From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Advertising on Net: how can we stop it?
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 03:27:46 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.181039.4479@lth.se> bengtl@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson) writes:
>Brad says (in mail) that he means misc.forsale.*. We're talking Usenet
>in general (discussion groups). 

No, I mean much more than misc.forsale -- though it is telling that the
misc.forsale groups are the most popular on the net right now.  That should
tell you something.   There are other 100% advertising/PR groups, such as
comp.newprod, news.announce.conferences etc.
>>Nothing legal is banned on
>>USENET, because there are no rules at all.  So a ban on commercial
>>advertising is as meaningless as a ban on stupid flames, though the latter
>>would be far more beneficial.
>Advertising may be disliked in one group/hierarchy and welcome in another.
>And it is.

But it isn't.  On-topic advertising is not only not disliked, it is
desired.   In general, an on-topic, non-hype, relevant advertising posting
in any group seems to draw opposition only from those who are confused
and think USENET has some rules banning commercial traffic and those who
have some philosophical agenda -- who don't complain about the posting
because it bothered them more than any other posting, but simply because
it didn't fit their ideals.

By and large, everybody else seems to like it or not mind it, and indeed
they certainly like it more than pointless flame threads.  Any posting
that gives me real factual information on my topic of interest is one
I want to see, and I don't care if the poster happened to profit by it.

>
>I guess next we'll hear you moaning that Unix discussions are "banned"
>from rec.books or something equally silly.

No they are not.   But you're saying you want a universal ban on commercial
postings in all groups not dedicated to advertising, and you want to ban
postings based on the motives of the poster rather than whether their topic
is germane to the topic of the newsgroup.

The purpose of rec.books is discussion and information about books.  I
would be happy to see a publisher list its upcoming book titles in that
group, or see announcements about new book publishing ventures, or
electronic books, or bookstores that will take special orders over the net.
I think many other readers would feel a similar desire.  Why do you think
they should be denied this?

Well, I guess I know why.  Because from time to time we certainly see
inappropriate advertising.   Postings that are entirely off topic.  Postings
that have nothing specific to do with the net audience, or which contain
very little real information, or which are repeated with annoying
frequency.  I'm all for telling these people that this sort of activity
is not welcome, just as unwelcome as discussion of Unix in a general books
group.  But you're saying that commercial book publishing information is
not welcome in a books group, and that is banning something.  Something
people *want* to read.

You misunderstand the desire of people to see advertising.  The fact
that misc.forsale groups now surpass rec.humor.funny and alt.sex and all
the computer books in readership says more than just that ads are
desired in their own groups.  It says that people will go out of their
way to see ads -- even ads that are put in an unorganized mishmash.

The correct conclusion is that people would be even more keen to see
just the ads that match their areas of interest.  The best way to do that
is to define a tag to put on such postings so that those who have
the philosophical problems can easily put them in a killfile.  Let the
people -- the bulk of people -- who want to see useful commercial information,
see it in the right place.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
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