've been using price and redistribution policy as a rough guideline.
A university distributing a software package for $175 isn't trying to
make money from their package, but seminars costing $500-$1000, even
those given by non-profit corporations, seem to me to be intended to
make money.
I would like your opinion. Given that political and commercial postings
exist and that there is demand to post them somewhere, where should they
be posted? net.announce? net.general? Some specific group, like
net.cse or net.micro.pc or net.unix, if there is such a group? Should
we create a special newsgroup for them? We could even have a newsgroup
for paid advertising, if there is demand for it.
I would like your opinion. Send me mail and let me know what you think.
Mark Horton
net.announce moderator