Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

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eXpertGenealogy

Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av eXpertGenealogy » 22. november 2006 kl. 20.17

I operate the website at http://expertgenealogy.com and was somewhat
surprised to see the previous posting about a Thanksgiving offer. I
thought that this type of posting was not acceptable. To determine the
acceptability of such a message, I have searched the FAQ of various
groups and found the following statements on etiquette. This same
advertisement has been posted on a number of newsgroups and most have
no comments although I do see that one comment is posted here. Can
anyone refer me to any other references to etiquette regarding this
situation? If there are no objections to the Thanksgiving offer posting
then I have a number of announcements that I would like to post.

Regards,
Terry Young
http://expertgenealogy.com

soc.genealogy.medieval
Inappropriate Topics and Posts:
* Advertising or selling of a product or service is not in general
regarded as acceptable. The announcement of a product or service
and
its cost is acceptable.

soc.genealogy.nordic
Generally, advertising or selling of a product or
service is not regarded as acceptable Internet behavior.
The announcement of a new product or a new service is
acceptable when there is no mention of price or an
ordering address. Those who post such messages should
answer those questions by personal, direct e-mail or by
letter. Advertisements or selling services by
professional genealogists is strictly forbidden on this
group. If appropriate, those types of postings should
be announced on soc.genealogy.marketplace
only.

Robert M. Riches Jr.

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Robert M. Riches Jr. » 22. november 2006 kl. 20.45

On 2006-11-22, eXpertGenealogy <support@eXpertGenealogy.com> wrote:
I operate the website at http://expertgenealogy.com and was somewhat
surprised to see the previous posting about a Thanksgiving offer. I
thought that this type of posting was not acceptable. To determine the
acceptability of such a message, I have searched the FAQ of various
groups and found the following statements on etiquette. This same
advertisement has been posted on a number of newsgroups and most have
no comments although I do see that one comment is posted here. Can
anyone refer me to any other references to etiquette regarding this
situation? If there are no objections to the Thanksgiving offer posting
then I have a number of announcements that I would like to post.

I believe I saw an objection to the recent spam posting. I
would dare guess if you were to post "a number" of
commercial advertisements, you would see at least "a number"
of objections. Your posting ID would probably also take up
residence in my killfile and probaly numerous others.

Isn't there a soc.genealogy.marketplace newsgroup where
commercial advertising and announcements are considered
appropriate?

--
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

john

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av john » 22. november 2006 kl. 21.03

eXpertGenealogy wrote:
I operate the website at *****.com and was somewhat
surprised to see the previous posting about a Thanksgiving offer. I
thought that this type of posting was not acceptable. To determine the
acceptability of such a message, I have searched the FAQ of various
groups and found the following statements on etiquette. This same
advertisement has been posted on a number of newsgroups and most have
no comments although I do see that one comment is posted here. Can
anyone refer me to any other references to etiquette regarding this
situation? If there are no objections to the Thanksgiving offer posting
then I have a number of announcements that I would like to post.

Regards,
Terry Young
http://*****.com

soc.genealogy.medieval
Inappropriate Topics and Posts:
* Advertising or selling of a product or service is not in general
regarded as acceptable. The announcement of a product or service
and
its cost is acceptable.

soc.genealogy.nordic
Generally, advertising or selling of a product or
service is not regarded as acceptable Internet behavior.
The announcement of a new product or a new service is
acceptable when there is no mention of price or an
ordering address. Those who post such messages should
answer those questions by personal, direct e-mail or by
letter. Advertisements or selling services by
professional genealogists is strictly forbidden on this
group. If appropriate, those types of postings should
be announced on soc.genealogy.marketplace
only.


This e-mail is an attempt to disguise the real intent of promoting a web
site while asking an apparently dumb question to which the author has
already found the answer namely that such promotion is not acceptable
excpet in soc.genealogy.marketplace.

