In article ,
Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

"HeadHunter" wrote in message
. ..
A couple of months ago I posted here about some power hacksaw blades I
had.
A few people bought some off me from here and I actually gained enough
cash
to go out and get some silca gel vitrified grinding cups made to my
dimensions ( I had to order 50 of them before they would make one)

[ ... ]

Since it's goods that are used in metalworking would it be considered spam
if I posted asking if anyone was interested in buying a couple of items
from
me? I'm not talking about bombarding the group. I'm talking about 2
items
in 2 posts asking if anyone was interested in my leftover goods.......

Seeking your advice and interpretation.....

In general, if the postings are not too frequent, (excessive
would be once every two weeks for the same item each time), and if they
are short, I see no problem.

[ ... ]

At this point, it looks to me like RCM is sort of a "no holds barred" kind
of thing. Could it be? I guess what really matters is the policy of
the service provider. Maybe someone can step forward and inform all of us
what is, and isn't, acceptable.

*Which* service provider? Usenet is hosted on hundreds or
thousands of systems around the world. There is no *one* service
provider to say yea or nea.

What your *own* ISP can do, is threaten to cancel your account
if you break the rules in the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy), which you
(implicitly) signed by opening an account on the server.

Unless you are spewing out tons of spam, such that it is
*detected* by your ISP, nothing is likely to happen unless someone
complains -- usually *several* someones -- with good evidence.

If you are getting your news service through yet another company
(e.g. some are signed up with newsguy and similar services), then they
are also in a position to revoke your access if you abuse it. Again,
normally, you have to do something which either seriously impacts their
bandwidth (posting hundreds or thousands of identical spam to many
newsgroups), or which provokes complaints from those outside.

For that matter -- you *can* lose your account by posting binary
files to a discussion newsgroup -- but you probably won't for a one-time
offense. Posting copyrighted stuff is more likely to get their
attention.

But even so -- if you *do* get kicked off -- there is always
*someone* who will sell you an account. One such suplier of last resort
is "alt.net", which I block, because almost everyone on it is someone
who has been kicked off of several services previously. "Cass" was an
example, and he is why I put "alt.net" in my "refuse" list. I don't
know *why* ignoramus(some number) has since picked up an account there,
but as a result, I don't see his postings -- only what others quote.

If an ISP has enough offenders, and does not do anything about
complaints, the ISP suffers a UDP (Usenet Death Policy), in which *all*
major news servers refuse to pass on articles from that site. (Similar
to what I am doing on a private basis with alt.net, except that I don't
feed to other systems, while the major news servers are responsible for
carrying articles from and to *many* other servers.)

Anyway -- I don't see a problem with what you propose to post.
If it starts getting extreme, I (and others) will first complain to you,
and I would expect you to stop, based on your posting.

What *I* object to is people posting about openings in "craft
fairs", and offering to sell our crafts. I'm sure that those are
posting to every newsgroup in the rec.crafts.* heirarchy, without
bothering to determine what each is really about. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---