Yoo Hoo, John!
On July 25th '97 you wrote to me:
 JG> Rich, I STILL have not gotten a reply from you concerning that netmail
 JG> message I wrote you 2 months ago.  I am starting to get a bit upset.  I
 JG> crahsed the message to your bossnode TWICE.  The sysop wrote me say you
 JG> did receive my message, but no reply.  Would you get me out a reply,
 JG> please?
John, we replied both in netmail as well as here in the Disney echo.
I'm sending that reply to you again now, just here in the Disney echo
since you say you don't get our netmails...
We have also modified the echo rules, as you might have noticed.
Here is what we replied, and it is from both Rich & Carol (By the way, our
decision on this is final...no more discussion on this will take place in
the Disney echo itself.):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Wednesday 25 June 1997  00:08:21
From: Carol Koster
To  : John Giannini
Subj: Disney Echo Policies (Was Re: 101 Dals display)
Hi John!
(This is from Carol, with additions from Rich:)
On Monday, June 2nd '97 you wrote to Rich Kostner:
                                          ^^^^^^^
Maybe one reason why this may not have gotten through is that you
misspelled our last name. :-)
Our BBS Sysop, Rob, said he would write you separately about your
messages getting through to us.
 JG> There are many echos in Fidonet which are forsale type echos.  I carry
 JG>   many. These are some: COLLECTABLES: Buying, selling, trading of
 JG>   antiques and collectables. NONSPORT_CARDS: Buying, selling, trading of
 JG>   nonsport collector cards MTG_TRADE: Buying, selling, trading of Magic
 JG>   the Gathering cards FOR-SALE: Buying, selling of anything - national
 JG>   general echo NAT_FLEA_MKT: Buying, selling, trading of hard to find
 JG>   items STARTREK_CCC: Buying, selling, trading of Star Trek Customizable
 JG>   Game cards TREK_FOR_SALE: Buying, selling, trading of Star Trek and
 JG>   other SciFi themed
 JG>     collectables and merchandise.
 JG> These are but a few.
Thanks for the info, John.  When we include our new rule about discussing
merchandise we'll include these as options for readers to request of their
sysops.  Our Echo Rules are posted monthly.
 JG> I want to distinguish here between forsale echos and commercial echos.
 JG> A person who is a private collector of Star Wars cards, for example, can
 JG> trade cards with others, and put messages out there to that end, but
 JG> that message is still not commercial.  A "commercial" message is a
 JG> message entered by a store or retailer for example, who is selling stuff
 JG> as a vendor.
Yes, John, and maybe you haven't read the Disney Echo for as long as
we have, but we have seen _both_ types of messages you describe posted.
We are discouraging both types of messages.
 JG> The guy who collects Star Wars cards is *not* a store,
 JG> he's just a regular guy.  A distinction needs to be drawn between home
 JG> hobbyists and collectors, and STORES that want to use the net to conduct
 JG> business.  There IS a difference in those two, but you are not making
 JG> that distinction in your echopol, and I think that hurts the echo.
Maybe there are some people in this world who _don't_ want to be sold to
as a captive audience and just want a little corner of the 'Net to go
and read pleasurably and sociably.
(From Rich:  At this end of the keyboard we have no way of knowing if
a person posting as an individual might actually be a retailer in
disguise.  Also, if anyone gets a bad deal from an unscrupulous
seller who has posted messages to the Disney echo, we might be sued
because of our "being in charge" of the echo... Now, it doesn't matter
if there are legal grounds for that or not -- we don't want to set
ourselves up in any way for liability.)
> 1.  The internet is different than Fido.  On the web, spamming is
>     common. This is because most newsgroups are not moderated.
(From Rich: Carol and I don't want to give ourselves extra work, as
moderators, in having to deal with these issues.  As you say, there
are already more appropriate echoes on FidoNet for the buying and
selling of collectibles (Disney ones included)...  Aren't you the
moderator of the COLLECTABLES echo -- and is that the correct
spelling of it?  If you are the moderator, Carol and I would like
to ask your permission to point people over to the echo for their
messages dealing with buying/selling/trading Disney collectibles
(including mentioning this in our revision of the Disney echo rules).
I would think that the COLLECTABLES echo would be the perfect place
for these messages.  If you wish, you can certainly start up a
DISNEYCOLLECTIBLES echo, John.)
> Here is a clip from my official guidelines posting from the X-FILES
> international echo:
[...]
> Further, I also moderate MILLENNIUM, SLIDERS, SQDSV, and TV, the
> latter being the venerable echo that's been around for over a decade
> on Fido.  My "forsale" message policy is the same on all those echos
> as on the X-Files echo.  Now certainly, you'd think that in an arena
> as broad as just "TV", that there'd be an explosion of TV buy, sell,
> trade, collect messages - TV memorabilia is very hot these days and
> comes in tens of thousands of forms.  Guess what? Other than myself
> or maybe 2-3 other folks, there is absolutely NO ONE entering such
> messages in the TV echo, even though they can!
(From Rich: That number of messages would just about double the message
volume on the Disney Echo, John.  We'd rather the Disney Echo was a
place for chat about Disney topics, and not buy/sell/trade.)
Your point about the TV echo is not something that I would assume.
I spent part of my career in television professionally and there is
very little genuine memorabilia about commercial broadcast TV that is
available for the general public.  Most people do not collect
broadcast or cablecast TV shows and they would have no way of getting
scripts, costumes, props, etc. from TV shows.  Therefore, your point
that there are few "for sale" posts on your TV echo is irrelevant,
IMHO.
(From Rich:  And as you know, there are tons of Disney collectible
things, so I'd expect there would be more messages than there would
be for the X-Files, for instance.)
Let's cut a protracted discussion down to the point:  You moderate your
echoes as you wish and we'll moderate ours as we wish.  We agree to
disagree on the message content of the Disney Echo, but since we are
currently the moderators of it this is our judgement call to exercise,
not yours.  You are free to unsubscribe to the Disney Echo and pursue
your interests and management practices as you like and we wish you
good fortune and success in your endeavors.
We genuinely appreciate your taking the time out to politely write
and set our your point of view and rationales.
Also, you were one of the ones participating in the flame war and
Disney Echo social unrest which occured earlier this year, weren't
you?  And it had to do with collectibles?  We had long-term BBSs
cancel their subscriptions to the Disney Echo because of this.  We
are not lightly going to permit that to happen again.  Your choice
is to stay and accept the Disney Echo Rules as they are, and our
authority as moderators there, or unsubscribe and go on with your
life.
BTW:  I am familiar with Tomart Disneyana Catalog and how much it
costs to subscribe, and also with the costs of acquiring Disney
memorabilia.  No offense, but if you can afford to "buy" and subscribe
to that magazine, even jobless, you can afford an Internet
connection at $15-20/month unlimited usage.  If you must sell/buy/
trade, you might wish to become a member of the NFFC and attend
their public day during their annual convention in July in Anaheim.
They bill that day as the world's largest gathering of Disney
memorabilia dealers/buyers.  The NFFC newsletter also offers free
classified ads for members.  Use the contact information in the
post for additional information.  You might find this preferable and
a better suited audience for your interests.
This is our final word on this matter.  But we did want to let you
know we got your message, read it, considered it.  Sorry the news
isn't better.  But that's life, too. :-)
--Carol Koster, Co-Moderator, Fidonet Disney Echo
--- April V1.0+
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