JW wrote in :

Commercial postings (either selling _or_ buying) are
inappropriate

Maybe. Selling I can understand, but someone looking to buy or source
parts I'm not so sure about. In any case, I was unable to find a charter
for any of the groups I posted to:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.an...newgroups/comp
No charter for comp.sys.intel or comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.an....newgroups/sci
No charter for sci.electronics.equipment or sci.electronics.components

I realize that newsgroups are often defined by those who actively
participate in them, though. I have no problem with not posting wanted
requests in the future if that's what most people feel in these groups.


In a year of haunting (and posting on) SEC I've never seen anyone get
slammed for putting in a parts request until now, it's almost an every day
event. As most seekers are also after them for their own commercial
purposes, that suggests there's a nice amount of tolerance, generally.

Also, no-one seems much bothered by a commercial response to such a call,
if it IS a response, and not a transparent attempt to look like one while
actually spamming. I guess if someone has seen enough of a particular
commercial responder they might killfile them, but those who earn a rep for
coming through with decent offers seem to be tolerated, after all, many
people never know for sure when they might need that help too.