RFD: soc.adoption.adoptees moderated
Cameron Byrd
moderated group soc.adoption.adoptees
Newsgroup line:
soc.adoption.adoptees for discussion of adoption by adoptees. (Moderated)
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup soc.adoption.adoptees. This is
not a Call For Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.
RATIONALE: soc.adoption.adoptees
Adoptees discuss issues of concern to them in alt.adoption, the
adoption mailing list, and the adoptees mailing list, ergo readers
exist. The adoptees mailing list currently has over 1200 subscribers
and 75-100 messages on a weekday. but that list was closed on February
29, 1996. Many of those subscribers have indicated that they would
read a moderated newsgroup focused on adoptees.
The heirarchy is designed to accomdate additional newsgroups of
related interests to birth parents, adoptive parents, adoption reform
activists, social workers, and other possible areas.
Alt.adoption does not serve the current need because:
- alt.adoption is for all people involved in adoption and we
would like to keep a separate forum that focuses on adoptees.
This need was initially met by the creation of the mailing
list adop...@ucsd.edu. However, its size and popularity
have outgrown the capacity that can be managed by a mailing
list. A newsgroup at this time seems to be a logical step
in its evolution as an Internet forum. Those who currently read
both groups will probably continue to do so.
- alt.adoption is unmoderated and we would like to retain the
moderated character of the former adoptees mailng list.
Prior to the implementation of a semi-moderated mechanism,
adop...@ucsd.edu had a problem of being used by professional
search organizations and private investigators as a vehicle
to advertise their services to adoptees searching for
birth parents and to ask mass questions of adoptees by
birth and adoptive parents which, while well intended,
disrupted the intent of the forum.
- The present volume on alt.adoption is already high.
- Not all current members of adop...@ucsd.edu have access
to alt.* groups and we would not wish to alienate current
members when that list closes. The soc.* groups are carried
by more sites and we believe there is sufficient interest to
support a soc.* group.
CHARTER: soc.adoption.adoptees
soc.adoption.adoptees is a moderated group for discussion,
education, mutual support, and information by and for
adoptees.
While other interested persons are welcome to participate, this
forum is focused on serving adoptees.
This is an appropriate place to gain information on how to be
supportive of an adopted person in your life.
This is not an appropriate place to post lists of children free
for adoption, "Dear Birth Mother" letters, or adoption agency
advertisements. This is not an appropriate place to ask for
information on how to adopt. This is not an appropriate place to
ask us to do your homework or school paper. This is not an
appropriate place for a non-adopted person to attempt a lecture on
"gratitude".
Moderation policies:
1.) No commercial advertising, directly or indirectly, will be
permitted on soc.adoption.adoptees with the following exceptions:
- Announcement of upcoming conferences that may be of interest to
adoptees.
- Evaluative comments of services and products aimed at adoptees
from those without a financial interest in the product/service.
- Non-profit services aimed at adoptees such as a reunion registry
may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
2.) No crossposting of other groups with soc.adoption.adoptees in
the newsgroup line. Execptions for informational postings
(RFD, FAQs announcements of new groups, etc) will be made on
a case by case basis.
3.) Inflamatory remarks directed at specific newsgroup members
will be excluded at the moderator's discretion. Also, inflammatory
remarks directed at the race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
of an individual or group will not be tolerated.
4.) Subject headings. In order to make it easier for readers
to identify threads on topics they may want/want to avoid
subject headings will be used as the first word in the thread
[or Re: <heading> in a reply]. The complete list of headings
currently in use will appear in the FAQ.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: soc.adoption.adoptees
Moderator: Cameron Byrd <scb...@ix.netcom.com>
Moderator: Ruth James <rja...@iserv.net>
soc.adoption.adoptees will be moderated so that posts
outside the scope of the charter can be rejected.
The moderator's duty is to uphold the charter by rejecting posts that
do not conform to it.
Additional moderators will be chosen from qualified volunteers as need
presents. Selected by the existing newsgroup moderator(s), primarily
based on need and specific talents/benefits a person has shown
themselves to offer the newsgroup.
END MODERATOR INFO.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this
phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed
newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will
continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD
for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups). All
discussion should be posted to news.groups.
At the end of the discussion period, a Call for Votes (CFV) will be
posted by a neutral vote taker.
This RFD attempts to fully comply with Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and
"Writing a RFD". Please refer to these documents if you have
questions about the porcess.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, alt.adoption
and the following mailing lists:
har...@ucsd.edu (adoptees mailing list),
hcta...@umich.edu (cross cultural adoptees mailing list)
owner-a...@sjuvm.stjohns.edu (adoption mailing list).
adoptees...@sjuvm.stjohns.edu (adoptees mailing list - AIM)
Proponent: Cameron Byrd <scb...@ix.netcom.com>
Proponent: Ruth James <rja...@iserv.net>
Proponent: Jeff Hartung <har...@ucsd.edu>
Proponent: Rosemarie Ventura <aa...@freenet.buffalo.edu>
Proponent: Vicki Rummig <vru...@wolfenet.com>
Proponent: Sue Freeman <djs...@ix.netcom.com>
Proponent: Dana Kressierer <cub...@netset.com>
Proponent: Carter Thompson <car...@sco.com>
Mentor: Jonathan Grobe <gr...@netins.net>
--
Cameron Byrd
scb...@ix.netcom.com
An adoptee, reunited and whole again
Shea Grimm
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group soc.adoption.adoptees
>- alt.adoption is unmoderated and we would like to retain the
> moderated character of the former adoptees mailng list.
> Prior to the implementation of a semi-moderated mechanism,
> adop...@ucsd.edu had a problem of being used by professional
> search organizations and private investigators as a vehicle
> to advertise their services to adoptees searching for
> birth parents and to ask mass questions of adoptees by
> birth and adoptive parents which, while well intended,
> disrupted the intent of the forum.
I have some questions to throw out. Let me say up front that in all
likelihood, won't participate in the moderated group, but I don't see
much reason (yet) to vote against it. As far as I can tell, a new
group won't hurt or help alt.adoption. I am opposed to moderated
groups as a matter of philosophy, however, and I would like to know,
from a purely inquistive standpoint, why advertisements by searchers
disrupt 'the intent of the forum'. It's been my experience here that
when professional searchers advertise, people who have had good/bad
experiences quickly reply, frauds are exposed, good discussions are
started on the merits of different types of paid searchers, and it's
an opportunity to once again direct folks to the FAQ's. It seems to me
that this public exposure is far preferable to these advertisers
contacting people via e-mail where it is easy to take advantage. I'm
sure most of you know that it was a very good thing that some of these
slimy searchers posted publically, so we could all take them to task
and educate people in the process.
>- The present volume on alt.adoption is already high.
Alt.adoption is not a particularly heavy-volume group in the least.
Assuming we could expect the volume of the ucsd mailing list to be
distributed over the alt.adoption newsgroup and over the new mailing
list, I don't think volume is much of an issue at all.
>- Not all current members of adop...@ucsd.edu have access
> to alt.* groups and we would not wish to alienate current
> members when that list closes. The soc.* groups are carried
> by more sites and we believe there is sufficient interest to
> support a soc.* group.
