Hi all,

Time to clear this one up.

The "A. Thompson ETH job advert" doesn't exist.

There was, however, a piece of "commercial" advertising by the Geological
Society about new publications.  Embedded within this was a reference to A.
Thompson (ETH Zurich) as a contributor to one of their publications -- This,
I think, was the OFFENDING message with attachments not a "Job Advert".  The
previous post to this was for a Job as an economic geology professor. It
seems that the two messages have got "incorporated" into one.  Probably
during a members fury at having to wait while 10 Mb of duplicate e-mail
messages and attachments downloaded via a modem connection.

Posting Job Adverts for economic geologists, "mineralisation" PhD
students/postdocs, exploration geologists is legitimate "advertising" and a
use that the majority of members would not want to see stopped or changed.
The same goes for the posting of conference or scientific meeting
information or announcing a call for research grant proposals.

However, a long unsolicited posting concerning the content and price of
books at the Geological Society that also invites people to go on-line
shopping is not acceptable use. Also, none of the "advertised" publications
had anything to do with mineralisation.  Mailbase (the list administrators)
has an acceptable use policy and this is posted at

http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/docs/aup.html

Essential reading for people thinking of posting "commercial information".

Now seems a good time to remind people about list etiquette before this gets
out of hand

Whenever you make a post, please remember not everyone is fortunate enough
to have FREE and FAST internet access.

Try and keep messages (reasonably) short, do not include attachments, and do
not include previous posts -- these are automatically threaded for you at

http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/geo-mineralisation/archive.html

No direct commercial advertising, if you wish to publicise your product and
you think it's appropriate for the list then e-mail the list owner for
permission ([log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask])

If your unsure about a particular "advert", post it to
[log in to unmask] for "forwarding" to the list by
the list-owner.

Just to let people know, the list IS SECURE against general spams.  Anyone
who wants to post to the list has to be a member, and you cannot join from
fictitious e-mail addresses.  E-mail addresses are also only available to
list members.  

However (as in this case), I cannot stop someone who is a list member
posting an "advert" to list.  I can only "remind" people what is considered
"good practice".

This is only the second "discussion" about "advertising" in the history of
the list so, unlike some, we're not exactly plagued by "adverts" and the
ensuing discussions.  Lets keep it that way.  If you feel that a particular
posting breaches "acceptable" use of the list, then please e-mail me with
your complaint.  I'd rather people did this than post their "thoughts"
directly to the list.  I will see that any complaint is correctly dealt
with.  This is also "good practice" and helps keep non "mineralisation
discussions" off the list

That's enough lecturing for now.  Hopefully we can now put this issue to bed

Best wishes

Jon

Jon Naden (list owner)
British Geological Survey
Keyworth Notts
NG12 5GG UK

Tel: +44 (0)115 936 3163
Fax: +44 (0)115 936 3302







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