"Steven L. Sheffield (new SPAM king)" <
Quoted message said:I've got several cycling jerseys up on
Use rec.bicycles.marketplace for selling bikes and bike parts. This newsgroup is about Racing of
Bikes, teams, strategy, races, and is *not your personal "For Sale" platform* Thanks!
rec.bicycles.marketplace: Bicycles, components, ancillary equipment and services wanted or for sale,
reviews of such things, places to buy them, and evaluations of these sources. Not for discussion of
general engineering, maintenance, or repair -- see rec.bicycles.tech
rec.bicycles.racing: Race results, racing techniques, rules, and organizations. Not Wanted To Buy
(WTB) Nor racing equipment -- see rec.bicycles.marketplace or rec.bicycles.tech
Advertising on Usenet is a frequently misunderstood subject. The purpose of this message is to
explain some Usenet conventions regarding advertising to new users and, hopefully, spare everyone
involved a lot of needless worry.
To start with, let's define the term. "Usenet" is *not* synonymous with "Internet." Usenet is the
system of online discussion groups, called "newsgroups," e.g. rec.humor, comp.misc,
news.announce.newusers, talk.origins, misc.rural, alt.sex, and so forth. This FAQ does not attempt
to describe in detail all the various ways in which one can conduct commercial activity over the
Internet and attempts simply to explain the issues involved in advertising in Usenet newsgroups.
The philosophy of Usenet
------------------------
Usenet started out in 1980 as a UNIX network linking sites which needed to talk about and receive
prompt updates on UNIX system configuration and other UNIX questions. Message traffic started out at
a few messages/year... In the beginning, Usenet was largely confined to educational institutions
such as universities and colleges, and to research companies and other commercial enterprises with
UNIX machines on-site. It has now grown to include millions of users at commercial sites such as
America Online...
That these customs and traditions began when Usenet was much smaller and quite different in nature
in no way lessens the anger many users feel when these customs and traditions are violated. One such
custom is the tradition and belief that it is rude to advertise for profit in Usenet newsgroups.
Advertising is widely seen as an 'off-topic' intrusion into the discussions of any particular
newsgroup (newsgroup is the Usenet word for discussion group or bulletin board). Each newsgroup has
a specific set of subjects it is intended to cover, and in order for newsgroups to function as
effective discussion forums, it is important that people stay 'on-topic'. If everyone - even a
meager 10% of newsgroup posters - disregarded the particular topics each newsgroup is intended to
cover and simply posted whatever they wanted wherever they want, the entire system would break down
into chaos and meaninglessness.
Due to the decentralized nature of Usenet, there is no one person or body which can "enforce" the
custom of staying on-topic. It falls on each user to help preserve the culture of open discussion
and free speech that Usenet has come to embody by not posting off-topic material.
This, of course, includes advertising. Advertising is by far the most pervasive form of off-topic
posting, and therefore, gets most of the heat.
An analogy
----------
If an analogy will help you to visualize the situation, imagine a meeting at your workplace
or school.
At this meeting, people are discussing a certain issue -- for example, getting new sidewalks
installed downtown or getting new schoolbooks for the elementary school, or what to do about the new
product your company is planning on introducing.
In the midst of the discussions on the new sidewalks or textbooks or product, someone walks into the
room, interrupts everyone, then reads an advertisement for a local restaurant. He or she then leaves
without waiting for comment.
Now imagine if this happened over and over again each time your group tried to hold a meeting. Every
time someone tried to make a point, in walks some other stranger who reads an ad for some business
that has nothing to do with the subject of the meeting.
It would soon become rather difficult to hold effective meetings, wouldn't it?
Similarly, it's very difficult to keep Usenet newsgroups interesting and useful when people deluge
newsgroups with advertisements.
How to advertise on Usenet
--------------------------
*.forsale and *.marketplace newsgroups
There are many newsgroups directly involved in selling. You can generally spot them by the word
"forsale" or "marketplace" in their names.
For example, rec.games.board.marketplace is a newsgroup where people post for-sale and want-to-buy
notices about board games they want to buy or sell.
Similarly, the misc.forsale.* hierarchy is full of newsgroups for buying and selling various
computers, monitors, printers, devices, and so forth, as well as misc.forsale.non-computer.*, for
selling stuff.
You can access the FAQ and archives via the Web using these URLs:
draco.acs.uci.edurbfaqOpen ↗
cis.ohio-state.edutop.htmlOpen ↗
