mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (08/05/85)
Two new moderated newsgroups have been created:
Name: mod.general
Moderator: James Armstrong ({ihnp4,cbosgd}!abnji!nyssa)
Purpose: less restrictive version of net.announce, net.general without
the mistakes. Intended as a replacement for net.general
Name: mod.newprod
Moderator: Ron Heiby (cbosgd!newprod)
Purpose: for commercial-type new product announcements
The reason behind mod.general is that most people on the net have
unsubscribed to net.general, because of all the mistakes posted
to it. Hence, posting to net.general isn't very useful, and
subscribing to it isn't either.
There seems to be a significant number of people who do not want
to see net.general deleted. So we'll try running all these newsgroups
at the same time for awhile and see how it works out. (We're not going
to delete net.general, at least not unless/until the net wants it gone.)
If you're trying to decide where to post, here are some guidelines.
These apply to "I want everybody to read this" announcements; if your posting
is special purpose, discussion oriented, or otherwise belongs in one
of the more specialized groups, use that group, of course.
If the posting is so important that everyone on the net ought to be
reading at least the header (and it's mostly of benefit to the net,
rather than to you) use net.announce.
If the posting is commercial in nature (e.g. it's advertising some
product or service you have to offer) try mod.newprod (although some
guidelines will restrict what may be posted here, e.g. it's intended
for new product announcements, not repeated ads.)
If you have one copy of something for sale (e.g. a car, house, motorcycle)
use some appropriate local newsgroup (e.g. nj.forsale.) If there is
no appropriate local newsgroup, use na.forsale and use the Distribution
header to restrict the distribution to the geographic area that might
be interested (this is rarely larger than your local city.)
If the posting is not important enough for net.announce and not
commercial, use mod.general.
If you don't want to use any of the above, or feel you have been censored,
use net.general. (Anyone who thinks they have been censored should point
this out in their article.) Just be aware that posting to net.general
is like shouting into a blizzard - almost nobody is listening.
Mark Horton
net.announce moderator (cbosgd!announce)