[wellylug] computer bits in wellington

Ewen McNeill wellylug at ewen.mcneill.gen.nz
Tue Nov 16 22:36:27 NZDT 2004


In message <20041116085027.76097.qmail at web12201.mail.yahoo.com>, Brent Wood writes:
>> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, jumbophut wrote:
>> > I'll stop there since this is looking more and more like advertising,
>> > which is not acceptable on this list (although I have no relationship
>> > with Ascent at all apart from being a customer).  [....]
>> [.....]
>
>The prohibition was not "paid advertising", or "self advertising" but any
>"advertising", Logic isn't especially relevent, a dictionary is more
>appropriate :-) Even suggesting a component is advertising. Suggesting or
>recommending a vendor is certainly advertising. Word of mouth is a well known &
>effective advertising and marketing technique.

In an effort to stop the discussion drifting any further into
meta-discussion: "where can I get X that is compatible with linux"/"you
can get it here" is clearly on topic, and not a problem.  Discussion of
the relevant merits of various vendors is fairly borderline in terms of
relevance to the topic of the list, viz "using linux": discussing vendor
support-for-linux is more relevant, and discussing warrenty support is
rather less so.

Discussion of prices, etc, special deals, etc, is more problematic.
As many of you know there are several vendors on the list, and I
appreciate them making the effort to take such discussion "off list".

FWIW, the request for "no advertising" is not intended to completely ban
any mention of product names or vendor names, just to keep it squarely
in the realms of "using linux" discussion rather than having it turn
into a steady stream of promotion of various things.  "paid advertising"
or "self advertising" is going to be a problem much more rapidly than
"word of mouth" -- but there is probably a point where "word of mouth"
would become a problem too.  (If there's anything that ten years of spam
teaches us, it's that while a little of something might not seem so bad,
a lot defintely can.)

So far I've not been particularly bothered by the discussion; it's been
pretty much on topic, and relatively low on "promotion".  Although it
does seem to be drifting away from "hardware for linux" and into
"warrenty/support/etc".

And as Brent says there are (many) other places to discuss hardware
purchases and hardware retailers.  Which may be more appropriate if
there's little/no linux content.

Ewen




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