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Archive-name: boat-market/faq
Posting-frequency: monthly Last-modified: 1998/3/23 Version: 1.8 Author: boat-market-request@bayview.com (William R. Ward) URL: http://www.bayview.com/boat-market/faq.html See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Lines changed are marked with a ! in the first column. Lines added are marked with a + in the first column. [Note: No changes since March 23, 1998] FAQ for rec.boats.marketplace William R. Ward, boat-market-request@bayview.com Version 1.8, 1998/3/23 This posting contains information needed to submit advertisements to the rec.boats.marketplace moderated newsgroup. ______________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1 Why isn't my message showing up right away? 1.2 Are there archives of the newsgroup? 1.3 Where can I get an up-to-date copy of this FAQ? 1.4 What other documents do you recommend? 2. Composing Your Ad 2.1 What types of advertisements are allowed? 2.2 Can I post commercial advertisements? 2.3 Can I attach a JPEG or GIF picture of my boat? 2.4 Can I send an HTML document as my ad? 2.5 Can I send any other kind of MIME attachment? 2.6 Can I send an attachment using UUENCODE? 2.7 What should be the format of the Subject: line? 2.8 What should be in the Body of my message? 2.9 What language may my advertisement be in? 3. Posting Your Ad 3.1 Who should submit advertisements? 3.2 How do I submit an advertisement? 3.3 Can I cross-post to other newsgroups? 3.4 How often may I post my ad? 3.5 I posted my message to the newsgroup but I can't find it. Where is it? 3.6 My message was posted with wrong information. How can I fix it? 3.7 I sold my boat. How can I remove my ad? 3.8 May I post a followup to an ad? 4. Disclaimer ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction Welcome to rec.boats.marketplace! This is the advertising group of the rec.boats USENET newsgroup hierarchy. This group is intended for posting ads offering to buy or sell boats and boating-related goods and services. This document attempts to answer most questions which you might have about posting a boating-related advertisement in USENET. Please read it before attempting to submit an ad, or before asking the moderator for help. 1.1. Why isn't my message showing up right away? This is a moderated newsgroup. This means that all messages must be approved by the moderator before they will appear in the newsgroup. E-mail all submissions to boat-market@bayview.com. If you try to post it using your news software, it will probably be automatically forwarded to that address; however this is not recommended, as there are sometimes problems when this is done. If you wish to communicate with the moderator you should send your message to boat-market-request@bayview.com. Send any questions, suggestions, or criticisms to that address. If you have any disagreements that cannot be resolved in private e-mail with the moderator, you may wish to post about it on the newsgroups news.admin.net-abuse.misc and/or rec.boats. 1.2. Are there archives of the newsgroup? All messages posted to the newsgroup are archived by the moderator. These archives are now available for searching via the web. Point your browser to the rec.boats.marketplace home page, at <http://www.bayview.com/boat-market/> and click on the ``Archives'' option. 1.3. Where can I get an up-to-date copy of this FAQ? This document is posted approximately every 30 days to the newsgroups rec.boats.marketplace, news.answers, and rec.answers. It is also available online via FTP and the World-Wide Web at the following addresses: o FTP: <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/boat-market/faq> o WWW: <http://www.bayview.com/boat-market/faq.html> If you find other locations where these files are available, please tell me about them so that I can include them here. Thanks. 1.4. What other documents do you recommend? Additional information about buying and selling stuff on USENET can be found in Dan King's The USENET Marketplace FAQ I suggest that you read it before making a deal on the net. It contains a lot of useful information which can help protect both buyer and seller while dealing over the net. It is posted to news.answers and misc.answers regularly. You can also find it at: o FTP: <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/> o WWW: <http://www.phoenix.net/~lildan/FAQ> 2. Composing Your Ad 2.1. What types of advertisements are allowed? This newsgroup is for the posting of advertisements for buying and selling boats and boating-related goods and services. All other submissions will be rejected. Certain announcements, such as boating- related web pages, will also be accepted. The newsgroup is the electronic equivalent of a newspaper's classified ad section for boats. I try to follow that metaphor when I encounter