Re: notifying particular thread to wake up.

On Oct 14, 6:11 am, Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <l...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, it was. It was an ad, for crying out loud.

No, it was a reference to a book.

Yes, it was an ad. It was a post whose sole content was the promotion
of a commercial product. It linked to a web site whose sole content
was the promotion of that commercial product. I don't see any
distinction here -- such a thing constitutes an ad, pure and simple.

Furthermore, it appeared in place of the actual information the OP
requested. The OP requested information, and got told where to go buy
access to it instead of told where the information he sought could be
had for free. That is not very nice regardless.

The point of the post in question was referring the reader to the
book, whether the link to the commerical site was there or not. As
such, that reference was not advertising, nor commercial.

Sure it was. If I posted an ad here for something, i.e. an endorsement
for a commercial product, but did not include a link, then it would
magically not count as "an ad" in your eyes? So if I post "Enjoy Coca-
Cola! http://www.coke.com"; that's an ad, but if I just post "Enjoy
Coca-Cola!" it's not?

That's ridiculous.

Also, something is not a "commercial" posting *unless* the poster
expects to make profit from posting it, in any way or form. In this
case, the poster was unrelated to both the book and the linked web
page

What's your evidence for drawing this conclusion? Don't forget, Lew
and Andrew have made clear in other threads that people who post here
are considered to be affiliated with any sites they recommend until
proven otherwise.

and will not receive anything if anyone choses to buy the
book. He was just a happy customer sharing his experience.

Even if I grant this, look at it this way: one guy goes up to a group
of people and asks for directions to the student loan office. The
first respondent raves about how awesome his new Mercedes-Benz is, and
mentions that it has satellite navigation and GPS, and gives
directions to the nearest Mercedes dealership.

There's been, *at minimum*, a gross failure of communication (or maybe
of intelligence) in such an instance, wouldn't you agree?

And the citations (plural) DO support the statement that was
currently being disputed, namely that commercial messages are
generally disliked on Usenet, *regardless* of whether you consider
that much earlier posting to be an example of such.

That is not the statement that is being disputed.

Yes, it is.

The statment that is being disputed is this:

| Links to non-free software or information should be clearly marked as
| such in the newsgroup postings, and good free alternatives should be
| mentioned as well so that people may make an informed choice

This is just so obvious that it really should go without saying.

Which would you prefer to receive if you were asking a question? A
link to where you can buy the answer, or just the damn answer??? Which
would you prefer in the way of product recommendations? A list of only
expensive options, or all of them?
Which would you prefer if you asked for a car dealership
recommendation? Only Rolls-Royce and Mercedes dealers, or the
assortment of Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, and so forth dealerships as
well?

Which would you expect a random other person to prefer? One not known
to be rich? Especially one who is probably a student and probably not
a trust fundie either, or he'd be asking some paid help or private
tutor instead of asking you?

So far, no support for *that* claim has been posited, and none of the
other posters, all long-time newsgroup users, have ever heard of such
a rule or custom.

It isn't a rule or custom. It's just plain common sense, ***. It's
called "not leading people down the garden path" or "not ripping
people off" -- and yes, people paying for something that has a free
alternative they'd have been perfectly satisfied with simply because
they never got told about the free alternative ARE being ripped off.

[snip remainder of unprovoked hostility and general nastiness]

Go away.

.