Re: When you have items to sell......

I've been reading and posting to usenet newsgroups since the early 1990's and I suspect you are opening a can of worms. If you allow ads or for sale stuff, it won't be long before you will have mostly ads - and not even pertinent ads. You'll get all the s*x and other trash as well as ads for items that have nothing to do with your alt-topic. Some usenet newsgroups permit a "sort-of" ad, which is basically a for-sale url (web address) as part of their signature line. That way, you don't get the advertising "content" taking over your newsgroup, but those who have items to sell can reference their personal sales site on the internet. Then, anyone not interested in the sale can simply not click on or go to that sale site. I don't sell anything, but I'll put an example of what I mean with a fake sales web address. (the address won't work, if anyone actually tries to go there).

Chuck - my items for sale at

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Someone can substitute a real site - maybe even an ebay entry and not annoy everyone with a bunch of selling comment. If someone is interested in the sales stuff and has a question, they can then email the poster to get further details. I do think you should try to discourage postings that are purely for the purpose of selling something. That's not what non-commercial newsgroups are for - they're for various interest group news and discussions. But, too many non-commercial newsgroups have been "infected" with so much commercial selling that they are a waste of time to try to read and get any enjoyment or real (pertinent to the topic) information. If you accept the idea of postings that are purely commercial, then that's mostly what you'll eventually get. Any selling, if accepted at all, should be incidental to normal topical discussions and should not detract from that. Therefore, the placement of the words FOR SALE or ADV or any such note in the content, though obvious, still detracts from the intent of the group. If you want a sewing-mach-embroider sales group, then start one that is specifically for selling - such as alt.sewing-mach-embroidery-for-sale. Anyway, that's what I think.

Chuck

Reply to
Charles
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I too have been around a long time (my e-mail address from 1989 is still active) and I can really see both sides of this.

One, it's Usenet. And this is an unmoderated group, so anything can be posted. I have noticed a lot of Britney Spears Naked postings in a lot of newsgroups. (Which, btw, is what spam really was originally, messages posted to multiple newsgroups. What most people call spam now is really UCE, or unsolicited commercial e-mail.)

I think that Coleah's original suggestion of ForSale in the message would be nice, or perhaps ADV which is something of a standard. I think commercial posters who have an address in their .sig file are appropriate, as well as responding to requests. "I need a widget." "I happen to sell widgets at

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"

IMHO, the brouhaha that started this whole thing was not the commercial nature of the message, but the apparent dishonesty of it. That has been apologized for, so I think it's over. In several of the groups I participate in, ADV posts are permitted, as long as the poster does not post the same thing more than once per week. FS posts are for private people and are permitted on the same basis.

After all, many people in the past have made friends off of Usenet. (Hi Marijke!) Wouldn't you rather give a friend you know a good deal when you are moving up to the SingVarnaTher 9.5pi Embroidery system from your current model? When your other alternative is to take less on a trade in, or risk selling on e-bay.

This is all of course really just opinion, and you may see my point or not, but it's still the wonderful anarchy of Usenet.

Go carefully friends,

DaveJ

non-commercial

interest.....when

Reply to
Dave Johnsen

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