For some reason I’ve been getting a lot of items from people asking me to call attention to their videoes, their posts, their products, and their projects. Often these requests are accompanied by some statement like, “I think your readers will be interested in this.” Let me call your attention to the Rools, which are always on the sidebar of the site (look left if you’re on a computer and you will see them there). In particular I direct you to Rule #16
16. Please do not use this site to promote your project, book, website, and so on, or to raise money for your cause. If you think there’s a cause that deserves my attention, by all means email me simply calling it to my attention. Please do not tell me that I should post about your pet project, or that my readers need to hear about it or would love to hear about it. A simple mention of the project, without the pressure or, especially, fulsome flattery, will suffice.
That still holds, and in fact it makes me less likely to want to promote a project if the promoter tells me how important and interesting it is. As always, I welcome people calling my attention to worthy causes, projects, and so on, but not with the rider that I should write about them. Professor Ceiling Cat is the Final Arbiter of All Things, and, like a bicycle tire, hisses when overpressured.
kthxbye
Mgmt.
“Professor Ceiling Cat does not like pressure.”
Glad the Albatross is flown?!
“fulsome flattery”
“Final Arbiter of All Things”
:)))
Commander-in-cat: “The litter box stops here.”
In short, filtering spam isn’t censorship.
The one time I pumped too much air into a bicycle tire, it didn’t so much hiss as explode, loudly. I was feeling the tire, waiting for it to become hard. Instead, the old tire began bulging at another point until it gave up its spiritus.
The kids gathered ’round waiting were rather impressed.
tyre!
😉
Tyre? Only in Lebanon, I think.
I think I understand why you don’t like being imposed on and used to further other people’s agendas, but there are times when you’ve posted about this where it seems to me that the difference between “I think your readers would be interested in this” and and otherwise identical email with the same intent that says “I think you will be interested in this” seems fairly trivial. I’ve never violated this rule and have no intention to, nor would I advocate people to do so, but it seems to emphasize form over intent.
I have a link to a video of that awesome fluffy kitty playing with his reflection in a mirror. I’m sure your readers will be very interested… 😉
Seriously, though, agreed. I deal with the same stuff in my everyday business.