Re: Free database tools announcements - invitation to discussion
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 06:56:14 -0700
Message-ID: <1087912599.945415_at_yasure>
Jason King wrote:
>> If you allow these notices then where would you draw the line? How about >> user group meetings? Seminars? Book announcements? eBay offerings? I am >> a person that generally believes the world is painted in shades of gray >> rather than in black and white. But the history of usenet proves that >> those groups that do not defend their turf are overrun by spammers.
>
> If its for money, it goes in marketplace.
[Quoted] [Quoted] And how do you propose we separate "it is for money today" from "it will be for money tomorrow"?
> It would disallow book announcements and ebay offerings and most
> seminars.
[Quoted] On what grounds? Isn't it inconvenient to have to look through c.d.o.marketplace for them?
Since an active UG communtiy is helpful to a product I'd
> encourage UG meeting announcements. A marketplace is where things are
> bought and sold, telling people who want to sell stuff go to the
> marketplace is an easy rule to understand. Telling folks who want to
> GIVE THINGS AWAY they must go to the marketplace is confusing.
[Quoted] Not for most of us. So where do we announce user group meetings? Free seminars? Oracle Technology Day events? Microsoft Technology Days?
>> If you don't want to see long-running discussions perhaps the solutions >> would be to just take 30 seconds each week to scan postings to >> c.d.o.marketplace. And to help fight spam.
>
> Even if I look in c.d.o.marketplace for such items that won't stop
> people from posting announcements of free products to this group and the
> long, tedious threads that result therefrom.
[Quoted] [Quoted] Actually it does. The fact that when I attach the word spam to every attempt to do so the spammers scream so loudly indicates that they are being hurt by pointing out what they do.
Your solution doesn't make
> those posts go away.
But it does decrease the number of them.
If we could make this a moderated group and you
> the moderator I'd be perfectly willing to see all the announcements go
> away and then your advice would address the issue. What I'm saying is
> the convention that such announcements are OT is so routinely ignored
It isn't my group and I don't want to be moderator. The group belongs, if such a term is proper, to its major regular contributors that actually help those seeking support services.
[Quoted] [Quoted] The convention nowhere I've ever been is to ignore spammers.
>> Isn't going to happen as long as the majority of the regular >> contributors agree.
>
> You can of course define "regular contributor" how you wish, but of the
> 6 different people that have posted to this discussion the opinions are
> 4-2 in favor of allowing postings of free tools.
[Quoted] [Quoted] Of which several of them are people that have previously spammed this group and not one of which is a regular contributor that has helped others when they've had questions.
>> But once again you have avoided, as do the spammers, directly addressing >> the issue I raise. What is the harm to someone making an announcement >> in c.d.o.marketplace? How is it an imposition to them? >>
> As FAQs for Oracle groups are not posted regularly and the charter to
> this group is, at best, ambiguous about whether such tool postings are
> OT, it is confusing to tool builders to carp at them for announcing
> their free tools.
Not responseive to the question above.
Nevertheless tool builders COULD post their
> announcements in only C.D.O.Marketplace with no inconvenience to THEM.
Thank you.
> What I'm concerned with is inconvenience to ME, both in terms of missing
> out on good tools and having to slog through long threads of "tool
> builder X is a SPAMMER".
[Quoted] [Quoted] c.d.o.marketplace gets, at most, 2-3 posts per day. If you looked every day the inconvenience would be less than 5 seconds. Is your life that full of panic that you can't invest 5 seconds to fight spam?
I honestly believe the signal/noise ratio of
> the group would go up if postings of availability of free tools were not
> followed by 2-20 posts about apologies and SPAMMING.
[Quoted] [Quoted] So how about a free tool from Microsoft to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server ... would that be appropriate? How about one from IBM?
If you make a hole through which spammers can crawl they will. I am encouraging a zero-tolerance policy. So while I do respect the fact that you have invested time and effort in this thread. The bottom-line for me is that you too acknowledge it is not an inconvenience for someone with a promotional item to post at c.d.o.marketplace. Now if I could just get you to invest those 5 seconds per day to look there I might have a convert from the dark side. ;-)
-- Daniel Morgan http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp damorgan_at_x.washington.edu [Quoted] (replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)Received on Tue Jun 22 2004 - 15:56:14 CEST