ADVs via the olug.org mailing list? was: [olug] Network

[Christopher Cashell]

At Thu, 16 Jan 03, Unidentified Flying Banana Jonathan Warren, said:
> So I thank you for pointing out that a list member has a local store
> that I may be intested in.  This list has been home to many different
> things including job openings and now self promotion.  Because these
> topics may produce useful information for people on this list I don't
> have any problems with it.  It certainly has never generated
> significant numbers of email to delete.

The more I think about it, the more I agree here.  In general, I'm one
of the strongest Anti-Spam people I know, but none of the e-mails here
bothered me.  I think a lot of it is that it wasn't just "random spam",
it was actually very well targeted, and mostly just provided a quick
notification that the store exists.

I personally also think things like Linux/Unix-related job postings and
such are helpful, and I enjoy seeing them on this mailing list.  For
those not looking for a job, or not interested in seeing them, they
could be considered spam as much as an e-mail about a Linux-centric
store.

In the past this has never been a problem, but perhaps it would be a
good idea to come up with some general guidelines as to what is, and
isn't, acceptable on this mailing list.  One thing which may be a good
idea is to come up with a standard subject line convention, to help
denote advertisements and such.

For example, we might say that Linux-related advertisements are allowed
on the mailing list, provided they are only sent once, and they contain
"ADV" at the beginning of the subject line.  This way those who aren't
interested in seeing them can easily delete or filter them.
Additionally, job postings could contain "JOB" in the subject line.

This could even be expanded slightly, to be more general.  For example,
one thing that always annoys me is when someone posts a URL to the list
without any explanation of what it is, or why it's posted.  I hate
having to open up a web browser and look up the web page to find out
that it deals with something completely and totally outside my realm of
interest.  Perhaps posts that are primarily a redirection to some URL
could contain "URL" in the subject (and ideally, at least a sentence or
two describing what it's about).

We could write up this little "mailing list use guidelines", and post it on the
OLUG website, so everyone is familiar with it.

Thoughts?

> -Jon Warren

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| Christopher
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| A: No.                                         |
| Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? |
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