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Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!harvard!ut-sally!caip!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP
Newsgroups: na.forsale,net.unix
Subject: Re: UNIX box cheap
Message-ID: <1971@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 5-Jul-86 21:34:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1971
Posted: Sat Jul  5 21:34:10 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Jul-86 00:05:31 EDT
References: <253@dmsd.UUCP> <763@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU> <254@dmsd.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Distribution: na
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 23

In article <254@dmsd.UUCP> bass@dmsd.UUCP (John Bass) writes:
>In article <763@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU>, faustus@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) writes:
>> Hey, I thought that we weren't supposed to be doing this sort of advertising
>> on the net... I know there's a fine line between giving out information and
>> marketing products, but let's try to keep things reasonable...
>Why the bitch???

The problem should be obvious, but apparently it isn't.

Many sites can justify receiving/forwarding net news only because
workers at the site get enough benefit from the technical newsgroups
to make it worth the investment.  Several of the important technical
newsgroups already border on the verge of being more trouble than
they're worth for many sites due to the low percentage of informative
postings.  If these newsgroups are opened up to such advertisements,
it's a good bet that their noise/signal ratio would rise rapidly.

There are several alternatives for posting "for sale" or "want to buy"
or "job wanted" or "positions available" messages besides technical
newsgroups.  For one thing, there are newsgroups specifically for
this; then there are also BBSes, which USEnet is NOT, and a variety
of trade journals, want-ads, etc.  Please use these for commercials
and keep the technical newsgroups relatively technical.  Thanks.