draper@bu-tyng.bu.edu (dday) (10/07/88)
Hello World, I really hate to have to post this but ... the traffic is getting pretty thick as of late. I am tired of reading postings about items for sale in this newgroup. That is not what it's for. If you have something to sell, go post in the proper newsgroup. This group isn't the place. :-( :-( Dave Draper Dave Draper UUCP: decvax!elrond!bu-tyng!draper Internet: draper@bu-tyng.bu.edu Boston University Corporate Education Center 72 Tyng Road Tyngsboro MA 01879 649-9731 x14
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (10/22/88)
What's wrong with posting computer merchandise for sale in a
computer notefile? Obviously, all the notes here won't appeal
to you. But personal for-sale ads do us all some good.
Mike Berger
Department of Statistics
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!bergerspolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) (10/26/88)
In article <16800384@clio> berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: | What's wrong with posting computer merchandise for sale in a | computer notefile? Obviously, all the notes here won't appeal | to you. But personal for-sale ads do us all some good. Some lucky netlanders get to read news on a big 19" monitor at about 56,000 baud, including myself. We can hit "n" in a split second to flip past Joe Shmo in Albuquerque selling some memory chips. Unfortunately many poor souls are still in the dark ages, and they read news at 1200 baud or even worse. At 1200 baud it can take 15 seconds to flip past Joe Shmo's for sale ad. When someone has a garage sale it can take quite a long time to flip through the garbage, while you agonizingly wait as your too-slow modem gives you one... character... at... a... time. That's when For Sale ads get really annoying, especially since there _is_ a newsgroup (misc.forsale) that is supposed to fill this purpose. It's kind of like being forced to read classified ads in a professional journal. I shall give up on trying to police the net, but it would be nice if people would show a little consideration of their fellow netlanders. +----------------+---------------------------------------------------+ | Joel Spolsky | bitnet: spolsky@yalecs uucp: ...!yale!spolsky | | | arpa: spolsky@yale.edu voicenet: 203-436-1483 | +----------------+---------------------------------------------------+ #include <disclaimer.h>
hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) (10/26/88)
Mike Berger asks what is wrong with ads in technical groups. There are several problems with ads. The most basic one is that there are a number of ways in which using Usenet for personal gain can cause both legal and other troubles. What is personal gain is of course a difficult issue, since plenty of people ask advice and ask for help, and these can be construed as personal gain. On the other hand, that is all technical material, and can benefit us all. Most administrators would draw the line at advertisements. They cause political problems within Usenet, because they lead to the impression that the PC groups aren't used for anything "serious", but are primarily for peoples' hobbies. This could get them moved to distributions that are less widespread. Some organizations have policies against using their computer facilities for anything other than business. Again, it's not clear exactly what is business. One can argue that technical information about PC's is. It is hard to make that argument about ads. Finally, many sites still get these groups via some piece of the DDN (e.g. Arpanet or Milnet), and those media have a very explicit ban on advertising or other things that might be interpreted as personal gain. For all of these reasons, anything that looks like an ad is prohibited from the technical groups. For sites that do not have these policy and/or legal problems, there are separate groups. Personal ads go in misc.forsale and misc.wanted. There are often local distributions which make more sense, e.g. in our area nj.wanted, and within Rutgers people often use our local ru.general. Product announcements go in the biz groups. By separating this material, sites that can't deal with it can still carry the technical information.
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (10/27/88)
In article <16800384@clio> berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: | | What's wrong with posting computer merchandise for sale in a | computer notefile? Obviously, all the notes here won't appeal | to you. But personal for-sale ads do us all some good. | | Mike Berger You're totally right, there's nothing wrong with posting for sale. **HOWEVER** we don't want forsale ads in the pc group for the same reason we don't want Apple discussions, religion, or jobs wanted: There is a group just for that, and people who are in the market for something can read that group, or post in the wanted group. The whole idea of having topical groups is to keep non-relevant stuff from wasting time. People who post condos forsale in the pc group deserve to get an IRS audit!! -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me