Now this is something I could be wrong about, but it's my
understanding that soc. groups are not carried more often than alt.
groups. All the major online services carry alt groups, and I have
never heard of an ISP that wouldn't add whatever group a customer
wanted added unless it was one of the sex or binaries groups. Are
there real life examples of ISP's that refuse to carry alt.adoption?
Are there truly members of adop...@ucsd.edu that can get
soc.adoption.adoptees, but not alt.adoption? Who are you? Have you
asked for your provider to add alt.adoption?
> This is not an
>appropriate place for a non-adopted person to attempt a lecture on
>"gratitude".
Can adopted people lecture on 'gratitude'? How do you know if they're
adopted?
My final question centers on the general philosophy of moderated
groups, from those who support this proposal. Under Cameron's charter,
it appears to me that a lot of the posts that many of you proponents
complain about would be allowed. Further, it appears to me that many
of the practices some of the proponents like to engage in would *not*
be allowed. This begs the question of why they would want this group.
I can think of a few scenarios. Either the charter doesn't really
spell out what you all intend to do, and it's a bait and switch sort
of thing, or it's exactly as stated, and most of the proponents have
good intentions, and want to create the security they felt they had on
the Adoptees Mailing List, but don't fit into the search and reunion
nature of the new mailing list. Or it could be a combination of the
two. I guess motivations don't matter except to the extent that I
worry if things are as they appear to be. For those of you who want a
mdoerated group, why do you feel like you can't utilize kilfiles,
ignore the posts you don't like, or use a 'self-filter'? Do you trust
someone else to decide what you can read more than you trust
yourselves to make that decision?
Shea
"In a perfect world, we'd all sing in tune, but this is reality,
so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward"
--------------------------------------------
Shea's place http://www.alt.net/~waltj/shea/intro.html
sh...@oz.net
Jeff White
>
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group soc.adoption.adoptees
> This is not an appropriate place to post lists of children free
> for adoption, "Dear Birth Mother" letters, or adoption agency
> advertisements. This is not an appropriate place to ask for
> information on how to adopt. This is not an appropriate place to
> ask us to do your homework or school paper. This is not an
> appropriate place for a non-adopted person to attempt a lecture on
> "gratitude".
I am not sure that I follow the "'Dear Birth Mother' letters" label.
If I am correct at what is meant, I feel that the posting to a birth-mother, that is not
yet found, is an appropriate expression of feelings from an adoptee.
Would a moderator please clarify this for me.
--
Jeff White
mailto:bar...@gnatnet.net
http://www.gnatnet.net/~baronh/
nigel harvey
Excellent! Lets do it!
nigel harvey
Cameron Byrd
>Cameron Byrd wrote:
>>
>> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
>> moderated group soc.adoption.adoptees
>
>> for adoption, "Dear Birth Mother" letters, or adoption agency
>I am not sure that I follow the "'Dear Birth Mother' letters" label.
>
>If I am correct at what is meant, I feel that the posting to a birth-mother, that is not
>yet found, is an appropriate expression of feelings from an adoptee.
>
>Would a moderator please clarify this for me.
Gladly. You are correct, an essay or letter written from the viewpoint of
an adoptee to "Dear Birth Mother" would be appropriate on this newsgroup.
However, letters written from the viewpoints of non-adoptees to "Dear
Birth Mother" would not be welcome.
As the purpose of this newsgroup is for adoptees to discuss adoptee
issues, it is perfectly well for an adoptee to voice their "Dear Birth
Mother" feelings, as they are voicing them to other adoptees, and are
aware that they are not addressing "Birth Mother" herself. However, "Dear
Birth Mother" letters from the non-adoptee viewpoint are normally written
with the intent that "Birth Mother" will see it. As this newsgroup is not
specifically for birthmothers, it would be inappropriate to post something
under such a premise. The audience is adoptees.
-Cameron Byrd
Proponent and Moderator
The Proposed Adoptees Newsgroup
John Opalko
>
>Now this is something I could be wrong about, but it's my
>understanding that soc. groups are not carried more often than alt.
>groups. All the major online services carry alt groups, and I have
>never heard of an ISP that wouldn't add whatever group a customer
>wanted added unless it was one of the sex or binaries groups. Are
>there real life examples of ISP's that refuse to carry alt.adoption?
>Are there truly members of adop...@ucsd.edu that can get
>soc.adoption.adoptees, but not alt.adoption? Who are you? Have you
>asked for your provider to add alt.adoption?
Not every Usenet reader subscribes to an ISP. Historically, folks got their
news as a courtesy extended to them by their employer or their university.
With the recent explosive growth in the number of ISPs, the proportion of
people receiving news via a for-pay provider has increased, but I believe
(but cannot prove, alas) that the ISP subscribers are still in the minority
of all Usenet readers.
I have worked for a few companies whose official Usenet policy was "no alt
groups." This was an absolute, non-negotiable dictum. Believe me, I tried
to change their minds and got nowhere.
The "mainstream" Usenet groups, while they do not enjoy as great a difference
in propagation over the "alt" groups that they once did, are still the only
source of Usenet news for a substantial number of people.
John Opalko
jo...@clearspring.com
--
John Opalko Clear Spring Associates, Ltd.
jo...@clearspring.com Yamhill, Oregon, USA
Steve White
<scb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> MODERATOR INFO: soc.adoption.adoptees
>
> Moderator: Cameron Byrd <scb...@ix.netcom.com>
> Moderator: Ruth James <rja...@iserv.net>
>
> soc.adoption.adoptees will be moderated so that posts
> outside the scope of the charter can be rejected.
>
> The moderator's duty is to uphold the charter by rejecting posts that
> do not conform to it.
>
> Additional moderators will be chosen from qualified volunteers as need
> presents. Selected by the existing newsgroup moderator(s), primarily
> based on need and specific talents/benefits a person has shown
> themselves to offer the newsgroup.
Hello Cameron,
May I ask, are you and Ruth the only moderators planned for the forum? I
can imagine two people being inundated with work. Since you leave room for
others to be selected, what are the plans?
Specifically, are any of the other proponents as listed at the bottom of
the RFD going to be moderators, either immediately or in the near future?
If so, they really should be listed as such in the RFD so that we can make
an informed decision.
Thanks,
steve
Brian Gix
>
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group soc.adoption.adoptees
This is a newsgroup idea which is long past overdue. The
adoptees mailing list (which derived from the ucsd list)
is sorely in need of a relief valve, where messages that the
sender is not concerned if it gets read by non-list members
can go, while still keeping in an adoptee-friendly environment.
The whole point to the original mailing list was to keep it
private to adoptees, so we could keep our searches private,
and any other topic we might want to discuss, without having
to worry about being derided by adoptive-parents, birth-parents,
and other 3rd-parties, however well intentioned. The problem,
arising from it's size, is that while there is still a lot
of information being discussed on our list that we would
prefer to keep private (names/ dates of birth/ addresses etc),
there is also an awful lot of things we discuss which we have
no problems sharing with the world at large. It is still
important for us to be able to do this in a "friendly space"
if we choose, and many of us do not find alt.adoption to
be very friendly.
