[Big News] Diet Handbag & Diet Bag

I will never buy or even go to a web site of anything offered for sale on the sewing newsgroups. This is not the proper place for ads. Emily

That is a shame. I have found some very good items and prices from postings. I do think it should be prefaced in the title as such, so that those like Emily who are so heartly offended can just delete. But I for one value the input as I am fairly rural and many of these sewing supply sites are all I have.

The trouble with that is that it opens the group up to constant spamming, and it very rapidly becomes impossible for any discussion. The ONLY proper place for ads is the market place groups. Please look there for stuff to buy, not here. If the spammers take over the group, all the useful folk will leave!

Also, it is specifically against the charter for this and all other news groups not actually set up for ads. The ONLY legit commercial link on this group is through a sig line, similar to mine below, but leading to your commercial site.

Pehaps read the marketplace group?

( this is not directed at Kate) what really drives me nuts is.... my ISP has excellent spam filers for newsgroups. I don't see most of the spam posts, but I see the "go away spammer" replies, which IMO just propogates it. If it makes you feel better to say something rude to them, report them to their ISP or follow their link and send them a nasty email. Chances are that they are hit and run posters, and won't see the follow-up any. But please.... the "I wont' buy from spammers" posts are just as obnoxious as the spam, and serve no useful purpose.

just my 2¢

Penny S

If Joanne's attempted to adverise here they really would go bust! No - if someone sees a good bargain, they alert the sewing world here, but commercial advertising is severely slammed! THAT is why you see very little here! You will see us telling each other where things are on sale, where there's a good bargain to be had, and where WE got a good deal, great service, whatever. We also exchange BAD sewing shop/sales/service news. What IS a big NO! is saying 'Come and see what I have to sell you!' There is a slight grey area, in that if a shop owner/employee has a fabric that someone is looking for, they may pipe up and say 'We have it - contact me off group.' This is more tolerated on the quilting group, but as the folk who tell us this also join in some of the technique discussion and other stuff, they count as members of the group first and commercial second.

If you go telling commercial advertisers that you found their info via a spam to a news group, they then think this is a legit way to do business, instead of a violation of the charter: if they continue to do so, they can lose their ISP connection.

I bet you have never seen newsgroups that are so cluttered with ads that there is very little content of value percentage-wise.

It's not a matter of being offended to me, it's a matter of playing by the rules and having good business ethics.

There's a difference between someone saying, "I was just in Joanns and they have this great sale," and someone saying, "My business is having a great sale. Come check out our web site." Part (A) is considered acceptable in Usenet; part B is not.

It really isn't safe to buy from someone who is so dishonest

-- or clueless -- as to spam. I get plenty of references from legitimate messages posted by satisfied customers. For example, I get all my fabric from Phoenix Textiles (fabric.com), but they never posted an ad on the newsgroup

-- I learned about them when people were twittering about their dollar-a-yard department. (They had to give the department up because they don't always have fabric to put in it, but good stuff at a dollar a yard still shows up in Bargain Corner and Final Clearance once in a while.)

Pay attention to sig lines -- many members of the group

And there is always Google -- my computer-illiterate sister heard me whine about having to embroider straight eyes for my hooks, hopped online, and found Baer Fabrics for me. Which I haven't tried out yet, but that's another post.

Joy Beeson