On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, murr rhame wrote:
>
> > > At the risk of being even more pro-spam than you, I
> > > expressly allow limited on-topic commercial posts.
>
> Many of my members have commercial interests in the field,
> either for their own careers, or companies they own. I
> explicitly disallow commercial postings, with the relevant
> text from the list charter being:
I suspect most lists have at least some subscribers who have a
commercial interest in the list topic. Allowing ads is
definitely risky. I've always been nervous that vendors might
get into an ad war or some such. With no direct costs for
broadcasting their ads, there's no strong financial incentive not
to post big and post often. Fortunately, most of the vendors on
my list are members of the community served. They do have a
vested interest in not bearing their ass in public. In practice,
I haven't had a significant problem. On rare occasion, I've
asked someone to ease off a bit. When I polled my subscribers,
the consensus was to keep things as they are (a few low-key
ads, on-topic). Your mileage _will_ vary. I'm certain there are
many lists where it would be appropriate to ban _all_
advertisements.
You smithed a couple of nicely phrase paragraphs (below). With a
little list-specific tuning, these could make a nice addition to
many list charters.
> Commercial grandstanding, advertisements, chest puffing, or other
> forms of promotion are not appreciated on the list and will be
> rewarded with removal of membership. The list is an expressly
> non-commercial venue. It is intended as an intelligent and free
> discussion by peers in the field, both hobbyist and professional.
> Posting to the list may be considered analogous to having a
> conversation in my living room using bull horns while the windows are
> open and everyone has tape recorders. There is no secrecy, or control
> of the dissemination of data once it is posted.
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> My main offender is a local company who was instrumental in
> arranging hosting for the list servers etc. They are young,
> eager, aggressive, and media hungry. The CEO has stated that
> my posting requirements (which are more than just the above)
> are, "prissy", but has not attempted to act or persuade
> against them.
Good that you've stuck to your principles. Super gun-ho business
folks can be a bother to reign in.
> Funny really. I've got list members who flame when they
> think someone is abusing or wasting their moderator's time.
That's probably not uncommon. If you run a list well and it
provides a useful forum, list members can be very protective.
- murr -
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