I think it's important to note that alt.adoption will NOT be
going away. I consider soc.adoption.adoptees to be a suplement.
It may also be a useful read for those people who already are, or
are contemplating adopting, so they can read the wide range
of opinion among adoptees ourselves, when we don't have to be
on the defensive all the time. Likewise, birthparents could
read the opinions in the group, and know that they are not
generally despised by us. The moderation is important to
keep the "safe space".
Please support the creation of soc.adoption.adoptees moderated.
Thank-you.
--
--Brian Gix Motorola Inc.
g...@mdd.comm.mot.com Wireless Data Group
(206) 487-5894 Seattle, WA USA
KJHM
of letters somewhere of adoptees telling their stories or sharing
information? I'm a little nervous as this Sunday I fly to San Antonio, Tx.
hopefully I will be able to meet Bmom for second time (if she drives down
from Dallas) and Bmoms mom or my grandma. She lives in San Antonio and did
not respond to my letter where I said " I'll contact you once I'm in town
UNLESS I hear from you telling me not too! I guess no news is good news so
I plan to call to meet her for lunch.
How can I get a message out asking if there are any fellow adoptees in the
San Antonio area that may want to meet? I know I received help from
several folks from Texas while doing my search.....I just can't remember
who.
Thanks
Skipper's hammer
>>
>> Moderator: Cameron Byrd <scb...@ix.netcom.com>
>> Moderator: Ruth James <rja...@iserv.net>
>>
>> soc.adoption.adoptees will be moderated so that posts
>> outside the scope of the charter can be rejected.
>>
>> The moderator's duty is to uphold the charter by rejecting posts that
>> do not conform to it.
>>
>> Additional moderators will be chosen from qualified volunteers as need
>> presents. Selected by the existing newsgroup moderator(s), primarily
>> based on need and specific talents/benefits a person has shown
>> themselves to offer the newsgroup.
>
>
>
>May I ask, are you and Ruth the only moderators planned for the forum? I
>can imagine two people being inundated with work. Since you leave room for
>others to be selected, what are the plans?
>
>Specifically, are any of the other proponents as listed at the bottom of
>the RFD going to be moderators, either immediately or in the near future?
>If so, they really should be listed as such in the RFD so that we can make
>an informed decision.
>
>Thanks,
>
>
>steve
As much as I'm interested in this subject, and the good writing
in the proposal, I'm voting NO because of the moderation appended to the
CFV.
Moderation is invariably censorious and to stop capitalism we
need to put our heads together to work together.
Moderation is also technically flawed, with its dependence on
a single, or group of individuals to regulate content rather than the
group at large when no talented anti-capitalists have made themselves
known. Even if there were so, moderation would still depend on a
single news posting machine rather than the thousands of computors
sharing responsibilty to transmit articles with standard usenet.
Only if this CFV were stripped of its moderation, would this
make a good charter. The proponant may withdraw the CFV at any time
and resubmit the correct version; otherwise we need to vote NO on
this CFV and more open minded partisans submit an egalitarian
proposal untill the day when anti-capitalist talent has arisen.
Vote NO on soc.adoption.adoptees!
--****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--****ATTENTION****--***ATTENTION***
Your e-mail reply to this message WILL be *automatically* ANONYMIZED.
Please, report inappropriate use to ab...@anon.penet.fi
For information (incl. non-anon reply) write to he...@anon.penet.fi
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Zoli Fekete, keeper of hungarian-faq
> Moderation is invariably censorious
No, it is not.
> Moderation is also technically flawed
No, it definitely is not.
> The proponant may withdraw the CFV at any time
if this poster knew what he's talking about - it's an RFD now.
--
Zoli fek...@bc.edu, homo sapiens
Valeen Haslam
issues. Every time I check out alt.adoption there are so many posts that
have nothing to do with adoption. Plus there are people who are
constantly putting down others for their feelings about their own
adoption. There is also very rude responses by certian people, which we
all know who I am talking about. We need moderation so that we can read
stuff that has to do with adoption and not just slams on other people.
I vote YES for soc.adoption.adoptees and for Cameron Byrd. I would like
to volunteer to help moderate it, if needs be!
Valeen
val...@axxis.com
Sue
censorship factor, you know. HOWEVER.......
During the past couple of weeks I have been lurking over on
alt.adoption. As an adoptee I was pleased to see that there existed
such a thing. My God! The anger and spamming that's happening over
there. Threats of libel suits, for heaven's sake. And those spams
originating from Lord knows where. 1200 messages of complete crap
yesterday. They've caught the person. They haven't caught the
person. This one is accusing that one and so on and so on. Peoples
accounts being forged.
And you might not think that this needs a moderator? Well, they
exception makes the rule, they say, so when the CFV comes around, I
will vote YES for the new group based on this alone.
Dana K. Kressierer
> As much as I'm interested in this subject, and the good writing
> in the proposal, I'm voting NO because of the moderation appended to the
> CFV.
Actually, it's an RFD at this point. And moderation was in no
way "appended" to anything - it was a central focus of the
original RFD - and should not be removed.
> Moderation is invariably censorious and to stop capitalism we
> need to put our heads together to work together.
To stop _capitalism_ we must have unmoderated newsgroups? A few
questions for you Skippy:
1. Just what is the casual link between moderation and capitalism?
2. Why should any of us be interesting in stopping capitalism?
I, for one, happen to like the capitalist system.
3. Yes, a moderated group does censor content so that messages
sent to that group adhere to the charter. If there
are unmoderated groups available (such as alt.a), what's wrong
with offering a moderated option for those who desire such
a forum?
> Moderation is also technically flawed, with its dependence on
> a single, or group of individuals to regulate content rather than the
> group at large when no talented anti-capitalists have made themselves
> known.
Skippy... has it occured to you that:
a) not all of us are rabid anti-capitalists, and
b) the proposed group holds no position on captialism (of which
I am aware)
Yes, I agree that moderation can be troublesome in that a lot
of work must be accomplished by a very small number of
moderators (in this case, two). However, I think we have
plenty of experience upon which to draw (e.g., every other
moderated group in the Usenet heirarchies), and plenty of
evidence that a group with even just one moderator can
be incredibly sucessful.
Do you, or other detractors, have a particular issue with Cameron
or Ruth as the proposed moderators? If so, bring it up. If
not, this debate on whether moderated groups are good or evil
is rather pointless. Usenet groups commonly support moderation,
why should soc.adoption.adoptees be any different?
> Even if there were so, moderation would still depend on a
> single news posting machine rather than the thousands of computors
> sharing responsibilty to transmit articles with standard usenet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... been there, done that.
> Only if this CFV were stripped of its moderation, would this
> make a good charter.
Not gonna happen, Skippy.
> The proponant may withdraw the CFV at any time
> and resubmit the correct version; otherwise we need to vote NO on
> this CFV and more open minded partisans submit an egalitarian
> proposal untill the day when anti-capitalist talent has arisen.
