[CR]Ebay Outing - HOWTO

(Example: Framebuilders:Alberto Masi)

From: Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca>
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 10:32:22 -0700 (PDT)
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]Ebay Outing - HOWTO

we had a discussion about ebay outings on the CR list 12 months ago. there are two requirements for a good post --

a. If it's a bike, please provide make/size/year, at least, in message title. Especially the size. If it's not a bike, please provide enough description in the message title to allow one decide from the message index if it's interesting. This is an archive forum and the ebay items eventually go away, so messages that just say "ebay item" - "golly, look at this one!" are just polluting our history list. Message bodies like, "what an amazing set of cranks!" are also useless for posterity.

Basically, write your emails for the blind CR list member - describe things in detail as if your audience can read but cannot see pictures.

b. When you post a pointer to ebay, always include the item #. Many mailers will mangle ebay URL's, putting =3D's into them. In the past month I've been unable to descramble at least 3 ebay URL's because of this problem. TinyUrl's have a finite lifetime. Therefore, always include the item # separately from the ebay url or tiny url.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA