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Promoting the lists on your individual websites. It's fine with me.
There's one thing I want to make sure that we DO NOT DO...
We can't go to other lists and promote the CITY lists. It's
considered rude.
We had that happen with COC. A list member left out with a public
unsub and you know that's one of my pet peeves. Not only did she
publicly unsub, she said she was going off to peruse her own
endeavors with her list and her website, which is "member rustling"
and spam. Then after a couple of weeks she rejoins and now wonders
why I keep her on moderated status.
My reason for keeping her on moderated status was for her public
unsub that was member rustling and spam. I will approve of her non-spam posts but will leave her spam to evaporate in pending messages.
I felt she was not thinking when she did the public unsub. I felt
that she was out of line to promote her list when it is in direct
competition to COC "featuring webcam demos" no less. I felt she was
in violation of no spam without a discount to the whole list rule we
have on COC.
ClayAlley is "official" vendor for COC because Karen give discounts to list members and
is active
on the list and in demo.
Participation and discounts are the two ways a vendor can advertise
on the list and do customer service during a demo. It's a benefit to
them to be able to make a couple of sales during a demo because it
is a benefit to the list members to get good service and a discount
from them.
All other spam is blocked or the vendor put on moderated status.
There were some vendors who wanted to spam COC for their expensive
retreats and they only post when they want to pick our pockets.
I have issues with that for COC is to serve the poor who are not
served elsewhere. I also have issues with that because none of these
vendors or guild leaders got in touch with me ahead of time to ask
if it was ok to share their event with COC. Those who do I'm usually
cooperative with.
Polite works wonders. When vendors do get in touch with me I write
to them and ask "What is the discount for the list members and what
are you donating to our Charities for needy ClayMates? Are you going
to participate on the list or in demo?" if they don't have good
answers to those questions they cannot use COC as a captive
audience. We get spammed enough by strangers, COC is going to be
free from that. They stay moderated. They usually leave because they
only join all the clay or mini lists to cross post.
Cross posting is not good form for List leaders also. It is
considered rude in the world of email lists.
There's some ClayMates who only post to spam and the COCModSquad are
reviewing their posting habits and there are some who are up for
Moderation right quick.
There was a situation where someone who benefited from our Natural
Disaster relief effort after a tornado blew away her craft room. She
only cross posted spam for her "new born babies" on all clay and
mini lists. When we put her on Moderated status after a long time of
being generous to her, she got all huffy and wrote a nasty letter
back to us. Frankly, our feelings were hurt because we did come to
her aid. So she left out and she is not welcome back to COC.
Same with the lady who cross posts spam for her Doll Collection
Sales.
The COCModSquad works hard to make the list life of COC to be spam
free as well as peaceful. We don't do "Advertising Friday" or any of
those sort of things like some lists do, which are annoying and then
no one reads the email on Fridays.
Suggest to your list members that if they have websites, ebay
listings or anything else they'd like for folks to look at to put it
in their signature line at the end of their posts. That signature
lines that are more than 5 lines long are a bit of a eyesore and not
appreciated on Lists in general.
That's why I have the "Generic List Guidelines" go out to all CITY-
Leaders when they join here. It's not something I made up because
I'm being a hard ass, it's what is considered appropriate and
acceptable list behavior all across the list world. The specific
guidelines I wrote were born from experiences with the old list
family and was discussed at length with CITY-Central, the people who
worked to form the structure, tone and tenor of the CITY List
family.
So I'm sending this out as a Special Notice because it would be nice
if all the CITY-Leaders didn't commit those common list violations.
(1) Bar spammers from your lists with moderating all new list
members on their first post.
(2) Refrain from spamming other lists about our CITY lists.
(3) Totally ok with me to promote CITY lists on your individual
websites.
(4) Teach your list members that promoting their lists on your list
is not acceptable anywhere. Moderate them and write to them off list
for a little "One to One" and explain your reasons. If they get
huffy, show them the door. The world is big, there's other lists out
there that they can violate.
(5) If you are on other Non CITY lists and you see the same person
cross posting their spam everywhere, then it might be a good idea to
put them on moderated status on your list to spare your list members
from seeing their spam again.
If there's other guidelines that any of you feel would be good for
all of us to adopt, so the experience for our list members is
smooth, free of spam, and peaceful, please post it here.
All the guidelines we are using were formed by many folks, I didn't
make up any of it. I say that for on the other list family leader's
list folks got hostile with my seeming like some sort of authority
figure they needed to rebel against.
I just say this ... COC is a large list, growing all the time, even
with the loss of memberships with the list name change we still have
had a PLUS growth factor with memberships. Folks are happy and
peaceful. It is because I've learned from others about how to run a
list so it is active, happy and peaceful. I'm only making effort to
share what I know with all y'all here.
Truth of fact, I have no power. I can't MAKE any of you do anything.
I've asked that after I get promo code and help you with your home
page to demote me to member status because I don't want any "power"
on your lists. You are independent and autonomous and I do as much
as I can to promote that because I trust all of you.
I can only suggest, persuade and share what we on the COCModSquad do
to make COC successful, hoping that y'all will learn something from
that to make your lists successful as well.
whew... I had been rolling these issues around in my head for days
now.
Thank you for reading down this far.
xoxo
NJ |
