We all love adverts, don't we?

In the beginning, there was uk.games.video.playstation.  And it was 
good.  Until people started advertising there.  Advertising lots and lots.

So Control granted the people their wish, and 
uk.games.video.playstation.forsale was set up.  And the charter for ugvp 
was changed, to forbid adverts.  And everybody was happy.

(funny whizzy fast forward sound)

Currently, advertising for each of the ugv* groups is as follows:

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.DREAMCAST
Advertising (which includes wanted adverts and game trade lists) is 
forbidden, with these exceptions:
Adverts of no more than four lines, which are part of the poster's 
regular signature, and which are not the main reason for the post, are 
allowed.
Owners of web sites with information relevant to the Dreamcast in the UK 
may post, not more than once every 3 months, an advert for their site, 
providing that the site is not used to sell, nor advertise for sale, any 
goods or services. The site may contain "banner"-style adverts if it is 
beyond the control of the site's owner to remove them.

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.GAMEBOY
No more than 1 post per organisation/person per month and post headers 
MUST be marked "FA: " (For Auction) or "FS: " (For Sale). Such adverts 
should be limited to 5 lines in length.

(ignore ugvgc, it's to be shortly deleted)

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.HANDHELD
Advertising (which includes wanted adverts and game trade lists) is 
forbidden, with these exceptions:
Adverts of no more than four lines, which are part of the poster's 
regular signature, and which are not the main reason for the post, are 
allowed.
Owners of web sites with information relevant to the newsgroup may post, 
not more than once every 3 months, an advert for their site, providing 
that the site is not used to sell, nor advertise for sale, any goods or 
services. The site may contain "banner"-style adverts if it is beyond 
the control of the site's owner to remove them.

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.MISC
Announcements of websites containing information relevant to the 
newsgroup (eg. tip sites, review sites, etc) are welcome.
....
The advertising of items for sale (whether as a commercial company, or 
as an individual) is banned. There is a uk.adverts.* hierarchy for that 
kind of thing.

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.NINTENDO
Advertising (which includes wanted adverts and game trade lists) is 
forbidden, with these exceptions:
- Adverts of no more than four lines, which are part of the poster's 
regular signature, and which are not the main reason for the post, are 
allowed.
- Owners of web sites with information relevant to the newsgroup may 
post, not more than once every 3 months, an advert for their site, 
providing that the site is not used to sell, nor advertise for sale, any 
goods or services. The site may contain "banner"-style adverts if it is 
beyond the control of the site's owner to remove them.

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.PLAYSTATION
No advertising is allowed in uk.games.video.playstation. There exists a 
separate group for advertising, uk.games.video.playstation.forsale - all 
advertising posts must be posted to that group, and must not be 
crossposted to uk.games.video.playstation.
However, adverts of no more than four lines, which are part of the 
poster's regular signature, and which are not the main reason for the 
post, are allowed.

UK.GAMES.VIDEO.XBOX
Advertising is forbidden, with these exceptions:
Suppliers of goods and services relevant to the Microsoft XBox in the UK 
may post an invitation to visit their web site or request details. No 
more than 1 post per organisation/person per month and post headers MUST 
be marked "FA: " (For Auction) or "FS: " (For Sale). Such adverts should 
be limited to 5 lines in length.

As you can see, it's a bit higgledipiggity.  According to the above, 
most groups forbid adverts, but there's nowhere for them really to go. 
For example, where would you post and advert for an old N64 game?  not 
in .misc - it's banned.  Not in .nintendo - it's forbidden.

I propose a new group: uk.games.video.adverts.  This group would have a 
standard charter for an advert group, written to prevent spamming. Each 
of the existing groups would have their charter rewritten to match that 
of ugv.nintendo, with an added pointer to the new group.

Why here and not in the uk.adverts.* heirarchy?  Well, my experience 
shows that people are more likely to find and use such an adverts group 
if it's located nearby in the list of newsgroup names.  I RFDd 
uk.local.southwest.adverts many years ago for the same reason - and that 
was a big success.  Furthermore, I think that if it's a proper part of 
ugv* and not stuck somewhere else, we're all more likely to look at it.

It'll be the equivalent of rllmuk's trading folder, if you will.

Any thoughts?

Crossposted with followups set to uk.games.video.misc

Tim (tm)
-- 
tim (at) economic-truth.co.uk
http://www.gamerwiki.com - the videogame encyclopedia
http://xexyz.blogspot.com - Tim's Gaming Diary