FAQ: Posting guidelines for ba.market newsgroups

[John Navas]

Only items actually available in the San Francisco Bay Area (which is what
ba.* refers to) should be posted here. (Out of the area mail order is not
OK.)

The operative ad guidelines are available in complete form at
<http://www.fmn.net/FAQ>. (If that site does not respond, try
<http://faqs.org/faqs/misc-forsale-faq/buying-selling/> or
<http://www.landfield.com/faqs/misc-forsale-faq/buying-selling/>.)

misc.forsale.* guidelines apply to ba.market.* and related newsgroups.

As a matter of convenience, I have extracted here the essential elements of
the FAQ that pertain to ads:

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...

2.) As a courtesy to those of us with limited access, please
learn how to cancel articles before you post. After
your item has sold, it is courteous to cancel your ad
electronically. Often, you need only press a capital
"C" while re-reading your article, but this varies.
When in doubt, ask your local system administrator for
help.

3.) The Usenet Marketplace is serious business. Please make
certain you are posting to the appropriate group, and
please don't post test articles, joke ads, or
unrealistic schemes to the Marketplace. Such activities
have helped others lose their accounts. ...

...

The Usenet Marketplace is intended to provide a forum for
individuals and companies to dispose of goods they no longer
need, and also to serve as a means of advertising for
organizations and individuals who offer goods and services
of special interest to the readership. More specifically,
misc.forsale groups are reserved for individual-to-individual
sales of goods the seller doesn't need any more, as you might
see at a garage sale. The groups in biz.marketplace,
meanwhile, are specifically for profit-motivated entities--
companies, organizations, and entrepreneurs--who offer
special advantages not easily available elsewhere. ...

...

The Usenet Marketplace operates under two hierarchies--
misc.forsale and biz.marketplace. The divisions are
relatively simple to understand; if you're trying to clean
out your closet, your ad belongs in misc.forsale. If not,
you need to read Subject 8 to see if you're considered
"profit-motivated." No profit-motivated ads should be posted
to misc.forsale, as explained later. Once you've determined
whether you're profit-motivated or not, read the rest of this
section to see if you may post. Be careful. The Usenet
Marketplace does not work like your local newspaper's
classified ads.

...

IF YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL just trying to get rid of something
you don't want anymore, then it's easy. Your post is
appropriate, and should be posted to one misc.forsale group.
...

...

IF YOU ARE AN ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS, ORGANIZATION, or other
profit-motivated entity, then posting is a delicate manner.
Because of the indiscretion of your predecessors, the Usenet
in general has put a negative connotation on commercial use.
Thus, it will take your cooperation to change that image and
to allow continued commercial use of the Usenet Marketplace.
You may post your advertisement, as long as it fulfills the
criteria of the Biznet--designed to conserve bandwidth and
minimize noise. ...

As a profit-motivated entity, your arena is the collection of
biz.marketplace groups. ...

...

Subject: 8. Considerations for profit-motivated entities.

In this Subject, we attempt to present some of the reasons why
these guidelines were developed for commercial users. Many
new profit-motivated entities ask questions about why they
are so restricted in the Marketplace. Hopefully this Subject
will answer most of them. ...

[Joel Furr has developed an excellent treatise on Usenet
advertising in general. It's posted every once in awhile
to <news:news.answers>. ...]

Question: "What constitutes a profit-motivated entity?"

Answer: Are you trying to make money from your sale? Yes?
You are probably profit motivated. Just about the only
exception would be an individual selling a single investment
piece--a piece of artwork, a coin collection, or something he
found at a flea market for an excellent price.

Examples of profit-motivated entities:
An offering which is part of a continuing enterprise
.Entrepreneurs
.Individuals selling crafts or handiwork
.Consultants, lawyers, doctors
.Freelance photographers, writers, programmers
.Sellers of seconds, refurbished, overstock goods
.Not-for-profit groups conducting fundraisers
.Realtors, property managers
.Companies offering their services/products
And so on...
Corporations selling salvaged capital items--use your
discretion. If businesses are the primary interested
parties, use biz.marketplace. If individuals,
misc.forsale.