Ah, okay, sure. Let's vote "NO" (when it comes to a vote) because
Cameron and Ruth are untalented capitalists? :-) Try again.
Can we please get back to discussion about the *group* rather
than the age-old "moderation is good v. moderation sucks" B.S.?
Too, unless you can give me some scientific evidence as to
why moderation -> capitalism and, if it does, why soc.adoption.adoptee
should give a damn?
Dana Kressierer
C1smith
to adding soc.adoption.adoptees to my newsgroup list sometime in the near
future.
mary bridge
>
>A moderated newsgroup focused on adoptees is long overdue. I look forward
>to adding soc.adoption.adoptees to my newsgroup list sometime in the near
>future.
>
>
newgroup would be great
Davpascal
Regarding the proposed newsgroup misc.business.advertising, Mr MD Cohn
(cop...@netwalk.com) wrote:
"...my only real concern is the naming structure...will people confuse
m.b.a with advertising *for* business, miscellaneous? with all the damn
spammers
throwing their get-rich quick schemes or home-business rags to riches
stories, the group will suffer. yes, i realize your are proposing a
moderated group..."
Will people confuse m.b.a with advertising *for* business and pepper the
group with junk email? Alas, some will. The group won't suffer, however.
Only the moderator will. And, since it appears that that's going to be
me, I find your argument against putting the words 'business' and
'advertising' in the newsgroup's name to be a very cogent one indeed!
Unfortunately, 'misc.business advertising' has turned out, by default, to
be the best of several imperfect alternatives.
You see, both Unix and Usenet usage is such that it requires newsgroup
names to fit within certain already existing hierarchies. You can't just
call a mainstream newsgroup 'a.mainstream.newsgroup'. It has to start
with an appropriate Big Eight prefix like soc or comp, and it virtually
always requires a further defining middle label as well. Thus, 'rec' (for
recreation) includes sports, hobbies, pastimes; and a baseball group, for
instance, gets filed not straight under 'rec' but under 'rec.sport' as
'rec.sport.baseball'. The problem is that advertising is peculiarly
difficult to place. It does involve business -- usually. But not always.
Advertising for charities, or church membership, or military recruitment,
sells no tangible business product. Neither does political advertising.
Again, is a TV commercial 'business', or is it 'art'? Or is it a
'cultural artifact'? Seems to me like Twin Peaks director David Lynch's
Obsession commercials have a lot more in common with bad French Surrealism
than with a bank statement. What about the effects of advertising? Some
of those effects impact on a lot more than just business.
This being the case, I originally had hoped to call the group
'misc.culture.advertising'. This, I thought, would both emphasize
advertising's social and cultural effects, and still draw together people
actually working in the subculture that is the advertising life. This
name bit the dust, however, since there is no 'misc.culture' at present,
and new hierarchies are not established lightly.
I next suggested 'soc.culture.advertising'. No luck here either.
'Soc.culture' is apparently reserved for nationalities and ethnicity
alone.
'Misc.business.advertising.culture' and
'misc.business.marketing.advertising' were suggested to me. The former
didn't appeal to me. It sounded like businesses selling culture -- Van
Gogh posters and museum fund-raisings. Plus it still contained 'business'
and 'advertising' and so would attract spam and certainly robo-spam
regardless of the word 'culture' trailing it. Also, it was long. I
rather expect subordinate advertising groups will branch off in the course
of time (almost certainly one related to purely net-related advertising
issues), and I didn't want to set a precedent for something godawful like
'misc.business.advertising.culture.world-wide-web.moderated'. Usenet
typists have enough to groan over already. The 'marketing' name had the
same drawback, plus the fact that adding the word marketing to advertising
*and* business would be like saying not just 'Spam Me' but 'Inundate Me!'
(In addition, a 'misc.business.marketing' newsgroup may be starting, and
sharing the latter term would likely result in both reader and subject
confusion, not to say unnecessary cross-posting. I may add that I intend
to put pointers to the marketing group and to various marketing mailing
lists in the advertising group's FAQ, so as to help readers interested
*purely* in marketing or *purely* in advertising stay on-topic.)
Of these selections -- and I've mentioned them here to make anyone
thinking about re-naming the group aware of what's been discarded and why
-- misc.business.advertising seems the best of the bunch. I admit I'm not
terribly crazy about it either. But Unix is Unix, and we have to call it
something.
Mr Cohn added, "...though i realize the group will quickly become overrun
with spams, as a personal rule i tend not to sub to moderated
groups...having
started a newsgroup myself recently, many of my "voters" were strongly
against moderation (now, unfortunately, we are suffering one of the
dumbest spams in USENET history...but i stand strong to my convictions
nevertheless...with all that said, get it going and i'm sure i'll be there
waiting."
Choosing between having a group moderated and having it unmoderated is not
unlike choosing between the candidates in a typical Presidential election:
both options appal. Quite frankly, moderation doesn't appeal much to me
either; after all, you've got the option of skipping a post if you don't
like the looks of it; but if it's not there, you've got no option. I
started out hoping to have the group remain unmoderated, and in private
correspondence I waxed eloquent on the subject, to wit:
"God knows I don't want the newsgroup to be an obstacle course of idiot
spam-o-grams. But, if the *only* benefit of moderation is that of keeping
ads out of newsgroups, then I really wonder whether it's worth doing. It
is tedious to scroll past them, granted, but after all, one scrolls past
most of the posts one finds in newsgroups. When I look into alt.config,
there may be three or four proposals that interest me, five or six how-to
faqs that catch my eye, perhaps one or two interesting threads, and this
out of some 800+ posts available to me. I certainly don't open and review
each one. And if I (and everyone else) can placidly weave through the 99
posts that don't interest till reaching the one post that does, well --
that seems a better alternative than having two, three people scanning
daily through the lot and killfiling whatever offends. Even spam, after
all, is occasionally worth examining; and there have to be *some*
advertisements -- an advertising newsgroup that flatly bans all ads would
be like a TS Eliot newsgroup that bans any line from his poems. I've no
objection to spam per se; merely to the thought of it lurching in at 100
to 1 ratios. But is that really *likely*? That's the question.
"Plus, getting two or maybe three people to moderate the group, not to
mention a robot -- well, this complicates things. I've found creating an
ad by committee to be a good recipe for a bad ad, and I worry that running
a newsgroup by committee may be just as trying...But if a name [which does
not emphasis the pure business angle] like 'misc.culture.advertising' is
allowable, and if the charter and group description and FAQ explicitly
request advertisers to refrain, and asks readers to post offenders and
restate both the charter and that request, then the spam may be kept down
to tolerable levels. I'm really rather tempted to go with this latter
approach -- ."
