[CLUE-Talk] Marketing to CLUE Members

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Fri, 2003-03-14 at 14:58, David Willson wrote:
> There needs to be a stated and approved protocol for peer marketing
> within CLUE.  Rick is a contributing member of CLUE, not a leech.  Rick
> therefore ~can~ presume some relationship with the recipients of his
> message.  I found his message entirely inoffensive, with the exception
> of the 'implicit opt-in.'

Perhaps there does need to be a policy. I've signed up for so many
mailing lists in my time, and received so many "do not spam members"
notices that I just assumed there was a stated policy. I could swear
that I've even seen chatter on the list about a advertising fee for spam
sent to the list, though I may be confusing it with another list. I know
the TECHWR-L (techwriter) list does this. 

In short, we do need to tell folks what the rules are even if they seem
bloody obvious. I went looking and if we have policies, they're doing a
good job of hiding. They're not on the introductory mailing list pages
and they don't come in the welcome message when you join the list. 

My suggestion is this: A member, like Rick, may post a specific
announcement to the clue-talk list no more than once per year for a
non-Linux related commercial announcement to invite people to "opt in"
or whatever. Any member is limited to an arbitrary number of such posts
within a twelve-month period, say three. 

So, say Random J. Hacker joins the list and gets a job as a car
salesman. He can send one e-mail to the list per year inviting people to
sign up for an e-mail list that provides weekly info on used cars that
he might like to sell you. 

If Random J. Hacker gets sick of selling cars within three months and
takes up selling stocks or something, he can send one e-mail to the list
inviting people to join a stock list. 

Alternately, we could just say "no commercial e-mail." But, where to
draw the line? Is it okay to send a message to clue-talk to tell people
you have a system you want to sell for cheap? What about twenty systems?

> You all beat him up like he was a stranger peeing in your pool.  He may
> ~have~ peed in the pool, but he's not a stranger, he's a productive and
> contributing friend, and you all should be ashamed of the amount of
> ass-whipping that was delivered over this.

So, what... it's okay to pee in the pool if you're buddies? I think
you'd be more pissed if a friend peed in your pool than if some stranger
did so... you kind of expect friends not to pee in your pool by default,
and it's damn shocking when they do. Doubly so if you don't have a
pool... but I digress. 

I guess our perceptions are different, I didn't really feel there was a
lot of "ass-whipping" compared to the reaction that would have sprung up
on other lists. I certainly didn't intend to be overly harsh towards
Rick. I think he goofed and a few people told him so. 

But, you raise a good point... we do need to put up a policy, and
pronto. We can't just assume there's an unspoken policy that everyone
will absorb through some kind of netiquette osmosis. I'm cc'ing the
Admin list and I hope this can be put on the agenda for the next
steering meeting or perhaps hashed out on-list and solved before then.

Best,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net