a borderline case. The other criteria is whether the opposite (i.e. if considering a FS, would the comparable WTB) be permitted. If you disagree with the moderator's assessment, send mail to boat-market- request@bayview.com and explain why it should be included. Since the moderator's background is in sailing, not powerboating, sometimes powerboat ads do not seem relevant until the submitter explains their relevance to the moderator. An example of this would be an ad for F-16 fighter jet cockpit canopies. I rejected this, but the submitter explained that they are in high demand for high performance speedboats; after hearing that explanation I accepted the ad. Remember I am only human and I'm not getting paid, so please have patience and give me the benefit of a doubt. 2.2. Can I post commercial advertisements? For many years, USENET newsgroups were strictly non-commercial. In this modern age that has mostly fallen by the wayside, but there still exists a strong anti-commercial sentiment. Please refrain from posting highly commercial messages to the newsgroup. The motto here is ``Information, not promotion.'' Product announcements may not contain hype or denigrating comparisons with competing products. Announcements of products should contain only a straightforward description of features, pricing, and so forth. You may wish to include the URL of a web page which covers your product in greater detail. 2.3. Can I attach a JPEG or GIF picture of my boat? All messages which include binary attachments (such as a GIF or JPEG image of your boat) will be rejected. Binaries take up too much bandwidth and disk space; remember a lot of people have to download all the messages before viewing them, and it is not fair to make them sit through a download of your GIF if your boat is not what they are interested in. If you wish to show a picture of your boat, post it to one of the alt.binaries.pictures.* newsgroups, and mention that in your ad to rec.boats.marketplace, or post it on a web page and mention the URL in your ad. 2.4. Can I send an HTML document as my ad? USENET is not the Web, and the majority of the people reading USENET still use text-only software. For this reason most moderated newsgroups, including this one, reject ads that are posted in HTML format. You may include the URL of a web page in your ad, of course, but the ad itself should be in plain text format. If your news/mail software generates an HTML version of each message you send as an attachment, you need to disable that feature or your message will be rejected. 2.5. Can I send any other kind of MIME attachment? No, many newsreaders still can't handle MIME attachments very well. I suggest putting the additional information in plain text format, or post the URL of a web page (or both). This includes ``vcard'' and HTML documents. 2.6. Can I send an attachment using UUENCODE? No, please post only plain text. Messages containing files encoded using UUENCODE or any other encoding scheme will be rejected. 2.7. What should be the format of the Subject: line? All messages approved for rec.boats.marketplace will have a Subject: line in a special format that is designed to make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for quickly. Before being approved, the Subject: line will be modified if necessary to match that format. I ask that you please try to follow this format when posting your ads, however, to simplify this process for the moderator. The structure of the subject line is as follows: Subject: TYPE: [CATEGORY] DESCRIPTION, PRICE; LOCATION The various terms are explained below: TYPE An abbreviated, all-caps code which denotes the type of ad. This comes first, so that newsreaders which sort by subject line will group them together by type and category. Valid choices are: o ADMIN - Administrative announcements by moderator o CA - Crew Available o CW - Crew Wanted o DW - Donation Wanted o FC - For Charter o FREE - Free stuff available o FS - For Sale o FYI - For Your Information (announccements) o RFI - Request For Information (looking for web site, etc) o SOLD - Item previously advertised has been sold o WTB - Wanted To Buy o WTC - Wanted To Charter o WTT - Wanted To Trade CATEGORY The Category lists what kind of item you are buying, selling, or announcing. This should be a single word, have the first letter capitalized, and be enclosed in [square brackets]. Valid choices are: o ??? - Moderator can't figure out what it is (usually Power or Sail) o Book - Book for sale or wanted o Business - Business for sale or wanted o Charts - Charts for sale or wanted o Crew - Crew available or wanted o Dinghy - Dinghy (yacht tender, may also apply for Paddle or Sail) for sale or wanted o Electronics - Electronics for sale or wanted o Engine - Engine or engine parts for sale or wanted o Event - Boating-related events o