Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!bu-cs!xylogics!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Fundraising on the net Message-ID: <1989Nov28.153300.3327@world.std.com> Date: 28 Nov 89 15:33:00 GMT References: <1989Nov21.212300.19168@talos.uucp> <36577@apple.Apple.COM> <1989Nov22.172832.8413@relay.nswc.navy.mil> <7112@ficc.uu.net> Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die Lines: 48 >Could someone please provide a *rational* explanation of why it's >OK to solicit funds for others, but not for one's self? > >Jeff Daiell No one said it was. What what was being discussed was people soliciting funds for identifiable causes with some breadth of interest as opposed to personal income causes. I assume the identifiable causes would be non-profit and tax-exempt, as one criteria, and be able to explain what they intend to do with those funds. It's not ok, for example, to solicit funds for your roommate and no one ever said it was (except perhaps you.) [DON'T START REPLYING YET -- KEEP READING] Don't reword the question into such generality that it appears absurd, that's a puerile trick. Yes, there are definite problems with deciding what a "worthwhile cause" is and that's perhaps worthy of discussion, but I'm not sure the fact that we can't nail down a definition is a priori a reason not to proceed, just a problem that might come up. So what? Life's not perfect and in the end individuals can filter the noise for themselves and gross abuses can be dealt with in the usual ways. That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the original proposal. For one thing, I suspect a fund-raising group will have enormous traffic and almost no readership. Just like the junk mail that lands in my paper mailbox daily. There's enormous motivation to post and post and post and almost no motivation to subscribe. People who wish to give usually find their channels easily enough. In short, I just don't think it will do anyone any good. It's the wrong medium, at least with junk mail you have to pick it up and throw it out and look at it to sort it out from your real mail (which is why they try to put some sort of grabber on the outside of the envelope.) In this medium if you ignore it it vaporizes all by itself. You don't even have to know it ever existed. If this group goes through I'd love to see some sort of sunset clause that if the readership::volume ratio gets too low it gets axed. Then again, that same rule would probably axe news.groups... -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade | bzs@world.std.com 1330 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 | {xylogics,uunet}world!bzs Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com