OT: Advice on Good Online Store Setup

& you will have to accept that bAss has ruined other newgruops and because of that he will be pursued and pointed out for what he has done! so......just accept it and get on with your life.

Of the last 22 posts in comp.home.automation distributed by my usenet provider, 20 are off-topic or spam (see below)

2:20 signal:noise

Brian Williams and Brian Dye: You are the wave of the future, destroying what others have created for your financial gain in defiance of establish rules and norms of the groups you enter.

Marc_F_Hult

Subject: NEW CHANCE TO WIN MONEY Subject: Automated front door lock? Subject: MAKE $6,000 PER WEEK Subject: MAKE MONEY FAST Subject: Re: OT: Advice on Good Online Store Setup Subject: Re: Recomendations wanted for outdoor video camera (make/model) and retailer Subject: TURN $5 IN $10,000 MONTHLY Subject: GET PAID FOREVER Subject: BIG MONEY BUSINESS Subject: HOW I SAID BYE BYE BILLS Subject: MAKE MONEY FROM HOME Subject: DO YOU WANT SOME CASH Subject: $$$ MONEY $$$ Subject: YOUR KEY TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM Subject: EARN $12,000 EVERY MONTH Subject: Re: Advice on Good Online Store Setup Subject: Re: OT: Advice on Good Online Store Setup Subject: MAKE $1,500 PER DAY Subject: Gagnez de l'argent sur le net Subject: HOW TO GET PAID CASH Subject: Acceptez gratuitement les cartes de crédits sur votre site

wrote

Then you'd be wrong again. A charter cannot be amended, only replaced.

You rattle on about things that you seem to know little about. You confuse the facts of the matter with your _opinions_ of what ought/might/could/ be.

Please take your obsession back to the newsgroup(s) in which it originated.

Marc_F_Hult

There's something to be said for net gain, here. A typical post from Mr. Bass will contain a number of helpful answers, followed by "I sell these items in my store" and a commercial sig line. His net contribution, here, is positive.

Compare that to those of you who are admittedly "after (Bass)" who seem to contribute nothing positive. Frank's got a few positive posts, which we all appreciate. In this particular thread, though, he instigated a line of insults with no specific provocation. Net loss.

Marc's on the right track in asking people to please take some personal responsibility to preserving the S:N ratio of this group. If you see Mr. Bass write something that contributes to net loss in the group, by all means point it out. But taking an otherwise innocuous thread and ruining it is lame. Attempts to justify yourselves with amorphous claims about 'other groups' holds no water in THIS group.

There are a number of vendors who post here. Martin from AO, Dean from QCQ, Robert, and others.

They've all answered questions of mine, and I've purchased from some of them. I hope they stick around.. who better to answer a question about Charmed Quark than Dean Roddey? Who better to answer a question on relative quality of switches and prices than someone who runs an online outlet, like Brian or Martin?

If I ask "Where is the best place to buy UPB switches?" and they all chime in with "I sell it for $$," my question has been answered with a price, a URL, often a recommendation for other products, and sometimes even a discounted price or an inside line to an upcoming sale. Net gain in group usefulness. If someone responds with a review of an online merchant or a link to a BBB report, I appreciate that as it's topical and helpful.

I delete half the posts I write before I send them, after asking myself "Am I really contributing something to the group here?" The answer to this particular post is probably "no," but there's not much salvageable out of this thread anyway.

So Brian Williams spawns a _third_ off-topic thread with the same subject that flagrantly violates the charter(s) with respect to both off-topic posts and commercial interests.

There are (conservatively) more than 35,000 different usenet newsgroups. It should be obvious even to neo-adolescents that the usefulness of usenet depends almost entirely on that organization.

But Brian thinks he is so very special that he doesn't need to follow rules/organization and so deliberately contributes to the destruction of something he has not created but wants to use for immediate personal financial gratification. He appears clueless as to usenet history and netiquette and rules.

In days gone by, an email to his ISP would have garnered him a stern warning that he would lose his account if he continued posting in violation of usenet charter. This mechanism for reigning in scofflaws and miscreants is mostly gone, which part of the reason why usenet has deteriorated to its current condition.

Some individuals will always place their own selfish interests before the common good. In this case, it also means ruining the decades-long work of those that have gone before to collectively create the organization out of bits and bytes.

Marc_F_Hult

I can't figure out what ABIK stands for?

I think the one you were looking for is probably Ed Cheung. It's been a few years since I posted here, regularily -- Brian A. was around back then, so stuck out in my mind. Dr. Cheung is much more recent, though. And I love his 'local dimming' mod. :)

Good memory! or advanced liberal arts skills as the case may be ...