So I was; and in fact, I still prefer unmoderated groups to moderated
ones, and generally speaking think that no moderation is the best way to
go. However -- in this *particular* instance -- I came to change my
mind, for two reasons. One was that roughly one out of ten people who
wrote me in response to the unofficial survey I ran, specifically said
that they hoped the group would be moderated. Whereas not one person came
out directly against moderation. And since it seems to me that a good
newsgroup results from the people interested in gathering together on it,
I was loath to tell ten percent of them to go elsewhere. Particularly
since, in the case of advertising newsgroups, there ain't no place else to
go. Two: I took a really close look at some of the unmoderated biz.
groups that (whatever they started out as) are now little more than ad
ghettoes -- endless garbagescapes of junk mail. I could easily see how
every single ad there could and probably would be cross-posted to the
advertising newsgroup. And I certainly don't want the advertising
newsgroup's readers to have to download and scroll past four *thousand*
subject heads saying '$$$MAKE MONEY FAST$$$', in order to get to one good
essay on the effects of 75% of web sites being sponsored by advertising,
or to read an ad agency research psychologist telling us us what
Victoria's Secret *really* is, or to hear word that Saatchi & Saatchi
Roman got the Catholic Church account (which it did, by the way -- the
Pope's set to do a TV commercial for rosaries and a CD!). No, the good
stuff, the interesting news, would stand a chance of just getting totally
buried and ignored. And I'd rather not see that happen.
If it's any consolation, I do want to state that the explicit moderator
policy is a loose one: no explicit ads (ie 'Used Volvo Super-Cheap!'), no
*wildly* off-topic posts (ie 'Vote LaRouche' or 'Metallica Really
Sucks!'), no out-and-out hideously obscene flaming. Content is not to be
touched, nor dictated: people will be able to say what they want to. I
think a tolerant perspective is best -- a newsgroup is like a lawn: the
moderator should pull out the weeds, but not the grass and the trees and
the flowers. So I personally don't intend to do a lot of hedge-trimming.
After all, the last thing moderation should be is immoderate -- true?
David Pascal
John Gerits
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group misc.business.advertising
I am not disagreeing with David Pascal, as his rational for an advertising NG is
similar to mine in creating a marketing NG.
I do envision an advertising NG, other marketing related NGs as well as more
business (disciplines) NGs, but all in good time.
The voting for misc.business.marketing.moderated will begin anytime now. Rather
than also create an advertising NG, does it not make sense to see the creation
of mbmm and let the marketing traffic build before seeking to establish
marketing specialized NGs?
At a point where traffic for any marketing specialty is more than 100 postings a
day is when specialized marketing NGs should be created. And this may happen
quickly or be awhile. Your guess is as good as mine.
I am not in favor of the proposed name; misc.business.advertising, as it may
bring confusion and misrepresentation as being a NG where business advertise.
Further, the name totally removes itself from the "business discipline" and
Usenet hierarchies. After all, advertising (commercial or otherwise) is a
specialty of marketing, making more sense to create it in the sub hierarchy
along with possible future marketing specialty NGs (research, distribution,
etc.). Not to mention that this would conform with the Unix and Usenet usage
naming conventions. Therefore, misc.business.marketing.advertising or
misc.business.marketing.advertising.moderated would be more appropriate.
To use Mr. Pascal's example of "baseball", it's structure is not rec.baseball
but rather rec.sport.baseball Taking this one step further, specialization in
baseball would be named rec.sport.baseball.outfield and
rec.sport.baseball.infield
I agree that the naming would be too long as I am not really thrilled with the
length of mbmm. I would prefer to see another solution implemented by Usenet
which I'll discuss below.
Will it create both reader and subject confusion to have the two NGs in the
same hierarchy? I think not. Those that the NGs are intended for will know the
difference. After all, the target audience is professionals, professors,
students and those interested in the field of marketing .
I am no computer/network or Unix expert with years of Internet experience, but a
businessman/layman, who has, just as millions of others around the world, tapped
into the Internet. As the Internet has evolved from the days of only Unix users,
so should Usenet, as being a component of the Internet.
Actually, what I'd like to see is Usenet expand from its "Big 8" (comp,
humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk) to a "Big 9" and include business
or bus or buss in the hierarchy. Renaming all business related NGs in the misc
hierarchy to the business hierarchy. This would result in shorter name
convention; order, structure, focus; and make it easier to add business NGs in
future. For example, below shows existing and possible future NGs
bus.accounting
bus.consulting.computer
bus.consulting.management
bus.credit
bus.entrepreneurs
bus.entrepreneurs.moderated
bus.facilitators
bus.finance
bus.law
bus.management
bus.marketing
bus.marketing.advertising
bus.marketing.research
bus.marketing.bus2bus
bus.marketing.consumer
bus.records-mgmt
Business NGs will certainly become more prevalent with time. Not only as to
disciplines and specialization but also defined to industries or line of
business. So why not create a business hierarchy now to prevent bigger headaches
later?
Some food for thought or further discussion?
John Gerits <j...@bart.nl>
Davpascal
In Message-ID: <4mr6vc$d...@nosy.bart.nl>, Mr John Gerits ( j...@bart.nl)
made a number of good points, stating his views (if I may paraphrase them)
that advertising is a subdivision of marketing, and that therefore an
advertising newsgroup ought to bear the proud title of
'misc.business.marketing.advertising'. I'll address Mr Gerits' points
shortly, but I do want to say that both these issues were weighed and
considered prior to the posting of the RFD. I'd like to say again what I
said on that occasion:
"While...concern for an appropriate hierarchial fit is understandable, I
believe I would prefer to have the proposed newsgroup be offered for
discussion under the current name, misc.business.advertising. My reasons
are six in number.
"First, all things being equal, I feel a newsgroup's name should make its
subject clear; and the subject of the group is advertising, not marketing.
The new name makes is appear that advertising is a sub-ranking of
marketing; while that may seem to be the case to one who has not worked in
either profession, I have worked in both, and they are very much distinct.
Granted, there is on occasion a certain overlap of function, just as
there is an overlap of functions between Dos and Windows. But one would
not name a group purely dedicated to Windows discussions
'comp.dos.windows' even if a comp.dos group did come first. Colleges
teach marketing courses and advertising courses as separate subjects;
libraries put marketing books and advertising books onto different
shelves; phone and business directories list marketing agencies and
advertising agencies under different sections. This common usage seems to
me to be appropriate, and worth following.
"Two, I believe that name would both lead to a confusing overlap between
the two groups -- people would have the impression that '*.marketing'
treats of marketing, and '*.marketing.advertising' includes marketing and
advertising both, or advertising purely as related to marketing; and so
newsgroup readers might incorrectly leave the marketing group which does
address marketing interests, and contribute to at the advertising group,
which does not. I may add that, of the nearly 200 people now who have
written me expressing an interest in the advertising group, only one has
expressed an interest in discussing marketing alone or advertising purely
as related to marketing.
"Three, I believe that misc.business.marketing has not passed its vote
yet. I hope it does, of course, and with its proposed name intact; but it
may not; I would not like to be so rash as to create a sub-hierarchy
without an upper hierarchy to go with it.
"Four, as you say, the name is longer, and while most users of the group
rarely, if ever, will type its full name, *some* will have to. And some
may not bother because they have to. A small reason; but I would like to
make it easy for people.