Houseboat - Houseboat for sale or wanted o Inflatable - Inflatable boat for sale or wanted o Liferaft - Liferaft for sale or wanted o Misc - Miscellaneous o Model - Model boats (e.g. remote control) for sale or wanted o Moorage - Moorage (slip, mooring, dock, etc.) for sale or wanted o Outboard - Outboard motor for sale or wanted o PWC - Personal Watercraft (e.g. JetSki, Sea-Doo) for sale or wanted o Paddle - Human powered boats (kayak, canoe, rowboat, etc.) for sale or wanted o Plans - Plans for building a boat o Power - Powerboat (includes trawlers and fishing boats) for sale or wanted o Review - Product reviews (should use FYI type for this) o Sail - Sailboat for sale or wanted o Service - Services (e.g. charter captain, boat transport) for sale or wanted o Software - Software for sale or wanted (must be boating-related, such as tide or navigation software) o Trailer - Trailer for sale or wanted o WWW - Web site announcements (must use RFI or FYI types) DESCRIPTION This should be a description of what you have to offer, not something like ``Great Deal!'' or ``*** Fabulous Price***''. Descriptions like that will be edited based on what is in the body of your posting, if they are approved at all. A good description might be ``1970 Cal 27'' or ``30-50 Foot Trawler Wanted''. Please do not use all caps in your description, just capitalize the first letter or the first letter of each word. Also do not use ``***'' or similar characters to try to make your ad come first in the listing; they will be edited out. PRICE If you are selling an item PLEASE specify the asking price. If you want to buy something, it would be helpful to specify a price range. Be sure to include the currency units, since this is an international newsgroup; for US dollars, add ``US$'' to the front of the price; for Canadian dollars, add ``CDN$''; for British pounds sterling, use ``UKP''; or whatever currency you want, abbreviated similarly. All-caps is preferred here. PLEASE put a comma (,) between the description and price. Insert a comma every third digit from the right, and do not include a trailing ``.00'' for even amounts. LOCATION If you are in the United States, specify the 2-letter state code and ``USA'' (e.g., ``CA USA'' for California); in Canada, do the same with the province and ``CAN'' (e.g., ``BC CAN'' for British Columbia). The moderator will attempt to discern where the item is based on the text of your message and add a location if you do not supply one. Please do not include the city or what part of the state/province here; do so inside the message. This is intended to make the search mechanism useful for searching by state/province. For other countries, use whatever standards are appropriate for the country. For smaller countries, just mention the name of the country; for larger ones, include the state or province. Capitalize the abbreviations, but spelled- out words should be in mixed case. (More specific information such as city, lake, river, bay, county, etc. can be included in the text of your message.) PLEASE put a semicolon (;) between the price and location. 2.8. What should be in the Body of my message? The format of the body of your post is not important, so long as it is clear, well-organized, and provides all the necessary information. Please be sure to include at a minimum the following information: the description of what you are selling, the name of your company if any, the location (this is important, as the newsgroup is world-wide), price or price range, and whom to contact and how to do so. Do not right-justify your post; leave a ragged right margin. Do not double-space your lines. Keep your line length under 70 characters wide or less. Avoid fancy ASCII graphics, as they do not show up well on everybody's screens. Remember that some people use fixed-width fonts and others use variable-width fonts to read news. Also remember that HTML and images are not permitted here; use plain text formatting instead. If you wish to publicize your boat using HTML and images, do it on a web page and mention the URL in your ad; many web-capable newsreaders will allow you to click on the URL and call up the page. Try to keep your advertisement short. If it is too long, people will not read the whole thing. If you need to provide further information, make it available through e-mail or on a web site. 2.9. What language may my advertisement be in? The moderator has to be able to read your ad in order to approve it. Thus you need to send an English language translation, or post your entire ad in English. Posting multiple versions of the same ad in different languages is OK, but they must all be in one message, and do not use MIME attachments: just list the sections one after another. If it is pretty obvious that your message is on topic and it is not in English the moderator may at his discretion approve it. However to guarantee acceptance English is recommended strongly. 