• MODERATOR FOUND: comp.newprod

    From Big-8 Management Board@board@big-8.org to news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,comp.newprod on Thu Jun 12 16:59:36 2025
    From Newsgroup: news.announce.newgroups


    REPLACEMENT MODERATOR FOUND
    comp.newprod


    The Big-8 Management Board is pleased to announce that Ivan Shmakov has volunteered to take on moderation duties for comp.newprod. The group
    will be open for submissions shortly, and this will be announced in a
    post to the group.


    MODERATOR INFO: comp.newprod

    Moderator: Ivan Shmakov
    Article submission address: <comp-newprod-submit@newsmod.am-1.org>
    Moderation contact: <comp-newprod-contact@newsmod.am-1.org>


    POSTING GUIDELINES FOR COMP.NEWPROD:

    [No charter is on file with the ISC for comp.newprod; the following
    guidelines are taken from the periodic posting "Comp.Newprod submission guidelines", posted monthly until 2018-07-15]

    1. The submission must be an announcement of a new product or
    service. The product must be computer-related, and it must be of
    potential interest to a large number of Usenet readers. The
    message must be of lasting value, thus we do not accept trade show announcements, special pricing offers, etc. Commercial messages
    other than new product announcements are not appropriate for this
    newsgroup.

    2. Announcements should *briefly* describe the product, requirements
    (e.g. supported platforms), availability, and pricing. It should
    only take a couple of screenfuls to convey this information. If
    your description is longer than that, then you've either got too
    much detail or too much fluff. All you should do here is summarize.
    Anybody who is interested will contact you for the additional
    information. Similarly, do not include lengthy product matrices
    or order forms; ask interested people to write to you for a copy.
    The ideal length is on the order of 60 lines (excluding headers).
    If your message is much longer, it needs tighter editing. (Please
    note, excessive length is the most common reason for rejecting
    submissions.)

    3. The announcement must be informative. It must contain a brief
    technical description of the product or service, subject to the
    length constraints just mentioned. This newsgroup is NOT a place
    for advertisements! It is a place for factual product info.

    4. The product must be available to all Usenet users throughout
    North America, if not the world. Products with regional availability
    should be announced in regional newsgroups, not comp.newprod.

    5. All announcements must contain the manufacturer's name and a
    contact for additional information. This should include a name,
    telephone number, postal address, and email address. Americans,
    please remember that your 1-800 telephone number might not work
    for people outside the U.S.

    6. The announcement must be from a representative either employed
    by or designated by the product's manufacturer. We do not accept
    announcements from distributors or resellers for products in mass
    distribution.

    7. Leave out the quotations from your company executives and ecstatic customers. If there is useful info in that quote, it may be
    provided more concisely and compellingly as a statement of fact.
    Moreover, we don't need to know about your corporate history,
    customer list, or distribution methods. Please avoid the superlatives
    and superfluous hype. Just the (technical) facts, please. These
    violations are the second most common reason (after message length)
    for returning submissions.

    8. Note that a typical press release does NOT meet the above
    guidelines. They tend to be either too long or too heavy on the
    hype. We aren't the press. We don't want to edit (or spindle or
    fold or mutilate) your announcements as the press might. We simply
    want to publish them. You need to do the editing.

    9. Your article must have a suitable Subject, not something like
    `submission for comp.newprod'. Do not use all UPPER CASE or
    superfluous !!!punctuation marks!!! in your subject (or messages).
    Putting phrases like `new product announcement' in your subject
    is dumb. If it wasn't it wouldn't be in this newsgroup! Select
    your subject with care; a person is going to decide whether or
    not to read your announcement based upon those six short words.

    10. We almost never accept articles that are cross-posted to multiple newsgroups or have been posted to other newsgroups. By definition,
    if a message is appropriate for comp.newprod then it is NOT
    appropriate for most other Usenet groups. One exception: some
    `announce' groups accept product announcements, and we will cross-post
    there if its moderator says OK.

    11. We do not accept articles with a limited `Distribution'. If you
    have availability restrictions then do mention them in the
    announcement, but the announcement must be submitted for distribution throughout all of Usenet.

    12. If the contact person for additional information is not the person
    who submitted the message, then put a `Reply-To' header in the
    message. Do NOT try to redirect email to somebody else by saying
    `send email to ...' in your announcement. People won't. They
    will just hit the `r' key and the message will go back to you.
    If you do not know how to set a `Reply-To', ask for help.

    13. We use a standard keywording system for all comp.newprod messages.
    We require a `Keywords' header on your message. The format is
    `Keywords: company name; product name; keyword, keyword, keyword ...'.
    We welcome (plead for!) your suggestions on keywords. If the
    product is esoteric or outside our areas of expertise, we might end
    up picking crummy keywords.

    14. Your message must be properly formatted, avoiding long lines
    that wrap around a typical terminal screen and strange line breaks.
    We suggest that you break your lines at 78 columns or less.
    Whitespace is your friend (within reason). Carefully spell check
    and proofread your submissions; nothing screams `unprofessional'
    louder than poorly crafted prose. Please go easy on the Cap-Shift
    key. Do NOT right-justify your text; leave `ragged right margins.'
    We are not impressed that you can construct your company logo out
    of Xs and /s. `ASCII art' and gratuitous typesetting effects are
    discouraged. A double pox on people who use overly long signatures.

    15. If you fear the headers of your message might get mangled in
    transit, feel free to note correct header information at the very
    top of your message. Clarifying comments addressed to the moderator
    also may be placed at the top of your message. If, while you are
    at it, you'd like to suggest some keywords for your message, that
    would be great. We will cleanup the headers and remove these
    comments prior to posting.


    DISTRIBUTION

    news.announce.newgroups
    news.groups.proposals
    comp.newprod


    CHANGE HISTORY

    2025-06-12 Announcement
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    Usenet Big-8 Management Board
    https://www.big-8.org/
    board@big-8.org

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