A Whois search shows it to have come from
Team Approach Limited
Terry Young
51 Stapledon Crescent
Nepean
ON
CA
K2H 9L3
6137199464
D-77439npxw@usersa3.domainsatcost.ca

eXpertGenealogy

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av eXpertGenealogy » 22. november 2006 kl. 22.14

John,
The subject of my message is about the posting at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.gene ... 8af4?hl=en


You imply that it is dumb to ask about this, but as I pointed out in my
original message, this message appears on a number of newsgroups
without complaint. My question is,
Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

Kerry Raymond

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Kerry Raymond » 22. november 2006 kl. 22.39

Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

1) Advertising becomes "information" when the recipient is actually
interested in the product/service. Since the product/service did relate to
genealogy, some people probably found it interesting and indeed useful. So
those people won't complain.

2) Exhaustion. So much spam, so little time to complain about it. Since some
of the regulars on this newsgroup seem to have a lot of time of their hands,
I figure I can leave it to them to fight the good fight on netiquette. But
perhaps they too have tired.

Kerry

Dave Hinz

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Dave Hinz » 23. november 2006 kl. 1.55

On 22 Nov 2006 13:14:52 -0800, eXpertGenealogy <support@eXpertGenealogy.com> wrote:

You imply that it is dumb to ask about this, but as I pointed out in my
original message, this message appears on a number of newsgroups
without complaint. My question is,
Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

Because, even though the spammer in question hit a half-dozen groups,
they multiposted rather than crossposted, and it wasn't worth my effort
to reply in all of the spammed groups. And...digging through faq's
hoping to find one "may" or "sometimes", rather than getting the point,
is hardly a recipe for marketing success. The soc.genealogy.marketplace
is set up for people to post commercial messages to. The
non-marketplaces, are for people to talk about research, questions, and
non-commercial matters. It's not complicated.

Dave Hinz

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Dave Hinz » 23. november 2006 kl. 1.57

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 07:39:27 +1000, Kerry Raymond <kraymond@iprimus.com.au> wrote:
Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

1) Advertising becomes "information" when the recipient is actually
interested in the product/service. Since the product/service did relate to
genealogy, some people probably found it interesting and indeed useful. So
those people won't complain.

Sorry, but on-topic spam, is still spam. Just because someone may have
a mortgage, doesn't make unsolicited posts or email about mortgages any
less spammy.

The marketplace group is set up so people who want to read ads, can find
them. It's so people who want to post ads, can post them to people who
_want to read them_. Putting them where they're questionable at best
just doesn't make sense from _any_ perspective.

Margaret J Olson

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Margaret J Olson » 23. november 2006 kl. 5.14

You imply that it is dumb to ask about this, but as I pointed out in my
original message, this message appears on a number of newsgroups
without complaint. My question is,
Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

It was not dumb - but it was done on purpose.

Why should we who read this newsgroup/mailing list (and know what the
topic is) reply on this newsgroup to an off topic message from some
spammer who probably isn't even reading the newsgroup? We know
better, and I think you do, too. The best defense against
advertisers is to ignore their messages and to NEVER use the services
being advertised.

You have been posting acceptable messages on
soc.genealogy.marketplace/GEN-MARKET quite regularly and for quite
some time. You do know the rules, and just because some other bad
guy gets a post in does not mean that you should, too. Threatening
that you are going to do that is not good for your business.

For the information of others who may wish I had taken my own advice
and had not written a reply - see:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~socgen/

for historic information on the beginnings of all the soc.genealogy
newsgroups - including the rationale and charter for each newsgroup -
and the votes! That site does need some updating since RootsWeb has
changed the addresses for its mailing lists, removing the -L from list names.