Good thing too that I weaseled with "ABIK" ;-) Brian Abernathy is indeed listed in among the 500+ voters on the charter question in 1994 . Sure are lot's of 'Brian's" around these days ;-)

But I was actually thinking of someone else who is still active in c.h.a (Maybe Brian Abernathy is too -- I dunno).

+++++++++++

Point here that usenet has a formal process for newsgroup creation that has an actual methodology for voting and making that vote part of the public record. The vote is on the language of the charter itself.

Folks have the choice of not participating, abiding by the rules, or (as we've noticed here) being disruptive scofflaws.

My own opinion has long been that we should re-organize comp.home.automation to include a comp.home.automation.X10 group that would deal with X10 issues and should have a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) posted periodically to help folks new to X10.

My experience of a decade or so ago in helping to reorganize a different usenet hierarchy gives me no confidence that the process would not decompose into chaos owing to the a.s.a / dealer crowd as we've seen.

My 2 cents ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Well, we are all self-appointed in this matter. And you are the self-made/appointed perp.

If, while walking down the street in front of your home, you witnessed a real crime, what degree of lawlessness would you have to witness in order to be spurred into the civil behavior of either attempting to stop or report the crime?

Apparently you would not object to a bit of "reasonably innocent" graffiti sprayed on homes in your neighborhood -- in fact you seem to be just the sort that would _commit _ such "reasonably innocent" crimes.

How about a hit-and-run? How about ... -- what level of mayhem would cause you to rise to your civic responsibility?

(You don't have to answer. It is axiomatic that the bad-guys never do. They cause the societal damage that other, sometimes self-appointed, folks have to prevent and repair. )

Marc_F_Hult

is advertising allowed in this group?

paybacks are hell, Ole Anderson.

its all usenet.

and besides, you know, those boys that blew up the trains in London were such nice boys here in our neighborhood. they helped me cross the street and take out my garbage. just because they blew up your neighborhood is no reason for me to have to get involved. As a matter of fact I don't even want to hear about it. It upsets me too much.

since this thread is shot anyway.

Heh... I take one of Robert's own "lines", twist it around a little to say that "I'm the owner of one of those alarm companies..." and all heck breaks loose. On top of all this, I add a "smiley" and actually state that it was said with "tongue in cheek". You guys are just way too serious!!!

"joe" wrote>

hmmm. I can't imediately retort to this, which makes me fear that perhaps you have a good point. If the police couldn't chase someone through my yard because I'd posted "keep off grass," I'd have a bigger problem then the grass getting trampled.

I think the issue, though, is that those of us in CHA aren't convinced, and have reason to doub the motives of those of you coming from ASA.

So my original plea: Feel free to shut down someone who is in error, or to point out important facts as they come up. I'd like to hope you'd prefer "exchange of topical information" as opposed to "persue my vendetta across the 'net, because it's unmoderated and I can, so f* you."

Oh, and Frank: Putting a smile on the end of a sentence doesn't absolve you from the responsiblity of typing it. Frank Olson is a moron who thinks AC wiring is just 'twist the black ones and the white ones together,' and who likes watching dogs lick themselves. :-))

As Best I Know

Ta Dah! Yes. Ed Cheung.

If you go back to see who voted on the charter, one can't help but be struck by the pantheon of research-oriented corporations, universities and government research centers that are represented. Ed is one of the hold-ons from that era. I recall that my signature had both my desk and home phone numbers as well as address and so on. About the only folks that post those details any more are the vendors that circle the newsgroup, sometimes swooping down, sometimes splatting down on us from above ...

Marc Marc_F_Hult

My cable broadband provider includes usenet nntp as part of its basic charge so I use it. Mostly carries Big 8 usenet (text) groups and some binaries. I don't use alt.* or binary groups, so except for the spam issue, its OK. Retention on text groups is plenty good enough.

Having to pay for a duplicate service is/would be another cost of the web-scum.

I also have static dsl, which also comes with "free" nntp but I don't want that IP address on the net so I wouldn't want to post to usenet through it. There are good HA-related reasons to not to broadcast on the web the IP address to which one's HA controller is connected. Obscurity is good, if insufficient. Obscurity and a [name of real hardware firewall ] is better ;-)

.... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Perhaps things would improve here if you didn't "retort", but "replied" instead.

No. It's the "Danger Minefield" that would more than likely keep them from trampling your grass.

Heh... Like I've been trying to explain... The root cause of any turmoil here has to do with a lot of "baggage" a certain someone accumolates through his behaviour in other groups. That will remain an ongoing issue for many more years to come (and has been one for many more years than I've been posting in Usenet).

Check!!

Who wouldn't prefer that??

Did I say it did??

Actually I prefer terminating it to a "Bix Block". ;-))

Canadian dogs don't do that. It's way too cold up here. ;-))

Like I said... you guys are way to serious!!

ABIK = "As Best I Know"