Advertising on the list (Was: Stefan Olson)

[Steve English <ink -at- MICROS -dot- COM>]

Doug Bailey wrote,

        >     Does anyone else have any opinions? Should people like this be removed
        >     from the list?

        I don't think he should be removed.  We all can delete/ignore his posts if
        we
        like.  He may be breaking some minor rules by advertising,

Doug,

I am also a member of a list for Framemaker. Recently, a "gentleman" posted
an advertisement for incense to our list. We were incensed. The way we
decided to respond to this (and future) j-mail was for each of us to send
the offender 3 or 4 responses. Each response was to have a different subject
header (so he couldn't simply delete similar titles-- had to open and read
each one to make sure it wasn't an order), and each was to include noise:
anything from "Please don't do this any more" to "You're a @#$%!" to "Here's
a long press release from my company, hope you enjoy it".

Since there are over 700 people on the framers list, this guy got over
2,000 pieces of j-mail himself. His mailbox overflowed.

For someone with true internet access, this type of response is simply a
major nuisance: one has to scan through all kinds of noise to find genuine
reponses to one's advertisement. Done properly, this can burn up hours.

In this case, however, the guy had a Prodigy or aol address (I forget which),
meaning he PAID for the privilege of receiving each snowflake in the
avalanche. We haven't heard from him since.

I don't agree that advertising in a discussion group is breaking a minor rule.
If we stomp on this sort of thing now, maybe it won't grow into the nuisance
that telephone solicitation and fourth-class postage have become.



Steve English                    My employers HAVE no opinions.