Margaret

Gjest

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Gjest » 23. november 2006 kl. 6.15

On 22 Nov 2006 13:14:52 -0800, "eXpertGenealogy"
<support@eXpertGenealogy.com> wrote:

Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

Since you're obviously reading the responses, but like Margaret
probably against my better judgement, I'll at least answer your follow
up question above. I can't speak for anyone else, but suspect others
might have had the same reaction to the "complaint." I saw the
"complaint," appreciated and agreed with it, and moved on. The
original "complaint" was plenty clear - it didn't need "piling on"
with a bunch of "me too" posts, further detracting from this
particular group. That's the whole point, understood by veterans of
newsgroups: don't feed the trolls or the advertisers. One person
chose to object, the point was well made, and it shouldn't have
required any further thought - except that you tried to create a bogus
"implied permission" for your threatened multiple advertising posts in
the future.

Like what Robert said above: if you irritate your potential income
base, they're no longer even potential.

You've seen multiple comments, all saying pretty much the same thing.
If they still don't make sense to you, perhaps you're playing in the
wrong yard. I haven't seen anyone say you ARE in their killfile, or
tell you to just go away, but I suspect you'd move into those
categories very quickly with further posts on this topic, let alone
multiple advertisements.

C.R.

Kerry Raymond

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Kerry Raymond » 23. november 2006 kl. 9.47

Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

1) Advertising becomes "information" when the recipient is actually
interested in the product/service. Since the product/service did relate
to
genealogy, some people probably found it interesting and indeed useful.
So
those people won't complain.

Sorry, but on-topic spam, is still spam. Just because someone may have
a mortgage, doesn't make unsolicited posts or email about mortgages any
less spammy.

The question asked was why people didn't complain.

People's irritation with advertising/spam does relate to their interest in
the product/service. That's why the goal of good advertising is to reach
exactly those people who are receptive to it because they have a
need/desire/interest in the product/service. There is no real mileage to an
advertiser to reach people not interested in their product/service; it's
just unnecessary expense. Of course, the cost of spamming an Internet
newsgroup is very low so being indiscriminate has no significant cost
deterrent. The people who found it useful information rather than
irritating advertising would have no motivation to complain. An off-topic
spam would likely have had more reaction. I am simply suggesting an
explanation of the observed behaviour. I did not say it was OK to post
on-topic advertising material to this group, as you imply.

Kerry

Dave Mayall

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Dave Mayall » 23. november 2006 kl. 15.01

"eXpertGenealogy" <support@eXpertGenealogy.com> wrote in message
news:1164230092.757884.169250@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
John,
The subject of my message is about the posting at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.gene ... 8af4?hl=en


You imply that it is dumb to ask about this, but as I pointed out in my
original message, this message appears on a number of newsgroups
without complaint. My question is,
Why is there only one complaint about a posting that appears to be
obvious commercial advertising?

Because most people just silently made a note never to do business with the
advertiser.

I would agree, however, that your question was designed rather more to
splash the name of your web site than to elicit an answer.

If you genuinely were only seeking an answer you wouldn't have named the
site you want to promote.

Dave Hinz

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Dave Hinz » 24. november 2006 kl. 3.06

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 18:47:54 +1000, Kerry Raymond <kraymond@iprimus.com.au> wrote:

The question asked was why people didn't complain.

Well, _I_ did, and as someone else said, wasn't any point in a dozen
posts saying "yeah me too".

An audience as to be in need of a product, _and_ willing to hear the
message. Posting commercial messages to a non-marketplace group is like
calling someone on the do-not-call list by exploiting some loophole in
the law.

Charani

Re: Newsgroup etiquette for Thanksgiving offer

Legg inn av Charani » 24. november 2006 kl. 8.52

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 18:47:54 +1000, Kerry Raymond wrote:

The question asked was why people didn't complain.

It's not possible to know who has or has not complained because not
everyone advertises the fact they have reported the spammers, rather
they report them then treat them with the contempt they are due and
killfile the blighters, as I have with the OP of this thread and the
OP of the one he's complaining about.

Marketplace is the place for advertising and the OP of this thread is
well aware of that since he regularly advertises there.

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