"Five. Originally it had been my hope to create a newsgroup in which
advertising and its meaning and impact and implications, for society in
general, and for the net in particular, would be emphasized as a topic of
discussion. I did not want it to be a place where business people met
purely to exchange fax numbers, or where gigabytes of spam might be
posted...frankly I would rather have preferred not to bluntly emphasize
the business angle and thus weigh future moderators with the additional
spam that the words 'business' and 'advertising' will surely draw down,
nor run the risk that browsers will think the group dedicated purely to
the technical subject of 'business advertising', ie corporate PR work.
But to add 'marketing' to the list would push it even further in these
directions, defining it as a business group pure and simple, drawing even
more commercial ads, and taking the focus of the newsgroup even further
away from what I had originally hoped it would be.
"And six and last: advertising is a large subject. There is quite a
difference between advertising on the web, television advertising,
academic criticism of advertising, pop culture celebrations of
advertising, etc etc. (Indeed, the superb advetising web site at the
University of Texas at Austin carries a good fifty sub-divisions of the
topic.) I expect that eventually a sub-group will break off at some
future point (almost certainly one related to purely net-related
advertising issues); and whereas
'misc.business.advertising.world-wide-web' is just barely tolerable,
'misc.business.marketing.advertising.world-wide-web.moderated' is
beginning to push it. In the interests of future newsgroups -- a not
unlikely possibility, and I say that based on the responses I've received
-- it seems to me it would be best to keep this particular name as short
as is reasonably possible."
This pretty much states the case, I think. But Mr Gerits made some good
points still, which I should like to take up. Namely:
Mr Gerits: "I do envision an advertising NG, other marketing related NGs
as well as more business (disciplines) NGs, but all in good time. The
voting for misc.business.marketing.moderated will begin anytime now.
Rather
than also create an advertising NG, does it not make sense to see the
creation
of mbmm and let the marketing traffic build before seeking to establish
marketing specialized NGs?
Hmm. Has politicking for votes made me cynical, or am I correct in
discerning in this suggestion a concern that people interested in just
plain advertising may wait to go vote for m.b.advertising, and thus stay
away from voting for m.b.marketing? No matter; such concern seems to me
to be warranted, and worth raising. I'm sure Mr Gerits is too courteous
to come out and raise the questions explicitly and gracelessly. However,
a boor such as myself has no such compunctions! So: let me do so, and
any scotch such fears by suggesting publicly that all readers of this
particular discussion (as well as anyone who wrote me indicating a
willingness to vote for a purely ad group) should leap to their keyboards
as one and vote yes for misc.business.marketing.moderated. I certainly
intend to. It would be a fine addition to usenet, and people interested
in advertising should clearly support it, and peruse it.
However. The presupposition being made here is stated in a subsequent
remark: "After all, advertising (commercial or otherwise) is a specialty
of marketing, making more sense to create it in the sub hierarchy along
with possible future marketing specialty NGs (research, distribution,
etc.)."
Here Mr Gerits is re-stating the notion that advertising is a subdivision
of marketing, pure and simple. Now intelligent people have said this, and
Mr Gerits (who describes himself as a "businessman/layman") is no doubt
one of them. All I can say in reply is that it may well look that way to
a layman, and even a businessman, but it doesn't look that way to me, and
I actually do both sets of stuff for a living. I happen to be an
advertising copywriter; a freelance one essentially, though I do marketing
consulting work as well, and in fact normally render my services to a
marketing organization called The Galen Group. And to me, though an
overlap is plain, the differences are clear and stark.
Now, out of such distinctions are great business newsgroup threads made,
and it would be abusing news.groups' hospitality to start one here. But,
briefly, then, what is the difference, exactly? Well, from the mole's-eye
view of a nuts-and-bolts practitioner such as myself, I guess it's simply
that advertising produces *advertisements*: concrete media artifacts
designed to persuade. Marketing doesn't produce 'marketements'.
Marketing? Marketing is surveys, focus groups, product testing on
audiences, follow-up interviews, that sort of thing. And that sort of
thing is very informative and useful! But it isn't advertising. I've
done marketing work that's produced no actual ads at all, and I've written
ads with no background marketing research whatsoever (a foolish practice,
I confess). Granted: these two things can overlap. And often do. But
they need not. And the view that one is perfectly subsumed by the other
-- well, it simply isn't true in my experience. The theoretical
distinction between the two? Marketing gathers information; advertising
disseminates information. At least that's how I see it. Related labors,
to be sure; but distinct ones.
Now Mr Gerits is succumbing here to an most seductive tempation, namely
that of making the definition of marketing so large that it swallows up
advertising; I could myself argue that both come under the topic 'sales',
which itself comes under the topic 'persuasion', which would then land us
both in humanities.rhetoric. Should we have put this sort of conceptual
inflation into practice at the very start of the Big Eight, and put
soc.culture.every-nation-we've-currently-got on hold till someone voted in
soc.culture.earth? Or even soc.culture.milky-way, or
soc.culture.known-universe? I doubt it. That isn't the question. The
question is: do people -- do potential writers to Usenet newsgroups --
see marketing and advertising as distinct topics. Well, yes; they do.
Advertising classes, advertising courses, advertising agents, advertising
agencies, advertising copywriters, advertising books, advertising
magazines -- and all the people who have written to me wishing to see the
establishment of a newsgroup dedicated *specifically* to advertising --
all agree: advertising is distinct. Sufficiently distinct to be accepted
as such by common usage.
Mr G: "At a point where traffic for any marketing specialty is more than
100 postings a day is when specialized marketing NGs should be created.
And this may happen quickly or be awhile. Your guess is as good as mine."
The logical implication here is not that one requires 100 postings a day
to have a legitimate right to be a newsgroup, but that when one reaches
100, that a sub-section may legitimately break off and form a legitimate
newsgroup. How many postings a day must that subsection generate to be a
legitimate offshoot? 25? 10? Well, I feel safe to say that the 200-some
people who have already written me stating a willingness to contribute
will probably get m.b.a that ten posts. But if not, such is my faith in
the efficacy of my much maligned profession, that (should the numbers
posting prove small) I suppose I could run a classified ad in Adweek with
the line: "misc.business.advertising: the newsgroup". It would cost
$38, I believe; every English-speaking ad agency in the country would get
a copy, and every ad agency in the world has a modem. Another ten posts
there, I think. Who knows: maybe eleven. (I would also like to add
that, before I do any such insane thing, those numbers better be low to
microscopic, and panting-at-the-bit backup moderators shall have to
abound.)
Mr Gerits: "I am not in favor of the proposed name;
misc.business.advertising, as it may bring confusion and misrepresentation
as being a NG where business advertise."
Boy, Mr Gerits and I certainly think as one on *that* issue. Coming up
with a better name's the problem, though. Mr Gerits goes on to give his
own recommendations, which are, alas: "misc.business.marketing.advertising
or
misc.business.marketing.advertising.moderated".
His first point, in short, is that putting 'business' and 'advertising' in
the group name will atttract too much spam; whereas putting 'business' and
'advertising' -- and 'marketing' too! -- in the group name will not.
This latter thesis seems to me unlikely; for reasons I've already stated.
