I'm not going into the details of this particular case because I know
there's a long history regarding some of the vendors on this list. All I'm
going to say is that most lists that I've belonged to say that it is okay to
endorse a product or book (= "I really like this brand of thread!") but not
okay to advertise ("I have the following items for sale and here are the
prices and descriptions"). The main reason is practical: on lists that allow
self-advertisement, the volume tends to get way out of hand and most people
do not have the bandwidth to download and scroll through dozens of
advertisements every day.Think for a moment about how many vendors are on this list. 10? 20? Now imagine if every one of them wanted to post a single weekly message, plus special announcements, clearout sales, and new stock. Some vendors would restrict themselves to a single restrained message but others could easily post several times a week if they so choose. And what about "advertising days" on lists? In my experience that has been a joke--the ads start about 24 hours before the designated day and continue for about 36 hours after the designated day, which is a bit excessive, even allowing for time zone differences. Another problem is that once you open a list to advertising, it's very difficult to close the floodgates or to regulate who will be allowed to post ads. The grey area is vendors who sell not only lace supplies but other things as well. If vendor X is allowed to advertise his Binche books, why not his basket-weaving books? Also, you can bet that if word got around that this list allowed advertising, we'd soon see cross-stitch, quilting, knitting, crochet, and scrapbooking ads. There are so many vendors out there that it's not feasible to screen them so that only lace-related advertisements are permitted. The request that vendors restrict themselves to a discrete sig or offer to put people on a private mailing list, as Vivienne has done recently, is a very practical one. It allows people to find vendors on the list and it keeps the commercial traffic to a manageable level. This practise was in place before I joined Arachne and it's one I've followed on all the lists I've moderated. Avital Arachne moderator ----- Original Message ----- From: "etherege" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Toni Hawryluk'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "'lace-chat'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 2:58 AM Subject: RE: [lace-chat] Vivienne/ Biggins > > Excuse me - "don't like it ?" > My understanding is that > > *advertising is prohibited* ?? > > but an *URL* *under* the > sig-line is OK . . . I don't > watch TV because of the > commercials - I *usually* > do *not* read Biggins > e-mails for the same reason . . . The odd thing being that if one of us would like to "advertise" -- that is, advise of the existance of a product, we like it, who sells it, etc., -- that is ok. A rule is a rule, I guess, but this isn't something we "voted" on and there is quite a diversity of preference and interpretation, if you ask me. Case in point, discussion of books by a particular author, where to buy, or ... announcement of offerings of workshops -- could be construed as advertising. We can hit the delete key, we can scroll by real fast, but in the end what this list is about is the sharing of information. One person's announcement might be another's advertisement ... Carolyn **not** a Biggins customer, don't read the emails much, in favor of maximum latitude for information sharing To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED]
