Art ofTea, Agape, Steeping Pot

dunno man.. I personally don't mind the occasional ad here, as long as it's tasteful and respectful and has, as you put it, information attached to it. Plain "Buy my Tea Product" ads are no good, but newsletters which link to products or an ad for a web site that offers a type of tea that people are discussing, for example, is fine by me.

It does get annoying when someone on here tries to direct every conversation into a sale, though. I think it's just like anything.. a good balance must be struck.

:) As I mentioned, the AoT post turned into a useful discussion, albeit somewhat heated by useless complaints. Most other spam tends to get ignored and sink.

I challenged the "violation of the Charter" thing because I felt the Charter was being misquoted and/or misinterpreted. The challenge was in the interest of being factual and really had nothing to do with my opinion.

My "opinion" is as follows, this is only my opinion and it has nothing to do with the Charter or USENET netiquette:

If a "contributing" poster to this group throws out an occasional blurb I really don't mind. If someone throws out a blurb that is

*specifically* related to the topic of a given thread I don't mind, often this type is very useful.

When someone who has never *contributed* throws out an ad I do mind. I guess to me the real metric is the motivation of the person over time. If their only motivation for posting is profit then I really don't care what they have to say. On the other hand if they are truly passionate about tea, and sometimes post solely in the interest of sharing knowledge, then I think they earn the right to the occasional blurb. In other words, those who contribute are welcome, those who do contribute are not.

In most cases I do not respond to "blatant" ads from non-contributors because to do so only gives them more buzz and bandwidth. I personally didnt respond to the SP post because it was a blatant ad from someone who has never contributed except with profit as a motive. To keep their thread alive only rewards them and I choose not to do that. I suspect that many old-timers feel the same way which is probably why you didn't see a flurry of posts. Any buzz is good buzz etc.

The Art of Tea blurb was acceptable in my opinion. The SP ad was not. Probably the only reason the AoT generated so much controversy was because it was indeed something of interest to many members of the group, but some contributors objected because they have an aversion to anything even remotely commercial. Blatant ads seldom generate that much buzz. Actually, I now applaud AoT for their efforts, even though I had reservations early on, I sincerely believe they will improve and refine their publication over time. To have such a resource in English is fantastic, I hope more publishers will follow this example. On the other hand, shops like SP are a dime a dozen, if they are depending on Adagio for their tea they have nothing of interest to me. If I want Adagio tea, I will simply go to Adagio........

Mike

I challenged the "violation of the Charter" thing because I felt the Charter was being misquoted and/or misinterpreted. The challenge was in the interest of being factual and really had nothing to do with my opinion.

My "opinion" is as follows, this is only my opinion and it has nothing to do with the Charter or USENET netiquette:

If a "contributing" poster to this group throws out an occasional blurb I really don't mind. If someone throws out a blurb that is

*specifically* related to the topic of a given thread I don't mind, often this type is very useful.

When someone who has never *contributed* throws out an ad I do mind. I guess to me the real metric is the motivation of the person over time. If their only motivation for posting is profit then I really don't care what they have to say. On the other hand if they are truly passionate about tea, and sometimes post solely in the interest of sharing knowledge, then I think they earn the right to the occasional blurb. In other words, those who contribute are welcome, those who do contribute are not.

In most cases I do not respond to "blatant" ads from non-contributors because to do so only gives them more buzz and bandwidth. I personally didnt respond to the SP post because it was a blatant ad from someone who has never contributed except with profit as a motive. To keep their thread alive only rewards them and I choose not to do that. I suspect that many old-timers feel the same way which is probably why you didn't see a flurry of posts. Any buzz is good buzz etc.

The Art of Tea blurb was acceptable in my opinion. The SP ad was not. Probably the only reason the AoT generated so much controversy was because it was indeed something of interest to many members of the group, but some contributors objected because they have an aversion to anything even remotely commercial. Blatant ads seldom generate that much buzz. Actually, I now applaud AoT for their efforts, even though I had reservations early on, I sincerely believe they will improve and refine their publication over time. To have such a resource in English is fantastic, I hope more publishers will follow this example. On the other hand, shops like SP are a dime a dozen, if they are depending on Adagio for their tea they have nothing of interest to me. If I want Adagio tea, I will simply go to Adagio........

Mike

The tea rag made its sales pitch under soliciting feedback and special FYI articles not found anywhere else followed by a bribe. You won't see any change in the format except what was already planned. Nobody could give an example of FYI beyond trivia which hasn't been mentioned in this group in the past 12 years. I'm not for sale. My metro area has the biggest newstand in the country. If that rag ever appears there then I'll apologize for disputting their claim about circulation over a subscription salespitch in this group. Someone send me publishing info and I'll have them keep a lookout for it.

Jim

PS The AoT salespitch hasn't been lost > I'm puzzled.... The (to me innocuous) Art of Tea announcement

On May 17, 10:25 am, Mike Petro wrote: ....

Sorry for the multiple posts, Google flaked out on me, the posts were actually over an hour apart when I thought the first one never made it.

Mike

You know, there are innumerable references made on this list to James Norwood's books and LuYu's Classic of Tea and other notable publications that serve as both reference and guidance to tea lovers. Art of Tea can fall into that catagory easily and suggesting its practical usage for those purposes hardly constitutes advertising in my mind. Agape and Steeping Pot are blatent in their advertising and the later dispicable for its plagiarism. For that alone, as a writer, I am outraged and I do hope Adagio sticks it to them. Personally, I would just hate to see Jim, for that matter, be the discerning factor in deciding who posts and who doesn't based upon jaded or misinformed judgement and I also find it vulgarly reprehensible and irresponsible to continue to call a publication a "rag" when you haven't even read it. Shen

It was noted in the other discussion that Adagio is the supplier for the tea in question. Seems reasonable to use their description for their tea.

The Steeping Pot post didn't bother me. It was obvious what the post was, and I could choose to ignore it, or check out the website. I dislike the ones that try to hide their identity and come off as if they are a satisfied customer telling us of their good experience with a vendor. Or, the ones that jump into every discussion with a reply directing you to their website, whether it is relevant or not.

Blues