If someone wants a URL posted to the group, they have to observe the guidelines:

Friendship Club List Guidelines and Mission

(1) Send submissions to this list to friendship@cricket-tech.com.
Do not send them to the moderator's personal address or to
owner-friendship@cricket-tech.com or to
friendship-approval@cricket-tech.com. Notice how Mark's recent message
just came across the list with my name on it. This was the result ofM
requiring me to forward it to the list rather than sending it directly.
Even worse things can happen to your message if you do this, so please
"send your submissions to the list, not to me."

(2) Biz-Opp-Of-The-Day. If you have an opportunity you want to share with
the group, this is for you! One advertisement-message will be selected
daily for posting to the group, and will be presented in the order
received. Please include information about (a) how long you've been
involved with the company; (b) your personal earnings/time invested so
far; (c) all costs associated with the program including hidden costs such
as sales aids and check charges; (d) the actual value/cost of the
product/service to the end-consumer, compared to ordinary retail.
(with 50 subscribers, please be patient while waiting for your ad to appear.)
(3) To maintain list quality and keep busy people from signing off, a
maximum of five messages will be selected for posting to the list each
day. Short posts are prefered over longer posts. If you have already
received five messages from the list in the past 24 hours, please wait
until the next day to post.

(4) Persons who have not submitted recently will be given priority over
those who post to the list often. In general, it is preferred that
individual subscribers post no more often than once per week and only once
or twice per thread (although there will be exceptions). Consider whether
your response to a post is better sent to the author rather than to the
entire list.

(5) Please provide an introduction, summary, or discussion of all
references or URL's posted to the list. Don't just post web addresses and
say, "check this out."

(6) When responding to a post on the list, *briefly* quote only the
relevant part of what you are specifically responding to, and write your
message under the quote.

(7) New memberships-- since this a "friendship club," what do you think
about requiring an invitation from an existing member in order to get into
the clubhouse? I propose that new subscribers must be referred by sending
a recommendation to friendship-approval@cricket-tech.com

(8) Please do not spam the moderator. The moderator's job consists
entirely of accepting/rejecting posts, and making suggestions for
revision. Owing to the overwhelming amount of email I receive each day, I
cannot respond to personal correspondence asking me to check out your
website/business opportunity, or to argue about why some posts are
accepted and not others. "Send your posts to the list, not to me."

Here is the mission statement as proposed to the list August 15, 1998.
that these guidelines have been developed through almost two years
experience as the moderator of another list, maps-forum, which now has
over 1000 subscribers. So I hope you can appreciate that having a few
rules can contribute to a list's long-term success.

Here is the Mission Statement for the list as proposed August 17, 1998

>From smiile@usit.net Mon Aug 17 17:39:52 1998
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 03:38:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jon Frederick To: friendship@cricket-tech.com
Subject: FRIENDSHIP: MISSION STATEMENT

I thought it might be about time for me to throw in my two cents about
what I think the Friendship Club is about. I'm all for John Nelson's
spiritual inspiration that started it all: let's have a business
fellowship & leadership group that upholds friendship higher than money!
To me, this mission suggests a few practical uses for a Friendship Club
discussion list. First,

* we're here to help each other to avoid getting ripped off. If you're
considering an opportunity, feel free to ask the group for opinions and
experiences with certain companies, individuals, or particular kinds of
businesses. Second,

* we're here to share genuine opportunities that we've had a rewarding
experience with. This is the tricky point, because, third,

* we're here to make money-- so, I expect we will be challenged to
develop fair and objective guidelines for how and when to most
appropriately ADVERTISE to the group. [This isn't a "safe list" for
spamming just anything to anybody

I'd like to open this third point for debate, but please let me start with
a few suggestions.

* I would definitely want you to tell me (and the whole list) about
companies and opportunities if (a) you personally have earned a good
return on your investment of time and money; (b) you've been with the
company for a few months and have confidence in it's honesty and
stability; and (c) the end-consumer and average distributor are both
getting a good deal [profit, product, service] for their time or money. also,

* I would be quite happy to be enticed into looking at your business with
a FREE offer, or a substantial discount-- as long as there isn't a
catch, or if at least you're up front about what the catch is. [BTW, the
catch on my free autoresponder offer is, "only one per customer." :-) ]

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