Marketing opportunities and ads seeking individuals to
act as distributors are _not_ appropriate in the
Usenet Marketplace. These ads belong in
misc.entrepreneur or misc.jobs.*. This also means
that multi-level marketers may offer their products
in biz.marketplace, but may _not_ offer the MLM
opportunity.


At last count, 300,000 people read at least one of the Usenet
Marketplace groups. What better audience for many commercial
advertisers, particularly those offering computer wares!
Unfortunately, over the last several years, many
undereducated profit-motivated users have given commercial
entities, in general, a bad connotation on Usenet. The most
infamous incidents were the result of pyramid schemes like
Dave Rhodes's never-ending chain letter, and the childish
bandwidth-destroying antics of the Green Card Lawyers. Both
incidents can be read about in detail in the FAQ for
alt.folklore.urban. Unfortunately, these and other
inappropriate uses of all Usenet groups have led to a netwide
bias against rampant commercial use of the associated
networks.

Because of this, businesses and entrepreneurs need to go out
of their way to abate this bias. We guarantee that response
to your ads will be significantly more positive if you follow
the recommendations presented earlier. Failure to do so will
only lead us to a completely non-commercial Marketplace. In
order to understand why these recommendations are so
important, we continue with an explanation of the Usenet.

Question: "Why can't for-profit entities post in the
misc.forsale groups?"

Answer: This is likely the most frequently asked question in
all of cyberspace. It can be particularly confusing, since
so many people have posted commercial ads in the misc.forsale
hierarchy erroneously, and because there are few software
restrictions on where they can post.
The answer to this question begins with a definition of
the Usenet Marketplace. In reality, only half of the
Marketplace is in Usenet--the misc.forsale hierarchy. The
biz.marketplace groups are actually a part of a related net
often called Biznet, formed as an independent offshoot of
Usenet. This sub-net was formed because the Usenet has
developed a rather strict all-encompassing policy of no
commercialization. Whereas the intent (note, intent) of
Usenet is that all sites should carry all official Usenet
groups, Biznet is an optional alternative provided for those
sites which don't mind allotting resources to commercial
use.
The Internet serves as the backbone for Usenet, Biznet,
Altnet, and some localized nets. The largest portion of the
Internet, however, is paid for and maintained by government
agencies, educational institutions, and a select group of
large corporations. This backbone was originally built to
provide a means for the dissemination of research and
government information. Companies began to hook onto the
Internet in order to exchange research information with
educational institutions. Because of this history, and
because neither the governments nor educational institutions
endorse commercial entities, the use of this backbone for
purely commercial gain is forbidden at many sites. As most
of these sites support Usenet wholeheartedly, Usenet in turn
prohibits use for commercial gain. Biznet, meanwhile, is
supported only by those sites which choose to carry it. As
long as the content offers good value to the end-users, even
non-commercial sites will carry the biz.* groups. Because
they *choose* to carry Biznet, the end-user sites can't
complain as much about commercial content.
In addition, the storage and transmission costs of
newsgroups are borne almost entirely by the end users--in
contrast with traditional routes of advertising, borne
primarily by the advertiser (tv, magazines, radio,...). As a
result, commercial users need to prove to the recipients that
the end-users should accept their advertising. Thus the
end-user-value clause in the biz.marketplace charter. The
more end-user-value that appears in biz.marketplace, the more
sites will carry it. The more sites, the larger the
audience. The larger the audience, the more benefits for
commercial users. Thus the reasons behind the guidelines on
for-profit use. A good example comes from my alma-mater.
Despite it's strong anti-commercial stance on computing
resources, it carres the biz.marketplace groups (and no other
Biznet groups) because of the widespread interest.

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