Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site cca.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!decvax!cca!g-rh From: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter) Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Unpopular product announcement Message-ID: <1036@cca.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:04:25 EDT Article-I.D.: cca.1036 Posted: Fri Aug 10 02:04:25 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Aug-84 05:21:43 EDT Organization: Computer Corp America, Cambridge Lines: 44 [... Is this line needed? ...] This is principally in response to an article signed Art Z. and addressed as open letter to CCA. SMDS is a commercial customer of CCA; CCA is not responsible for any errors of judgement on the part of SMDS. If you wish to attach blame please address it to me, the guilty party. A wise person once said, "never apologize and never explain". I had resolved on a policy of accepting my lumps and letting the matter die. However, since I feel obliged to respond to the cited article I may as well cast wisdom to the winds. I have received several items of mail (not many, but some) which have been generally critical although on widely varying grounds. I have replied to these, although in some cases the mail did not get delivered. If you wrote me and didn't get a reply, my apologies. A majority of commentors seemed to feel that product announcements were OK, but that the one I put in was (a) too long and (b) the news groups were poorly chosen. The latter point is undoubtedly correct; in particular net.sources was a particularly bad choice. Evidently it was too long and read like advertising to a number of people. The intent was to present the equivalent of a product spec sheet. Some people clearly feel that product announcements are inappropriate for usenet; others feel that they are. The published guides to net.etiquette say that they are. The consensus seems to be that product announcements are useful, and informative, but don't do it. If it is agreed that product announcements are appropriate then it is desirable that the guidelines be very clear, e.g. less than thirty lines, post in net.wanted (?). PLEASE address all further comments (if any) to this article. It is posted to net.unix only. Please do not continue to post followups to net.sources. In fact, it would be appropriate to shift any further comments to net.followup. Finally, to repeat, CCA is not responsible for and presumably does not endorse anything I may have posted on the usenet. Richard Harter