Is It Commercial Advertising

Rule #10 of the Cleveland Park Email List rules bans the use of the list for commercial advertising. But list members talk about businesses and services quite often; they recommend contractors, doctors, and other services freely. Teens offer to cut lawns; parents post on behalf of babysitters seeking extra work; computer technicians offer technical advice, and so forth. We (the moderators) have no problem with these sorts of posts. And yet, from time to time, we write to members who submit posts about a type of service they provide for a fee, with a note that says, “Sorry, this post is commercial advertising. It’s not appropriate to the Cleveland Park Email List.”

Sometimes the turned-down poster writes back to ask why a similar-seeming post was approved, while theirs was turned down. Because it is time-consuming for the moderators to respond every time a poster has a question about a posting decision, we are providing a list of the criteria we use when judging whether a post is too commercial to be on our commercial-free list. A “yes” to any of the questions below might lead us to turn down a post:

Is the notice made repeatedly? Anything can seem like advertising if you’re hit with it again and again. The teen looking to mow lawns or the dog-walker looking to fill some free slots shouldn’t be too frequent. We would like to hold such posts to a maximum of 2 or 3 times per year. The same goes for things like yard sale announcements, estate sales, and theater ticket sales -- once or twice a year is okay, but more than three times a year, and it comes across as commercial advertising.

Is the purpose of the notice to help a business make money? Even full-time businesspeople are allowed to post if they are giving something away for free. That’s a benefit to the community. In the same spirit, teachers and trainers are allowed to post notices about free classes or workshops, but with this important caveat: There’s a limit of 2 or 3 times a year for such postings – as putting up an offer of a free workshop on a monthly or semi-monthly basis could simply be an effective tool to bring in new clients.

Is the information in the message the sort you would need to do business, rather than the sort a neighbor would tell another neighbor? Let’s say you’re an aerobics instructor who has just moved to Cleveland Park, and you want to let people know about your classes (for a fee). Here’s what you can and cannot do: You cannot post your class schedules, fees, and course descriptions – that’s advertising. But you can introduce yourself to the neighbors, just as you might do if you were meeting them at a park or in line at the post office. You can tell a bit about your background and say what you do for a living. You can invite them, if they’re interested, to get in touch privately and ask for more information. Please note: This is a one-time opportunity. Once you’ve told your neighbors who you are and what you do, you can’t use the list to keep reminding them that you’d like their business. You are, however, allowed to respond to list members’ requests for information, under the general rules laid out in the next question-and-answer.

Is the subject of the service or business activity something that hasn’t been under recent discussion on the list? If no one has asked for a recommendation for a landscaper, for example, then a landscape architect should not be posting a notice touting his own services. But if a list member has asked, “What’s a good type of bulb to plant in a small shaded yard,” then it’s okay for a landscape designer to reply with the specific information sought. At the end of that post he could add, “If you’d like some professional help in planning your garden, feel free to contact me off list” and include his business contact information. But no details about rates or specials, and no advertising slogans used as “tag lines.” Also, he can’t respond every single time someone asks a landscape-related question. Then it appears as if he’s using the list to troll for clients.

Is the poster offering a personal, in-home service such as babysitting or elder care in Cleveland Park. Over the years we've found that list members benefit from hearing about babysitters, nannies, elder care providers and other personal in-home service providers. If somebody's making an announcement for a service that clearly can benefit a lot of list members and is a one-on-one or personal service like babysitting or elder care, that message is usually okay.

Is there something just not "right" about the message? Responses to a query about a service or product, such as somebody asking about a Yoga teacher or pet sitter are often okay. But if the person asking the question just joined the list for the purpose of promoting somebody's business, or there's something else suspect about the query, then our antennae go up. In other words, shilling, like all fraudulent posts, isn't allowed.

But if you're a retail business with a street presence you can make announcements to the Listserv --

Let's say you own a restaurant in Cleveland Park: You can't advertise specials, but you can let neighbors know about a major change in your restaurant, such as you now accept reservations or you're now open for lunch (that's news). Another example: A retail store could let neighbors know that it's open until 9pm, rather than just open until 6pm (but announcing a sale on mouthwash wouldn't be acceptable.) These announcements should be of interest to the public at large, and need to be relatively infrequent.

Now for the fine print: We make a distinction between retail stores that are open to the general public and other businesses because there is a difference between the two. Stores that are open to the general public have a little more latitude when it comes to posting announcements than businesses where somebody just can't walk in off the street.

In-home personal care givers, including babysitters, nannies, and elder care providers are allowed to post messages offering their services, whether part-time or full-time. We don’t consider in-home care givers to be running a business so much as joining a neighborhood household. However, a domestic placement or nanny agency is a business and is not allowed to advertise the availability of caregivers for placement.

As you can see from the detail and the various “if-then” scenarios in the discussion, this subject is complex, with many subtleties. Different moderators can have different interpretations, depending how each views the poster’s message. Decision-making in some cases will always be somewhat subjective. On occasion posts will appear on the list that violate one or more of our principles. Please don’t write to us to point out these glitches! We know, we know. In a perfect world, ours would be a perfect, commercial-free email list. But until that day … enjoy the list!

And a P.S. There are some other, city-wide email lists that do accept advertising. These include themail, which you can subscribe to at www.dcwatch.com and Craig's List http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/.

Note: If your post does not immediately appear on the list, please do not send it again. Sometimes it takes a while for a message to appear on the list. When posting an item for sale, please don't also post that item for sale on another listserv -- it's not fair to our list members if, by the time they read your email, the item has already been sold elsewhere. (Also, cross-posts aren't allowed.)

All advertisements, notices and other messages must conform to applicable laws, including but not limited to, the Fair Housing Act. List members are responsible for the content of their messages.

To reach the Cleveland Park list moderators in an emergency call 202-986-9275, send an email to the List Owner, whose address is at www.cleveland-park.com, or IM allclevelandpark. Email emergencies are rare, but if you are reporting a hacker attack on the Cleveland Park email list, or need to send out an urgent message about crime or a lost animal and your message needs immediate approval, that constitutes an emergency.