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 | | From: | Chris Gunn | | Subject: | FAQ - biz.general - | | Date: | Thu, 06 Jan 2005 18:31:32 -0600 |
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 | Business Operations and Offerings (Moderated)
Frequently Asked Questions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Charter: biz.general provides a forum for general discussions related to business operations, offerings, and other related topics which effect conducting business throughout the World. Commercial advertising is prohibited. It is the moderator's sole unquestioned responsibility and authority to ensure articles adhere to the Charter.
Q. Is advertising for products and services allowed on biz.general?
A. Advertising is not allowed in biz.general. Ads should be posted in the biz.marketplace.* groups that are not designated for discussion or in other hierarchies. Although general business discussions are encouraged biz.general primarily carries FAQ's and articles on how to use the biz.* newsgroups profitably.
Anything that sounds remotely like it may be a Chain Letter, Ponzi, or other unethical business practice will be rejected and may be selectively forwarded to NFIC for investigation.
Although some groups may be for advertising, the best way to get a reader's attention is through a good discussion thread. Very few will buy a magazine just to read advertising. It's the interesting articles that get pages turned and TV channels tuned.
Q. What happens if I ignore the rules and try to post advertising to biz.general?
A. The biz.general newsgroup is moderated, the moderators being Jeff Norton and Christopher G. Gunn. The USENET News mechanism at both the user interface and transport level does not permit posting or propagation of an article without the moderators approval. Instead, it E-Mails them to the moderator's address for approval and posting.
Q. How do I submit a post to the biz.general?
A. E-Mail your intended (on-charter) posting to the moderators at: gen_biz@bizynet.com - or - Simply post it to the newsgroup. If your news software is properly configured, your posting will be automatically E-Mailed to the moderators. If not, it will of course eventually land in the USENET black hole and disappear. If you're not sure your news software is properly configured, contact your local administrator and ask him to request a copy of the current biz hierarchy checkgroups cmsg from the biz hierarchy authority and administrator .
Information on posting to moderated newsgroups is periodically posted to news.lists, news.groups, news.answers, entitled: "List of Moderators for Usenet". The rtfm.mit archive name is: "moderator-list/part1".
Q. Is there any specific format which messages should follow?
A. Articles should reflect a professional and business like attitude and be limited to plain text and the upper 128 IBM ASCII characters. Messages that contain HTML or MIME encoding will be rejected. Set your margins for a maximum of 80 characters per line so everyone can easily read your posting.
Q. Do all messages have to be in English?
A. Although most of the messages you see on the biz groups are in English, it's not a requirement. Messages in other languages are welcome as well as using the entire IBM ASCII character set so you can spell your name properly. Posting in your language, with a translation in English, will give you the widest audience.
Q. What's the best way to present my business on the newsgroups?
A. Folks with whom you'd like to be doing business with will make their decisions based on their impression of your messages. During a discussion, you may read messages from someone who has an opinion totally different from yours. Feel free to discuss the difference of opinion but try to avoid getting hurt feelings involved. You will be asked to use E-Mail if messages are personal attacks or the language belongs elsewhere.
Q. Why do my messages sometimes not appear in the newsgroups?
A. If you cross-post to a "(Moderated)" newsgroup such as biz.general, the message is sent to the Moderator as E-Mail instead of being posted to the newsgroups. The Moderator then decides what will appear in the newsgroup itself. If accepted, you may not see your message until the next day or so. Please do not cross-post to Moderated newsgroups and post to them only as individual messages.
Q. What if I want to avoid the E-Mail spammers?
A. Messages are expected to come from legitimate addresses. Attempts to avoid E-Mail responses and anonymous messages will be rejected. We realize it's nice to avoid getting on E-Mail lists but it also makes the moderator's job harder. More important, it's like trying to do business with an unlisted phone number. We also encourage the use of real names in From: lines rather than funny handles or trying use it as advertising.
Q. Is it okay to discuses MLM opportunities?
A. You may discuss Multi-Level Marketing from a seeking business advice perspective. If it sounds like recruiting, promotion or appears to be advertising, blatant or disguised, it will be rejected.
Q. Since this group is moderated, can I trust what I see here?
A. The moderators simply approve appropriate articles sent to them for posting, and cannot verify the integrity of any particular posting or poster. Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware).
Q. If my messages are rejected, how will I know why?
A. Whenever possible, the moderators will respond to rejected messages explaining the problem. If message posters demonstrate they won't voluntarily cooperate, they will be placed on the blocking list for automatic rejection. That results in your messages being blocked to all @bizynet.com addresses, which includes moderated newsgroups and E-Mail. To have your access restored, you may have a friend send a message to the moderator explaining the problem.
Q. How can I advertise without getting into trouble?
A. Some newsgroups do accept advertising. Don't go by the messages you see there. Check the charters to ensure they do and what you wish to promote fits within the topic area before posting. For the "biz" hierarchy in general, please refer to the biz meta-FAQ posted on biz.config periodically by Ed Hew, the biz Newsgroup Authority.
Please feel free to ask for additional details. The BIZynet network offers a variety of services for advertising and conducting business via the E-Ways (Electronic Highways).
Drop by http://www.bizynet.com/faq-news.htm to access all of the biz newsgroups FAQ's. Click the [Return to Index] button to find even more information on how to get the most from the newsgroups. Our @bizynet.com domain is a respected E-Mail address for business folks for many reasons.
We hope you'll find biz.general both enjoyable and profitable,
Chris Gunn and Jeff Norton cgunn@bizynet.com jnorton@bizynet.com
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