3. Posting Your Ad 3.1. Who should submit advertisements? To make an advertisement, you should be directly associated with the item or service in the advertisement. It is best if you are the person selling or looking for the item or service. If you offer to post for a friend, be aware that even if you say to respond only by telephone to your friend's number, you will probably still get several e-mail responses. If your friend has e-mail, it would be better to have him or her submit the ad that way. 3.2. How do I submit an advertisement? There are several ways: E-MAIL Once you have your advertisement written, you should submit it to the moderator via e-mail to boat-market@bayview.com. Submissions are typically reviewed approximately once a day, especially on weekdays. NEWSGROUP You can simply post your ad to rec.boats.marketplace, and your news server will probably forward the message to the moderator automatically in e-mail. However, the return address may be incorrect if you do this, which may make it difficult for people to reply to you. Therefore, direct e-mail is recommended instead. WWW Use the web-based form available on the rec.boats.marketplace web site <http://www.bayview.com/boat-market/>. Messages posted this way will have a higher priority through the approval queue when the queue backs up. See <http://www.bayview.com/cgi- bin/boat-market/boat-ad.cgi> to post an ad this way. If your ad is rejected, you should receive a message indicating why it was rejected, unless the moderator could not contact you or had already notified you for a similar previous message. Messages which are massively crossposted, chain letters, or spam, will be deleted without acknowledgement, and (if illegal) may be forwarded to the authorities for prosecution. If your advertisement is approved, it should appear within 48 hours. You will receive an e-mail notification if your message is approved; if you don't get the e-mail confirming approval and you think it should have been appproved, wait a couple of days, and if it is still not there then notify the moderator. Note that there is often a delay in the propagation of a message across Usenet. Messages posted by the moderator are not posted at your own ISP as quickly as messages you post yourself. Please wait a day or two before worrying too much. Also, note that expiration times at each news server are determined by that servers' news administrator(s), not by the moderator. This means that your article may expire on one server (such as your ISP's) but still be visible on others, or vice-versa. 3.3. Can I cross-post to other newsgroups? Cross-posting isn't permitted. It is not necessary to cross-post or re-post your advertisement to other rec.boats newsgroups, since rec.boats.marketplace has low traffic and high readership. The reason this newsgroup was created was to cut down on the traffic in rec.boats and the other rec.boats.* newsgroups. Please help in this effort. If you wish to post a question and want the advice of rec.boats readers, post there instead of to rec.boats.marketplace. Messages that ask for help without offering anything for sale, looking for something to buy, or making a boating-related announcement will be rejected. 3.4. How often may I post my ad? According to the charter under which this newgroup was created, advertisements that are the same and submitted within 30 days of each other are supposed to be rejected. It is time consuming to check this on every submission, however. The previous moderator allowed people to submit ads as often as they want, but I will often reject duplicate ads posted within a week or so if I notice it. If it gets to be a problem in the future, this rule may be enforced. Please try to follow this rule and wait 30 days before re-submitting an ad. If there are complaints about particular advertisers, I will enforce the 30-day rule: if you feel that certain ads are being posted too often, please notify the moderator and/or the poster of the ads. 3.5. I posted my message to the newsgroup but I can't find it. Where is it? Properly configured news servers will forward your message to the moderator via e-mail. Some news servers are not configured properly and so the message may not ever reach the moderator. For best results, send your message via e-mail to boat-market@bayview.com. Even once it has been approved, however, it may take some time to propagate to your ISP's news server. If you do not see it in a few days then please let the moderator know by sending e-mail to boat- market-request@bayview.com. Usenet is a distributed system of news servers which exchange articles. When you post to an unmoderated group, your message appears instantly since you are sending it to the same server that you read from. However when