moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (01/25/88)
In article <315@claris.UUCP> clay@claris.UUCP (Clay Maeckel) writes: >Dear new Claris product users, > Claris would like to be able to support our products here on Usenet >and are concerned about the "non-commercial" aspects of this forum. We >would like to be able to answer questions from the net, post official >announcements, and upload demo versions of our software. Let's take this on three levels: 1) Answering questions from the net I'd say, fine, as long as they are brief and to the point; i.e., if someone asks "How many events will the new MacProject allow?", you reply "YY events, dependent on your memory, etc., etc...." -- not "Well, we've got LOADS of new features for MacProject, here's a 100-line summary of them, and hey, while we're at it, how about that new MacWrite? It's got XX and YY and...." That's an exaggerated example, but I think you get my drift... PS, if the person is asking a question specific to themselves, reply by E-mail if possible. Perhaps you could post a note about an E-Mail address where people could send questions, thus saving net bandwidth... I think that providing a place to send E-mail questions would be one of the greatest benefits you could give to the net at large. 2) Official announcements Almost certainly not. That really is pretty promotional stuff. We sometimes have a poster not associated with the company send out info about a new product; I've always perceived it as OK because a) he's/she's not affiliated with the company and b) he or she is posting it because they're interested in the product. Others certainly may perceive this differently... 3) Uploading demo versions Uh, I pass. I can see good reasons to argue both sides, but I tend to side on the No position. >Currently the >only groups that would really apply are comp.sys.mac, comp.binaries.mac, >and comp.sys.apple (where would apple II binaries go?). A better solution >would be the formation of a Claris specific news group. A proposal for >such a new domain level has been made that was started when Telebit asked >the same question about support in the comp.dcom.modems group. I'd forget about a specific Claris group. The reason I think Telebit has a leg to stand on (it's certainly debatable) is that so many of the sites are switching to Telebit for UUCP news passing -- it's a product used directly (and heavily) to serve Usenet distribution. I'd stick to comp.sys.mac and comp.sys.apple; I can't imagine that the amount of data transmitted by Claris (if the guidelines above are accepted) will swamp the current newsgroups. >Claris will be holding off >support on this forum until we see the outcome of this discussion. Glad that Claris is interested in providing information to the net; I appreciate your efforts to provide support for the net. "General, a machine becomes human when you can't tell the difference." Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, hplsla, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind... <*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>
daveb@llama.rtech.UUCP (Dave Brower) (01/28/88)
>In article <315@claris.UUCP> clay@claris.UUCP (Clay Maeckel) writes: >Dear new Claris product users, > Claris would like to be able to support our products here on Usenet >and are concerned about the "non-commercial" aspects of this forum. We >would like to be able to answer questions from the net, post official >announcements, and upload demo versions of our software. > >Let's take this on three levels: > > 1) Answering questions from the net Yes, that is fully appropriate. > 2) Official announcements Yes, through comp.newprod ONLY. That's what it's for. > 3) Uploading demo versions No, it's hard to justify the phone/disk space for such obviously commercial stuff. You could provide an anonymous-uucp service for demos and the like, and occasional announcements of its existance and contents would be fair. -dB "I don't care what you say, as long as you spell my name right." {amdahl, cbosgd, mtxinu, ptsfa, sun}!rtech!daveb daveb@rtech.uucp