lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (10/23/83)
While I certainly don't wish to see the net inundated with
WHAT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR! THE NEW FROBO SOFTWARE PACKAGE!
type messages, I don't see anything wrong with short and "tasteful"
announcements regarding products or services that have a high
probability of being of interest to net readers. You can't really
stop them anyway. If you tried to ban them, people would just have
their "friends" submit the announcements for them in an "oblique"
manner. For example, you would start seeing messages like:
Gee, did you hear that FooCo has announced a new
Frobo software package? It's really neat! ...
It would normally be impossible to determine if such a message were
a "legit" statement or was sent at the request of somebody the
sender knew at FooCo! Instead of forcing such deviousness, I
strongly suggest that we don't make a big deal out of simple
announcements -- I personally find them to be quite useful in
any case.
--Lauren--