Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.software
Subject: Re: PasteUp Feature List
From: scott@nic.gac.edu (Scott Hess)
Date: 5 Sep 92 15:39:36
Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College
In-reply-to: anderson@macc.wisc.edu's message of Sat, 5 Sep 92 19:29:12 GMTLines: 97

In article <1992Sep5.192912.5295@macc.wisc.edu>
	anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>Although I may have missed some relevant postings, I've been
>rather surprised by the vehement outcry for Jack Reynold's
>hide to be stripped because he posted a list comparing
>Pasteup/PageMaker/QuarkXpress features.  I thought it was
>*highly* useful information.

Well, I'll try to clear up _my_ problems.  Can't speak for
others, of course ... 

>The RTF aspect was clearly marked, as people have noted, so
>that's not the sticking point, apparently.

Indeed, the RTF wasn't the problem.  It wasn't all that large
(he's posted _much_ large RTFs ...) 

>This seems the place to say I'm on the beta list and have
>some first-hand experience with the product.  Since people
>seem keen on being judgmental, I'll say up front that I
>count both Glenn Reid and Jack Reynolds as friends.
>
>Jack is hardly an impartial judge, since he works for
>RightBrain (and he didn't hide the fact), but I have a hard
>time sharing the perception publishing the list was
>tantamount to advertising.  Would it have been if someone
>else had had the information and posted it, for example?  I
>assume people who are potentially interested in the product
>would be very interested in a list like that.  Indeed, I
>would like to see additional columns for Ventura Publisher,
>FrameMaker, and Interleaf Publisher.

Well, I will be the first to admit that where to draw the line can
be very subtle.  But, I think the tone of the post makes it _very_
clear that Jack is aware that he has crossed it.  In fact, he
stated that he was making the posting behind his boss' back and
presumably without his boss' permission.  I'm not certain that
you can get much clearer. 

Someone (many someone's, perhaps) at RightBrain were paid to
make up that list expressly for advertising purposes.  Posting
the list to the net is similar to if they posted TIFFs of their
NeXTWorld ads to the net.  Meanwhile, if someone (for instance,
yourself) had sat down and listed the advantages of PasteUp and
posted them to the net, that's an _entirely_ different thing. 
The end result may be very similar, but it's a different intent,
and most people would read it differently.  You would be posting
to help other people with your information - Jack is posting to
help sell his product.  Then there are the in-between cases.  If,
for instance, Jack sent the list to you and you posted it, I would
say that it would still be blatant advertising.  If RightBrain
had paid you to write the list and post it, again it's
advertising.   

Now, if Jack would have put together the list and made it
available somehow (even at an ftp site) and then posted to the
net about the availability, I would have had no problem with it. 
If he'd posted the announcement anywhere but csn.announce, I
would have not been all that happy, but I wouldn't have publicly
bitched, either.  Perhaps that is hypocrisy - obviously, I've a
vested interest in that form of distribution. 

I would compare Jack's posting of this information to posting
the information in another widely read public forum - the
editorial pages of a newspaper.  A company might write to say
that the information is available (usually to clear up a
misunderstanding or error) - but, they wouldn't be allowed to
post the actual information in most cases.  Similar things
happen in the letters section of a magazine.  Most letters by
companies to such sections consist of positive statements -
"our program/package has XXX, YYY, and ZZZ."  You will _seldom_
see an article saying "our program/package has XXX, YYY, and
ZZZ, whereas our competitor doesn't do them or has a very poor
implementation of those features."  If a company writes in
denigrating their competition, those letters will generally
land in the round file. 

If this were the first time Jack had posted something of the
sort, things might have been different.  But, Jack has a record
of posting for-profit advertising style material to the
networks, and not on csn.announce.  His informational content tends
to be minimal or highly skewed to favor his computer or program.



People who work at companies and use the net as part of their work
cannot afford to _just_ follow the rules.  They have to be
_better_ than the rest of the net.  If every company with access
to the network started posting advertising material to the
NeXT forums, the signal to noise ratio would shoot _way_ down. 

Later,

--
scott hess <shess@ssesco.com>  <Who achieved programmer nirvana on Aug 11th>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326  Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
   <Text: One Class to bring them all and in the darkness bind them ...>
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