[meteorite-list] (No More) One-Ad Per Week Rule

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:08:13 +0200
Message-ID: <000d01ca4d98$ad444260$07b22959_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Jason, list,

I found out, that Art, the administrator IS Steve Arnold, Chicago
and that he has running a bet with Cottingham, whether Michael can create
more than hundred repetitions of the name "Cottingham" in the title of
list-mails, reacting on his excessive advertising.

Jason & newbies. Cottingham is not the only dealer on the planet, who has a
large stock of meteorites for sale. There are several with similar amounts
of material and interesting meteorites.
How many members has the list? 1000? Many of them collectors, who want to
sell or swap here and there pieces too.

Note that all professional major dealers use this list for solely
advertising: Novelties, rare types, pieces with exceptional characteristics,
rare historical specimens, "hot" deals below market price.

Could you imagine, how it would end, if all of them would advertise like a
Cottingham, if they would advertise their bulk, if all of them would
obtrusively advertise each single piece with ads so long until it is sold
like Chicago-Steve is doing it?

We would have more than a thousand ads a week.

I guess many, if not most members appreciate the list as a source of
information (to a certain degree ads belong into that category) and
inspiration and enjoy the discussions.

I really doubt, that anyone of them would be in the mood to rummage daily
through hundred ads, to find the sparsely scattered posts with some more
witty contents. Neither do have all the time to do that, nor is an offered
meteorite to the same extend interesting for all meteorite people.
It would be like the annoying occupation to search through the hundreds of
Campos, fake Nantans, mainstream material on ebay, to find the two or three
auctions a week, which fit in ones focus, budget ect.

It would be the end of this list. Full stop.

The newer members maybe don't understand, that this vintage-mailing-list
isn't a forum where e.g. ads are sorted in an own board, so that they can be
ignored by those, not interested in. And that this form of conversation is
based on a different etiquette, than fast communication forms like a
chat-room.

So keeping in mind, that here on the list are enrolled quite all of the
largest dealers, the most successful hunters of the planet and a good share
of the collectors of the world,
Jason, then I have to say, the discipline to obey to the 1-Ad-per-week-rule
is remarkable and the rule works well.

Everyone connives at an offerer, if he's somewhat excited and breaks the
rule, as long it remains an isolated case.

And if you look back, with all those many people here having meteorites for
sale,
in fact only two persons suffer from incontinence and nocturia.


....and here I see the problem, that new members see that the recklessness
of two members (out of 1000) isn't sanctioned, so that they could feel
invited to act in the same manner.

I think, they won't sell more, if they advertise several times per week.
Decisive for a purchase are for a collector the properties and the qualities
of the offered specimen, the price - and often enough his opinion on the
seller too. I could imagine, that for some collectors it could be even
deterrent, to think about purchasing from a person, who present himself in
public so impolite, reckless and egomaniac.

Well, my thoughts only,
open the list for unrestricted spamming
and you will loose half of the members.
(and then it won't be attractive anymore to advertise here...)
You'll see.

Martin



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Jason
Utas
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2009 05:18
An: Meteorite-list
Betreff: [meteorite-list] (No More) One-Ad Per Week Rule

Hola All,
The rule was only good so long as dealers upheld it.
It was originally put in place to limit Steve Arnold's (Chicago)
postings, but it failed. Other dealers seemed happy enough to go
along with it on their own out of, for lack of a better word, courtesy
to other list members, who generally agreed that it was a good thing
to do (at the time). It seems apparent now that most list members
have no problem with dealers posting to the list as often as they
wish, so it would appear as though the rule is no longer being
advocated by either dealers or common list-users/readers.
Thus the rule is, I would say, now null and void.
For better or worse, so be it.
But if you can't enforce it, and people won't follow it, it doesn't
make much of a rule. And if a select few choose to go against it, it
kind of screws over the other dealers who still abide by it, so I say
to hell with it.
We'll see what happens to the list...this could be interesting.

Oh - and I'll have some ebay auctions up later tonight for those of
you who may be interested - hopefully within the next hour, but it may
take two to finish it all up.

Regards,
Jason
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Received on Thu 15 Oct 2009 09:08:13 AM PDT