Why are my posts not showing up in your group? I'm sure you can figure out
what my real e-mail address is, so surely that can't be the reason.
What's
up? I understand moderating, but this is ridiculous.
Rob
[[reply. Rob, there will be two possible reasons why your posts don't
show up.
one may be if your posts for some reason never reach me. Usually this
means
your ISP is not correctly configured for moderated groups. This doesn't
happen
often with this group any more, but it still can happen. In such cases,
posts
simply are not properly forwarded to me by your news server.
The second, of course, would be if I reject the post. The reasons will
generally be because the post violates in some manner, the group's
charter. The
most common such situations are if your post is primarily a personal
attack, or
could obviously start a flame war, especially if the post has nothing of
particular jewelry related interest to add to a thread. Also, commercial
advertising isn't allowed. This last gets complicated, since there are
some
exceptions. In general, no ads for web sites selling jewelry are
allowed, nor
anything for ebay or other such online auctions. Some direct for sale
from the
ad posts can be allowed, if for used tools, books, equipment, and items of
direct interest to jewelry craftspeople, rather than for jewelry itself.
In your case, I recall rejecting only one post, though there may be others
I
don't recall. That one ranted on about some other poster, and then
demanded
equal advertising time for someone's web site. All with no mention of
anything
actually on topic, other than complaining about the other post. Unlike
the
original post which allowably asked for a review of a site, your post just
wanted a link to the commercial site. I rejected that on both the above
grounds. I don't recall the others, if there were any. You've not been
black
listed or anything like that (nor have another other posters. All posts
are
evaluated only on their own merits or lack thereof, without regard to
prior
postings) Any posts you send which meet the groups charter definitions
will be
approved and posted.
But the whole "advertising" restriction frankly does get complex. We've
seen,
recently, a slew of posters who've decided that writing some long winded,
if
often trivial, article or essay on some jewelry related topic, ending with
the
single link to their web site, makes them allowable. This of course is a
very
transparent tactic, usually being obviously intended just to get the link
out.
However, if the article itself is still on topic, then I'm forced to treat
it as
an on topic post, since the use of a sig file containing a commercial link
is OK
per long standing usenet tradition. However, since these are still
obvious
attempts to advertise, I treat these as advertisements that are within the
allowed bounds of the charter. And THAT limits allowable advertisements
to only
one ad per month for any given advertiser. On that grounds, I've rejected
a
number of recent such "articles" since they all point to the same web
site. One
per month only. And if that advertiser makes too much of a habit of it,
my
ability to read a calendar may become impaired... (grin) This last
paragraph by
the way Rob, isnt' directed to you. just killing two birds with one
stone, if
you will. Just in case that advertiser is actually reading this group...
And no, I've not figured out your real email address. No doubt it's clear
to
the whole rest of the planet, but the two or three combinations I tried
bounced
back, and I've not tried again, not wi****ng to spend too much time on it,
or for
that matter, needing to do so. Remember that I'm under no particular
compunction to alert posters that their posts have been rejected, and I
don't
like wasting time on decoding email addresses when posters have not made
it
clear how to do so. If you wish me to reply in email, make it clear, or
give
some directions in the body of the post how a human can reach you. There
are
many posters who use "from" email addresses that cannot be, and are not
intended
to be, decoded, so if any obvious fixes don't work, I assume that's the
case.
Note too, that I don't keep long records of past postings I've rejected,
or
poster's email addresses. So if you wish your email addresses to be
decodable,
put any needed clues into each post. Don't assume I'll remember it the
next
time, or be able to dig it out of past emails.
As with all moderating, sometimes my judgement calls are questionable. I
do the
best I can, but some posts are more like flipping a coin to decide. There
are
some that I'm on the fence about rejecting, and willing to discuss the
matter.
So if you send a post that doesn't appear, please don't hesitate to
contact me
by email asking about it. I'm always willing to reconsider if you feel
you can
defend the reasonable purpose of your posting, and often, I'll see things
your
way if you protest my decision. If you wish to contact me directly,
simply
contact me by email at rec.crafts.jewelry@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or simply put
wording
in the subject header that alerts me your message is personal to me,
rather than
to the group. (This message would have been treated that way, had it
contained a reply address I could be sure was usable).
By the way, should you totally object to the way I moderate the group,
please
volunteer to help me with it, or better, take it over. I've moderated
this
group for 11 years now. I'd love to pass on the chore if someone were
interested. It doesn't pay at all, but also doesn't cost much money other
than
needing decent net access. It does take time, though, and there's no easy
way
to quit, since groups do not revert to unmoderated ones if the moderator
stops
doing the job. So quitting means the group simply stops functioning, not
a good
option. Let me know if you'd like the task, and we can ask the group if
they
agree to it. Otherwise, be careful what you call ridiculous. It's easy
to say
that when you're not the one who has to keep the peace and keep people
happy.
Peter Rowe
moderator
rec.crafts.jewelry.
Seattle. Where it's grey, snowed a bit today, but didn't rain so much.
And days are starting to get noticably longer.
]]
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