Re: CAPMAN -- illegal advertising message?

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- TI -dot- COM -dot- >]

John Gough said:
|} Eric, this is highly inappropriate mail--it advertises, and
|} it's not even close to being interesting to our profession.
|} Is there any way we can reprimand this guy? I've already
|} sent a non-flaming but clear reply.
|}
|} Maybe if EVERYBODY on the techwr-l list sent this guy
|} reprimands he would get the point.

Hmmm, this is one of those grey areas. There are groups where software
and hardware announcements of this type are acceptable, and even encouraged.
This is clearly not one of them. Posting to inapropriate groups is irritating,
but not really a major offense (most of the time).

I, for one, would not object if someone from some one of the software
houses used this as a forum for a brief announcement of a new release of,
say, Iza Professional Writer 3.6, or whatever, with a point of contact if
you're interested. There is a fine line between info and ads, and I think
that in the proper context, the CAPMAN thing would have been a legitimate
announcement.

I can't for the life of me imagine why the poster thought that TECHWR-L
and WRITERS would be interested in ``frequency communications system analysis
and propagation prediction,'' however, so maybe a few polite messages
would be better than a barrage of irate technical writers.

``That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.''
--- Dennis Miller
    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper,
but _minds_ alive on the shelves."      -- Gilbert Highet