On Feb 12, 3:38*am, Joss Wright wrote:
On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:28:24 -0800, Dominic T. wrote:
Wow, you got a pair of brass ones. I honestly have no time or patience
for you or your snake oil. Your website is terrible, offers no
information beyond "the best tea in the world" which *must* be true
since you have never even visited any growers nor have you listed any
origin or really anything beyond ****-poor graphics and generic names.

Your "ordering system" is solely comprised of an Excel spreadsheet.
There's a thing called SSL, you may want to look into it.

You go ahead and send me a sample of your "best" tea (it can be very
small, 1 gaiwan's worth even) and I will pay for the actual shipping
costs happily. I would be the first person to shout from the rooftops of
its excellence regardless of your lack of tact in this newsgroup, your
disrespectful attitude, ignorance, and lack of web savvy. I'm 100%
straightforward and honest, and that is what I was to you as well. You
came here to astroturf this newsgroup with an advertisement, and I
called you on it. Not just me, but everyone here is no stranger to this
behavior as it happens quite frequently and is not the way to drum up
business.

Attacking me or anyone here is certainly the wrong way to turn your
initial faux pas into anything productive. You made a mistake, apologize
and move on. If you'd like to participate in this newsgroup and provide
insight, intelligent conversation, and to probably learn a ton about the
business you've chosen... go ahead, we'd be glad to learn more about
you, the real scoop on your product, and offer help and insight about
tea... not business, but tea. Business will naturally follow without
ads.

- Dominic

I realise that jumping into this sort of an argument is unlikely to help
anything, but I think that you are being entirely too harsh to the
original poster. The advertisement in question wasn't a mindless spam and,
even if you objected to it, their responses were apologetic and polite.
The way that you're behaving towards the original poster is, in my mind,
far more offensive than their posting of an advertisement here.

On top of that, as has been mentioned before, the FAQ and charter for this
group does _not_ specifically prohibit advertising except as follows:

* *"but this newsgroup should NOT be used for advertising herbal tea
products or discussing tea as anything other than a beverage."

If anything, this implies that advertising C. sinensis based teas /is/
allowed. If you are going to be this irate about messages like this, I
suggest that you make sure that the "official" FAQ reflects this. If, that
is, it really is "the will of the group".

I agree that untargeted spamming is undesirable, but I wouldn't lump what
appears to be a hand-written message from a small startup company in with
bulk commercial advertising. I agree that full-on advertising should be
restricted here, but I don't see any reason why someone representing a
company should be prevented from talking about their products here
provided that they don't hammer it home and flood the group.

As a reader of this group, although not a frequent or knowledgeable
poster, I'm finding it more offensive to read your responses than the
polite messages from the original poster. It's clear that you dislike this
advertising, but this is one person who has made a mistake and should be
treated with some basic respect. A simple, polite message asking them not
to advertise would be much better than the repeated and personal attacks
that you're currently flinging at them.

I'm not going to get into an argument, so I won't be replying to this
message, but I wanted to show (particularly the original poster) that
there are people here who don't agree with you, especially in terms of the
way you're expressing yourself. I'm not advocating free-for-all
advertising, I'm advocating treating other people with a bit of respect,
even if they've inadvertently broken the rules.

Joss- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Folks promoting a business do very little "inadvertently".

I was going to stay out of this discussion. But since it comes up
about once a month or so, I thought I'd share the perspective of a
relatively ignorant tea-lover.

My opinion is that there's a difference between an evil spammer (e.g.,
EM EYE FIVE) and someone who simply leaps before they look. Not
everyone is up on Usenetiquette, and believe (however wrongly) it is
appropriate to advertise their humble site in this newsgroup. I
suggest a reply in the vein of "we hope you will contribute
information and experiences to this newsgroup, but please note that
advertising is not permitted in this newsgroup" and refer them to the
charter/FAQ. I believe that most people would reply with "thanks; I
didn't know" and become a member of the group. Ripping them a new one
merely puts them on the defensive and starts these pointless arguments
all over again, plus very likely turns away someone who could become a
valuable member of the group.

It's easy for those of us who've been reading and contributing to this
newsgroup to get fed up with yet another "go to my online tea shop"
posting and to forget that we were newbies once also. Keep in mind
that the latest poster was not part of the previous discussions on
what is and isn't appropriate to post here, so shouldn't be held to
the same standards as someone who has already had the error of their
ways pointed out to them.

I don't have my own tea farm or tea business, but I enjoy drinking and
learning about tea. That is why I came to this group. I've learned a
lot since I've been here, and no doubt many of you have forgotten more
than I'll ever know. I'd hate to think that this group is hurting
itself b

I agree with Shen that the original posting was not inadvertent.
However, I believe the offense was.

"Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent if no
birds sang except those that sang best. " Henry Van Dyke

Just my two cents,

Alan

On Feb 13, 5:40 pm, Alan wrote:
I was going to stay out of this discussion. But since it comes up
about once a month or so, I thought I'd share the perspective of a
relatively ignorant tea-lover.

My opinion is that there's a difference between an evil spammer (e.g.,
EM EYE FIVE) and someone who simply leaps before they look. Not
everyone is up on Usenetiquette, and believe (however wrongly) it is
appropriate to advertise their humble site in this newsgroup. I
suggest a reply in the vein of "we hope you will contribute
information and experiences to this newsgroup, but please note that
advertising is not permitted in this newsgroup" and refer them to the
charter/FAQ. I believe that most people would reply with "thanks; I
didn't know" and become a member of the group. Ripping them a new one
merely puts them on the defensive and starts these pointless arguments
all over again, plus very likely turns away someone who could become a
valuable member of the group.

It's easy for those of us who've been reading and contributing to this
newsgroup to get fed up with yet another "go to my online tea shop"
posting and to forget that we were newbies once also. Keep in mind
that the latest poster was not part of the previous discussions on
what is and isn't appropriate to post here, so shouldn't be held to
the same standards as someone who has already had the error of their
ways pointed out to them.

I don't have my own tea farm or tea business, but I enjoy drinking and
learning about tea. That is why I came to this group. I've learned a
lot since I've been here, and no doubt many of you have forgotten more
than I'll ever know. I'd hate to think that this group is hurting
itself b

I agree with Shen that the original posting was not inadvertent.
However, I believe the offense was.

"Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent if no
birds sang except those that sang best. " Henry Van Dyke

Just my two cents,

Alan

Em Eye Five stuff is global spam that hits thousands of newsgroups, I
just ignore/killfile that stuff and so does everyone else. Spam just
on RFDT are a bit of a different animal. After this debacle, I will
only reply once to such posts stating that "This is an unsolicited
advertisement and not welcome or endorsed by Rec.Food.Drink.Tea
members."

I am also working on updating and re-hosting the FAQ since it seems
quite out of date. I'm not sure if the current maintainer of the FAQ
is still a member here or not but if he is please email me. However, I
will always go further than that with any scams, illegal practices, or
fraud as that is part of who I am and what I do. I will do it off of
this group when possible and not clutter this space with it at all
cost.

As an FYI, two scammers over my time here have been shut down after
being reported to the proper authorities. One of them was found to be
responsible for a number of illegal businesses with hundreds of
complaints against them. The identity was traced back to a post made
here. I have taken a lot of flak in my personal email from folks like
you who only see it as one sided or overly aggressive at times, but I
seriously urge you to think about how you would feel if a close
friend, relative, or yourself, were to have their credit card info. or
worse identity stolen from something like this. It takes months and
years of your effort to clear up some of these messes, and some cause
real damage to people's lives. Many times it is innocuous and not the
intention of the merchant even just a lack of knowledge/skills or
concern for customer data. Trusting an Excel spreadsheet and a bad
link to Google Checkout is a red flag on top of a flashing red light
for trouble though and I was concerned. There would be no recourse for
the consumer in this case due to the non-integrated nature of the
ordering system and you would lose your money if you never received
product without much recourse.

I try to keep real life and Internet life separate. When I'm here I
just want to talk about tea, honestly. I really enjoy the folks here
and would love to see tons more, if I offended anyone I'm sorry. It's
because I care that I tend to go after this stuff. No one asked me to,
and I'm not some knight in shining armor or pretending to be with some
delusions of grandeur.

I'm tired of the drama, and the distraction from the real point...
Tea. This is my last post on the subject.

Dominic,

I empathize completely with your position. You (and others) have been
burned and you don't want to go through that again, AND you want to
alert others to the dangers. I appreciate that. My only issue with the
recent responses to the spammers/newbie posters is the fact that they
were greeted with both guns blazing. Perhaps this poster is a scammer;
perhaps not. While I consider myself a jaded cynic, I would prefer to
think that most people are just oblivious and not up to something
sinister. A polite "this type of posting is not welcome here; refer to
the FAQ" should take care of it. Anything more just adds fuel to the
fire and invites third parties to jump in with their two cents (yes,
like I did) and we end up discussing whether advertising is allowed or
not.

I understand where you're coming from. OTOH, if someone is going to go
to a brand new web site with no track record and give them personal
and financial information, then they could probably stand to learn
from their own mistakes. I don't buy from ebay sellers with little
feedback; I wouldn't buy from a web site that just popped up. But
that's just me.

Alan