If anything, a combination of the three will burst the fuses of the poor
robomoderator assigned has to deal with it. (The humans having long since
been spammed into stupor.) Mr Gerits adds:
"Will it create both reader and subject confusion to have the two NGs in
the
same hierarchy? I think not. Those that the NGs are intended for will know
the
difference. After all, the target audience is professionals, professors,
students and those interested in the field of marketing ."
Here -- granted, it's a judgement call -- I simply disagree. Will someone
-- a professor; nay, a student! -- reading '*.business. marketing' and
'*.business.marketing.advertising' realize that anything relating to ads
go into one, and anything that doesn't goes into the other? I simply
doubt that everyone will grasp that distinction. Even granted that they
know the difference between marketing and advertising -- a big if, given
that a businessman like Mr Gerits himself seems to feel that advertising
is completely incorporated in marketing, and an advertising writer and
marketing consultant like myself doesn't -- will they know the Usenet
notion of hierarchies and naming? Some will. Most, I expect, will have
come straight from alt and its 'wesley.crusher.die.die.die' tradition and
figure: hey, one group (Mr Gerits') is about marketing, and the other's
about marketing *and* advertising! And pop their posts inaccurately into
the latter, to the dismay of both groups. (Or else cross-post, another
grievous usenet woe.) One shouldn't, I think, *assume* knowledgability on
the part of readers and posters; one should assume the opposite, rather,
and try to make the distinctions less ambiguous for them beforehand.
And of 'misc.business.marketing.advertising.moderated', Mr Gerits himself
states: "I agree that the naming would be too long as I am not really
thrilled with the length of mbmm. I would prefer to see another solution
implemented by Usenet which I'll discuss below."
This solution, be it noted, is to replace the Big 8 with a Big 9. A
notion which, whatever its merits, is not likely to happen prior to the
immediately upcoming CFV's.
"Further, the name [misc.business.advertising] totally removes itself
from the "business discipline" and Usenet hierarchies...Not to mention
that this would conform with the Unix and Usenet usage naming
conventions."
This one, I confess, I don't understand at all. Why should
'misc.business.advertising' not conform to 'the "business discipline" '?
Seems to me m.b.a conforms to usage as well as m.b.m.m does.
"To use Mr. Pascal's example of "baseball", it's structure is not
rec.baseball
but rather rec.sport.baseball Taking this one step further,
specialization in
baseball would be named rec.sport.baseball.outfield and
rec.sport.baseball.infield"
Mr Gerit puts a good one over the plate! But (for the moment) the game's
over.
David Pascal
John Gerits
On14 May 1996 18:04:49 -0400, David Ogilvy's protege David Pascal writes:
>Mr Gerit puts a good one over the plate! But (for the moment) the game's
>over.
Games have winners and losers. I don't believe this happens to be the case.
>The new name makes is appear that advertising is a sub-ranking of
>marketing; while that may seem to be the case to one who has not worked in
>either profession,
A marketer will say it is and a advertising professional will say it isn't.
> Granted, there is on occasion a certain overlap of function, just as
>there is an overlap of functions between Dos and Windows. But one would
>not name a group purely dedicated to Windows discussions
>'comp.dos.windows' even if a comp.dos group did come first.
This is an extreme and special case, but in all actuality, the correct group
name would be comp.dos.windows After all;
To run Windows one needs DOS, to run DOS one does not need Windows.
>I've done marketing work that's produced no actual ads at all, and I've written
>ads with no background marketing research whatsoever (a foolish practice,
>I confess).
To do advertising one needs marketing, to do marketing one does not need
advertising.
>Colleges teach marketing courses and advertising courses as separate subjects;
Yes they do! Rather foolish to have the course Marketing Advertising 101.
Granted there are schools that have specialized and created a separate
advertising department, normally in a university's school of communication as in
the case of UTA. Others teach separate advertising courses but they fall under
the marketing department, at least within the top b-schools.
>phone and business directories list marketing agencies and advertising
>agencies under different sections. This common usage seems to
>me to be appropriate, and worth following.
Ok for the purpose of information, granted it makes it easier for a "layman" but
in business, advertising falls under marketing.
Organizations and companies that do have advertising departments have them
under marketing management. And as inbreded in every "marketing consultant" ,
advertising falls under the 4 P's (product, price, place, promotion). Under
promotion to be exact.
>"Two, I believe that name would both lead to a confusing overlap between
>the two groups -- people would have the impression that '*.marketing'
>treats of marketing, and '*.marketing.advertising' includes marketing and
>advertising both, or advertising purely as related to marketing; and so
>newsgroup readers might incorrectly leave the marketing group which does
>address marketing interests, and contribute to at the advertising group,
>which does not.
Well I can see where a "layman" might be confused but marketing and advertising
professionals, professors and students know the difference. Give them credit.
>I may add that, of the nearly 200 people now who have written me expressing
>an interest in the advertising group, only one has expressed an interest in
>discussing marketing alone or advertising purely as related to marketing.
That is to be expected since Mr. Pascal is the proponent of the advertising NG
and has *marketed* to advertising individuals as I have focused on marketing
individuals.
>"Three, I believe that misc.business.marketing has not passed its vote
>yet. I hope it does, of course, and with its proposed name intact; but it
>may not; I would not like to be so rash as to create a sub-hierarchy
>without an upper hierarchy to go with it.
We'll just have to wait and see if the voters pass it or not. I did not suggest
Mr. Pascal be so rash as to create a sub-hierachy without an upper hierarchy. If
one reads my reply, one will see that I suggest that a move to create a
advertising NG be postponed until (if m.b.m.m. is created) advertising traffic
in m.b.m.m. approaches 100 postings a day.
>"Five. Originally it had been my hope to create a newsgroup in which
>advertising and its meaning and impact and implications, for society in
>general,
A very good and interesting idea.
>I did not want it to be a place where business people met
>purely to exchange fax numbers,
This is really not the case in existing business NGs.
>frankly I would rather have preferred not to bluntly emphasize
>the business angle
Perhaps, if the objective is to discuss advertising in the non business sense,
it might be more appropriate to place it under the sci.psychology hierarchy or
soc.culture hierarchy. I do recall Mr. Pascal mentioned something similar and I
think it's a good idea. Is there anything wrong with having two advertising NGs;
one for advertising from the business angle and the other for advertising from
the psychological and social angles? I for one would be interested in this
concept and I expect others would be as well.
>But to add 'marketing' to the list would push it even further in these
>directions, defining it as a business group pure and simple, taking
>the focus of the newsgroup even further away from what I had
>originally hoped it would be.
Again, if the focus is be of non business advertising issues, maybe further
efforts should be taken to place it in another hierarchy.
>This pretty much states the case, I think. But Mr Gerits made some good
>points still, which I should like to take up. Namely:
>Mr Gerits: "does it not make sense to see the creation of mbmm and let
> the marketing traffic build before seeking to establish marketing specialized NGs?
>Mr. Pascal: Hmm. Has politicking for votes made me cynical, or am I correct in
>discerning in this suggestion a concern that people interested in just
>plain advertising may wait to go vote for m.b.advertising, and thus stay
>away from voting for m.b.marketing?
