At 13:08 30-05-1997, uq607848@hsc.hac.com wrote:
>I for one like to see announcements of new services. They are also
>informative as to new products and services out there. I don't see why
>there should be a problem with them as long as the subject indicates what
>they are.
Up to here I'm in perfect agreement with you, with the added plea to
everyone to take EXTRA CARE in providing accurate, informative subject
headers.
>Also, the internet is a cheap way to advertise, lowering the
>start-up costs of new ventures as they develop clientele.
You're on shakey ground here, Mike. In my view this mailing list should not
be considered a cheap way to advertise, although I can understand the
temptation to do so. There are other places on the internet to showcase
your services, such as a website, that are also economical and represent
the accepted way of doing things.
No one here is advocating a ban on advertising, or on "commercial
announcements". What I'm saying is: keep them to a minimum, use an
informative rather than a commercial approach, try to add some new twist so
that your "announcement" is not a carbon copy of those already sent to the
list by your competitors, and be brief. I raised this issue originally
because the sender posted his message twice, the second time promising to
"re-submit it again" (e.g. distribute it a third time!).
It seems like there's some sort of consensus here to relax the rules about
advertising on rp-ml. I disgree entirely, and seem to be fairly alone in
this, so if this is the case I'll be happy not to mention it again.
However, just take the opposite scenario into account, e.g. that
advertising is encouraged and welcomed on rp-ml....aside from filling your
mailbox with piles of unwanted messages, this list will very rapidly become
tedious and uninformative.
-----------------
Yakov Horenstein
Milano, Italy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:39:40 EEST