[H-GEN] Re: [H-ANNOUNCE] blipvert at lists.humbug.org.au

[Raymond Smith]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
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Robert:

On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 11:27:01PM -0400, Robert Brockway wrote:
> On Sat, 10 May 2003, Robert Stanford wrote:
> > For those who havent subscribed, I've posted a bunch of stuff i'm giving
> > away to blipvert. Anything not gone by tomorrow afternoon is going to
> > the tip.
> >
> > I'm not going to list it here, you will have to subscribe.
> 
> To be honest, I'd prefer to see private sales, free stuff & jobs continue
> to go to general, while commercial stuff would go to blipverts (which
> could be moderated).  I think many people will subscribe to blipvert to
> get the free stuff & job postings, and have commercial postings forced on
> them (so to speak).  I am one of these people.  I may be out of the
> country but I still like to see what job postings and free give-aways are
> happening.
> 
> What do others think?

Short answer. Rob Standford was correct to post to blipvert. The
club membership will eventually come to an understanding of how 
to use blipvert in the same way that it has come to an understanding 
of how to use DSIG. 

Now for the long answer.

Posts regarding "private sales, free stuff & jobs" have actually
always been off-topic for general by a strict/pedantic reading of the
charter. I think they have been sent there because of the feeling that
general has a broader coverage than chat.  (Which isn't strictly true:
they are overlaping sets with chat having slightly more members.)

Posts for 'relevant' Jobs are meant to go to announce. Anything else
of relevance belonged on chat. The new blipvert charter says:

  "This list is purely for advertisements which the denizens of Humbug
  might be interested in, including (but not limited to) Jobs. The name
  is taken from the Max-Headroom-esque 'blipverts', which are simply
  'blips' (ie, short) of advertisements."

So advertisements that may be interesting to HUMBUG members may be sent
without fear of flaming to blipvert. However, none of the other lists
have had their charters changed. All that has changed is that there 
is now an unambiguously appropriate place for 'advertisements' of all 
sorts.

Now, I'm not quite sure why I've received negative reactions to
blipvert. I guess part of it was using the O'Reilly Newsletter as
an example of the content. I would have thought that having a dedicated
list would, if anything, make it easier to weed out 'spam' from other
lists. Bear in mind that I'd expect no new traffic on this list: it
would merely be the sorts of advertisement type stuff that you see me
pass on to general@/announce@ from secretary@

Comments on moderation are good. We should probably also close the list
like all the others (to prevent genuine spam; if you want to send stuff
you should subscribe). If we did these two things would more people
susbcribe?

Speaking for myself, I'll probably use blipvert as my default for
advertising type stuff. If I get something of exceptional interest
(like a Job on topic for announce) then I might send on to the 
appropriate list.

Cheers,

Raymond
[1] chat is actually bigger than general, and they are overlapping
    sets with a reasonable intersection.
-- 
raymond at humbug.org.au

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