No, the Steeping Pot's ad deserves slamming even more. And yes, I think this sort of thing is kind of offensive and I won't buy from companies that do this sort of thing.
It's one thing to hang out on Usenet and answer questions and have a reference to the web site in your .signature... it's quite a different thing to post messages pointing people at catalougues and advertising flyers. Very bad form.
--scott
A brief intro is different than an advertisement.
--scott
Possibly because someone got annoyed enough about the Agape posting to issue a forged cancel on it, so it didn't propagate too far to begin with.
--scott
Very sorry to everyone - I missed that in the shuffle. That's really embarassing. I still think the ad was intrusive, and having been reading RFDT for about a year, I've come to find the chipper tone of some of our occasional advertisers very grating. Having said that, I don't object to commercial posting as long as it fits Mike's guidelines, and I should add that I've found my primary suppliers mainly through RFDT. If one of the regular posters started selling tea or wrote a book or an article I would want to know about it, and I would assume that they would let us know without being pushy, as I think the Art of Tea person did. I strongly object to shilling, stealing, and the practice of some vendors (teacuppa.com springs to mind) of chiming in to unrelated discussions with pitches for their product.
Thank you for your comments. I didn't realize it was something that so many would take offense to. Live and learn I guess.
The only reason I hadn't participated before is b/c I didn't know this group existed. As a consumer, I'm new to groups in general. I'm a member now, and fully plan on being involved without the intention of pushing my products. I figured the posting was harmless b/c I didn't try to trick anyone into reading it with a fake subject line - it was simply an announcement.
If you have any questions or any further comments about my posting, please send them directly to me. I don't see the need to continue bashing me for one mistake. I had to ill intent, and I am very sorry.
Desirea
On May 17, 3:03 pm, The Steeping Pot wrote: [...]
I, for one, can accept this. I look forward to your participation in our threads. Please forgive us if we seem overly aggressive, but many good newsgroups have been ruined because commercial posts took over the group. As you can see, we wont allow that to happen here. Many of us are quite protective of our passion. Again, we welcome your participation.....
Mike
Thank you for your comments. I didn't realize it was something that so many would take offense to. Live and learn I guess.
The only reason I hadn't participated before is b/c I didn't know this group existed. As a consumer, I'm new to groups in general. I'm a member now, and fully plan on being involved without the intention of pushing my products. I figured the posting was harmless b/c I didn't try to trick anyone into reading it with a fake subject line - it was simply an announcement.
If you have any questions or any further comments about my posting, please send them directly to me. I don't see the need to continue bashing me for one mistake. I had no ill intent, and I am very sorry.
Desirea
Desirae, I think, most people in this group understand your lack of bad intentions from your honest reactions. As Mike states, there is a lurking danger of commercial posts destroying usefulness of a group through spamming. RFDT always had commercial posts in some form or another, but the amount is fortunatly very minimal. I second Scott Dorsey's opinion to put a website reference and possibly shop name in your signature and participate in the group as an active member. While this is not an obstrusive advertisement, people in this group will probably check out your site if they feel you have a genuine interest and some knowledge about tea. So, don't be scared off by this group, people are just protective as Mike stated above.
It's more google's fault than yours. Google dumps users onto Usenet without explaining to them what it is, in fact they seem to go out of their way to make it look like it's some kind of proprietary web board thing that they run, when in fact it predates Google's existence by nearly two decades and runs on 70,000 cooperative servers around the world.
If you had started reading news with a conventional newsreader, it would have first dropped you into the news.announce.newusers group and forced you to read the introductory material there before allowing you to do anything else. Google does not do this, but that doesn't mean you can't do it yourself on your own initiative.
Because Usenet is run by so many different folks on their own servers all over the world, commercial use is strongly discouraged because all of the various folks running servers would be subsidizing your advertising. Google sadly not only does not explain this but doesn't explain the background behind it.
--scott
No need to apologize and no need to be embarassed. I wish I had a nickle for every time I missed something and responded out of left field. I just wanted to be fair to the company. Philosphically, Mike expressed my feelngs far better than I could.
Michael
I had no idea about any of this. I simply thought it was part of Google Groups. I'll definitely read more into this. Thank you!
Desirea
Scott,
It's true that Google gives you free run of the Usenet groups. However, there is a "This is a Usenet group - learn more" link in the upper right hand corner, right under "about this group" and "edit my subscription". Short of forcing new users to read it (which isn't a bad idea), google does provide the necessary information in a prominent location.
I guess not everyone is like me (lucky for them ;-). I lurked for months on this and other groups before making my first post. I believe I learned a lot about Usenet etiquette in general and the personalities involved in this group in particular. "Look before you leap", I suppose.
Alan
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.