you post to a moderated group, the message is sent first to the moderator's news server, and must then propagate through the Net until it reaches yours. This propagation can take some time, and it is imperfect and some articles get dropped along the way. If your article did not appear right away, it may have not arrived at your system yet. Complicating this further is the issue of expiration. Each news server's administrator sets an expiration time for each group. These range from a few days to a month or more, depending on the volume of traffic in the group and the level of interest of that server's users in the group. It is possible for your message to have been expired before you saw it, and even possible for the expiration to have prevented it from ever reaching your news server. Just because you don't see your article, however, doesn't mean it wasn't posted. If you wish, you may submit a second copy of your message after a week or so. You might also wish to discuss this matter with your news server's administrator. 3.6. My message was posted with wrong information. How can I fix it? Once your message has been approved the moderator cannot edit it. He can, however, edit the copy in the archives, so that people can search for it. Please notify the moderator at boat-market- request@bayview.com if you wish this to be done. To change the message in the newsgroup, you must cancel it using your newsreader software and repost. Note that your cancellation must be approved by the moderator and thus may not take effect immediately. Once you cancel it, submit a replacement ad with the correct information. 3.7. I sold my boat. How can I remove my ad? You can cancel it using your newsreader software. Note that your cancellation must be approved by the moderator and thus may not take effect immediately. Also note that cancellation is not honored by many news servers. You can post a followup ad with type ``SOLD:'' and the same description as the earlier ad. This might prevent readers who saw your earlier ad from replying to it. If you wish your ad to be removed from the archives, contact the moderator at boat-market-request@bayview.com. 3.8. May I post a followup to an ad? No. Your message must stand on its own as an ad in order to be accepted. Send replies to the original poster, not to the newsgroup; they will be rejected if you post them. 4. Disclaimer Note: Due to the litigous nature of modern (especially Amer- ican) society, and to the high prices of many boats and boating-related items, I feel it is necessary to disclaim any liability for the items sold through this newsgroup. Approval of advertisements for the rec.boats.marketplace newsgroup implies no warranty as to the serviceability or merchantability of goods or services offered for sale therein. Please direct all inquiries about items advertised here via e-mail or telephone to the person advertising them, not by posting on the newsgroup or mailing to the moderator. By submitting advertisements to the moderator either directly or indirectly, the submitter implicitly agrees that the material may be posted on the USENET newsgroup rec.boats.marketplace. Submitting an advertisement automatically releases the information contained within the advertisement into the public domain, so that it may be archived, posted on the World Wide Web, re-published, put in a collection, sent to readers via electronic mail, or otherwise used in any manner whatsoever, for any purposes, by any person. Typing, transmission, or other errors and inaccuracies of commission or omission may occur, and the moderator assumes no liability for these errors. Advertisements submitted are the responsibility of the submitter. The moderator will not be held liable for the legality or accuracy of the content of such material. In addition, the moderator will not be held liable by either submitters or users of such material for any errors of commission or omission the moderator may make. If there is a dispute between the submitter and any other party, the submitter agrees to indemnify and hold the moderator harmless, and to assume all liability for the content of the advertisement and any disputses arising from it. If you disagree with these conditions, do not submit advertisements to the moderator for posting to rec.boats.marketplace and do not use the information the moderator posts to rec.boats.marketplace. -- SUBMIT ADS: boat-market@bayview.com; COMMENTS: boat-market-request@bayview.com FAQ for rec.boats.marketplace at http://www.bayview.com/boat-market/faq.html Approval of this message for posting implies no endorsement or warranty by the moderator; see FAQ for complete disclaimer. All inquiries should be sent to the advertiser directly, not by posting or sending mail to the moderator. User Contributions:
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