Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Ads on Usenet
Message-ID: <2020@looking.UUCP>
Date: 11 Sep 88 01:07:58 GMT
References: <8869@cup.portal.com> <2465@epimass.EPI.COM> <14096@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 42

There has never been any "decision" on commercial material.  It is indeed
a subject of much debate.

It's clear that there is a very high demand for this sort of stuff.  When
comp.newprod was created, it ranked very highly in the readership surveys,
ie. in the top 10.

But it has faded off because I don't think it is doing what it should.  We
get bunches of postings spaced several weeks apart, all very general.  For
unknown reasons, some of the news guidelines actually say that product
announcements should go in comp.newprod, and *not* in the group where the
readers would be interested.

This makes no sense to me.  Each comp.newprod article should also be
crossposted to the correct group (comp.unix, comp.sys.whatever).

Evidence shows that product information, direct company response and
support are very highly valued by readers.  Everybody seems very keen to
see Atari in comp.sys.atari, Telebit in comp.dcom.modems, SCO in
comp.unix.xenix, MKS in comp.sys.ibm.pc etc.

For some reason there are a few complainers who have mistaken this net
for a public network of some kind, when it is privately owned.  There is
no restriction on usenet.  Arpanet sites are restricted in some ways.

As long as product related postings are informational, and of value to
both the readers/customers and the producer, and they aren't sent by
automatic gateway to the Arpanet, there is no problem, except from
whiners.

The only other concern that has been voiced in the past relates to
product material from companies that are competitors of major net sites.
This never seems to have been a problem.  While it is impolite to use
a competitor's resources to promote your product, it's far more impolite
to use other people's resources for endless gigabytes of net.trash that
nobody is interested in.  We have worse problems to worry about.

As long as commercial postings are informative, useful, and not repetitive or
annoying, go ahead.

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473