My suggestion is purely to reduce bandwidth and spamming during the start-up
period. If advertising people want to wait to vote for m.b.a. and not m.b.m.m.,
that's their choice. Yes I'd love their votes, but if there is a great interest
for m.b.m.m. from all over the net, the NG will be created. If not, I did what I
could and life goes on.
>No matter; such concern seems to me to be warranted, and worth raising.
>I'm sure Mr Gerits is too courteous to come out and raise the questions
>explicitly and gracelessly.
There is no reason to raise this question, since I don't view the two proposed
NGs as rivals but rather as two potential resources for the marketing and
advertising worlds.
>by suggesting publicly that all readers of this particular discussion (as well as
>anyone who wrote me indicating a willingness to vote for a purely ad group)
>should leap to their keyboards as one and vote yes for
>misc.business.marketing.moderated. I certainly intend to. It would be a fine
>addition to usenet, and people interested in advertising should clearly support it, and peruse it.
I very much appreciate this from Mr. Pascal. Certainly an advertising NG would
be an additional sources of value. But I do have issues that I am only voicing
my opinion on. Whether changes are made or not I intend to support the creation
of an advertising NG, at this time or in future.
>Mr Gerits is re-stating the notion that advertising is a subdivision
>of marketing, pure and simple. Now intelligent people have said this, and
>Mr Gerits (who describes himself as a "businessman/layman") is no doubt
>one of them. All I can say in reply is that it may well look that way to
>a layman, and even a businessman, but it doesn't look that way to me,
Mr. Pascal has taken the "businessman/layman" out of context. It was stated in
the paragraph concerning the Internet, having nothing to do with marketing or
advertising.
To be more specific than just a *businessman*, after obtaining my MBA in
international marketing, I spent time in marketing management, moved to
management consulting and now manage an investment company. I might add that two
of my consulting clients were advertising agencies. I guess you could say that
I have some, a little knowledge of marketing and advertising.
>Now, out of such distinctions are great business newsgroup threads made,
>and it would be abusing news.groups' hospitality to start one here.
I agree and it will be interesting to raise this issue in both NGs and develop a
discussion between marketers and those in advertising.
>Marketing is surveys, focus groups, product testing on
>audiences, follow-up interviews, that sort of thing.
More appropriately, what Mr. Pascal describes is marketing research.
>Now Mr Gerits is succumbing here to an most seductive tempation, namely
>that of making the definition of marketing so large that it swallows up advertising.
This is strictly a marketer's point of view.
> I could myself argue that both come under the topic 'sales',
Well sales falls under marketing. Although this in itself makes for great
debate.
> How many postings a day must that subsection generate to be a
>legitimate offshoot? 25? 10? Well, I feel safe to say that the 200-some
>people who have already written me stating a willingness to contribute
>will probably get m.b.a that ten posts.
According to Usenet guidelines; generally 200+ postings per day to a newsgroups
is considered "too busy"
>Mr Gerits goes on to give his own recommendations, which are,
> alas: "misc.business.marketing.advertising
> or misc.business.marketing.advertising.moderated".
>Mr. Pascal: His first point, in short, is that putting 'business' and 'advertising' in
>the group name will atttract too much spam; whereas putting 'business' and
>'advertising' -- and 'marketing' too! -- in the group name will not.
>This latter thesis seems to me unlikely; for reasons I've already stated.
>If anything, a combination of the three will burst the fuses of the poor
>robomoderator assigned has to deal with it.
I was looking at it from a readers point. The *layman* will read:
misc.business.advertising What does that imply? Where as:
misc.business.marketing.advertising may get the point across.
As for attracting spam, ANY NG with *business* as part of it's name will
attract spam. That's something a moderator must live with. *kill filters*.
>Mr Gerits adds: "Will it create both reader and subject confusion to have the two NGs in
>the same hierarchy? I think not. Those that the NGs are intended for will know
>the difference. After all, the target audience is professionals, professors,
>students and those interested in the field of marketing ."
>Mr. Pascal: Will someone -- a professor; nay, a student! -- reading '*.business. marketing'
> and'*.business.marketing.advertising' realize that anything relating to ads
>go into one, and anything that doesn't goes into the other? I simply
>doubt that everyone will grasp that distinction. Even granted that they
>know the difference between marketing and advertising -- a big if,
As I stated earlier, a marketing professional, professors or student will know
the difference. And I would think an advertising person would also.
>given that a businessman like Mr Gerits himself seems to feel that advertising
>is completely incorporated in marketing, and an advertising writer and
>marketing consultant like myself doesn't
Simply stating that I see advertising as falling under marketing and that Mr.
Pascal does not would have been fine but why does he have to mention the
*businessman* vis a vis the *advertising writer* and *marketing consultant*.
Well this is just a repeat of above. If the two NGs are in the same
sub-hierarchy, I don't think I'll be confused if I post an article concerning
*aida* or persuasion to m.b.marketing.advertising or that an article concerning
promotion belongs in m.b.marketing.moderated. And I really don't think other
marketing colleagues will be confused either.
>Mr Gerits himself states: " I would prefer to see another solution
>implemented by Usenet which I'll discuss below."
>Mr. Pascal: This solution, be it noted, is to replace the Big 8 with a Big 9. A
>notion which, whatever its merits, is not likely to happen prior to the
>immediately upcoming CFV's.
The proposed solution is for the future and in no way was I suggesting that it
be sought before the upcoming CFVs.
>Mr. Gerits: "Further, the name [misc.business.advertising] totally removes itself
>from the "business discipline" and Usenet hierarchies...Not to mention
>that this would conform with the Unix and Usenet usage naming
>conventions."
>Mr. Pascal :This one, I confess, I don't understand at all. Why should
>'misc.business.advertising' not conform to 'the "business discipline" '?
The *business discipline* hierarchy as viewed by b-schools is generally
considered to consist of: ,accounting, business economics, decision sciences,
finance, human resources and organizational behavior, information systems,
marketing, operations management.
Advertising is generally considered to be an *interdisciplinary* area of study.
>Seems to me m.b.a conforms to usage as well as m.b.m.m does.
Both conform to the Usenet usage with regard to the misc.business hierarchy, but
misc.business.advertising would not be conforming to the Usenet preferred
misc.business.marketing.* sub-hierarchy.
In conclusion, the issues I have raised are merely for discussion and debate;
things to think about.
This discussion has been a case of *perception*, a word all to familiar to
marketing and advertising professionals. Mr. Pascal and myself have different
backgrounds; he coming from advertising and myself coming from marketing. Each
with his own views and beliefs that we may bring to light yet having mutual
respect for each other.
If a beach ball were placed between two people, the one person would *perceive*
it as red and argue it so while the other would *perceive* it to be blue and
argue it as blue. This can go on and on or as unfortunately doesn't happen too
often, the two people can trade places and come to realize that both are right.
Whatever changes, if any are incorporated into the CFV for an advertising NGs, I
will vote yes for it's creation, whether it comes to vote within the next few
weeks or in the more distant future. It will serve as an additional source or a
resource which I can draw from and contribute to.
John Gerits <j...@bart.nl>
Proponent; misc.business.marketing.moderated
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