> Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 17:58:48 -0400
> From: Charles MacDonald <cmacd@achilles.net>
> To: FAQ-Maintainers <faq-maintainers@lists.consensus.com>
> Subject: Re: Faq maintainers and commericialism
> Sender: bounce-faq-maintainers-833@lists.consensus.com
>
> There are several Models outside the net to consider...
>
> 1) the independent author, working for a publisher of general books...
> 2) the academic author (for lack of a better term) who must publish..
> 3) the company that publishes information on a topic so that the..
> 4) Books produced by a company to explain their theories of life and..
> 5) LOts of ads, little content, much of it favorable to the..
> 6) Lots of ads, content not bowing to advertisers (fortune) (although..
> 7) No ads, aloof from the market . Some political magazines,
Consumers reports.
> Traditional FAQ files have previously been almost strictly in category 2.
> The rules IMHO should be that a reader is aware of any bias that the
> maintainer brings to the FAQ.
As an archiver of news.answers, I think the problem is a bit
more difficult. Remember that the main purpose of news.answers
is to facilitate archiving of faqs (pips) posted on usenet.
The value of such an archive depends on the coherence the user sees.
Other collections (journals) have a clear relation between
commerce/info for _ALL_ their articles. You don't see consumer
reports mixed with info like cat 5 (books by the food industry),
because cat-5 info makes the consumer reports suspect.
> I think where the worry is comes down to FAQs that appear to be
> unbiased. I see something posted by fred@aome.state.edu and assume that
> it is an unbiased academic paper - when in fact it may be paid for by
> the national association for the advancement of toothpaste sales. 8->
No, it is worse. Articles from 'ilovezip@iomega.com' will make
postings from 'fred@aome.state.edu' unbelievable.
That's what 'fred' is mad about.
> Thus I would prefer to see as a minimum all potential conflicts declared
> in all FAQs. And it would be better if payments were explained as
> well.
I think that, in order to protect 'fred', news.answers should stick
to it's tradions and keep commercial stuff out as much as possible.
People being paid to write something, must find other channels.
> Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario
regards.
Henk Penning
Henk P. Penning, Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University \__/ \__/ \
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. \__/ \__/
Telephone: +31-30-2534106, fax: 2513791, NIC-handle: HPP1 _/ \__/ \__/ \
News.answers http://www.cs.uu.nl/cgi-bin/faqwais \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
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