mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (04/10/85)
I am enclosing the text of the Usenet policy on advertising. It is quite clear that the MCI posting was a blatant violation of this policy. It's especially blatant given that MCI is not on Usenet, and that the posting came from a person's guest login on at the North Carolina State University Vet School! Henry Shaffer and Mike Mitchell have been very helpful in tracking down the source of the problem and the proper contact people. The contact person at ncvet is Armested Sapp, ncsu!ncvet!aws. It is more productive if you send private mail to Michael Jones and to Armested Sapp than posting things to the network. Mark Horton Policy, excerpted from "Rules for posting to Usenet", which is posted to net.announce.newusers regularly: Announcement of professional products or services on Usenet is allowed; however, since someone else is paying the phone bills for this, it is important that it be of overall benefit to Usenet. Post to an appropriate newsgroup, never a general purpose newsgroup such as "net.general". Clearly mark your article as a product announcement in the subject. Never repeat these -- one article per product at the most; preferably group everything into one article. Advertising hype is especially frowned upon -- stick to technical facts. Obnoxious or inappropriate announcements or articles violating this policy are very serious and cause for removing your machine from Usenet. This policy is, of course, subject to change if it becomes a problem.