Policy for dealing with members who have commercial interests in ER.

[SecondCor521]

AndyR,

If I were king, there would be no special forum and zero tolerance for posting links that the poster can profit from. This would include links in the body of a post or in a person's signature or in their profile.

If I, as an ER.org reader, think highly enough of someone's contributions to the board, and have need of a product or service that they could provide to me, then I can PM them and ask for that information, and they can respond if they want.

Your devil's advocate post above smacks more of arguing with what seemed to me to be a solid consensus. Usually when I play devil's advocate I am asking questions instead of restating my point. I do somewhat appreciate your apparently begrudging acknowledgement that maybe you'll do it the way most here want it, but it strikes me as not listening. That kind of garbage makes me consider leaving.

2Cor521

 

[twaddle]

The line between spam and every day self-promotion is often fuzzy. We are likely to have ongoing issues with new users who register, scan or don't read what ever guidelines we have and then post in a somewhat spammy way as an intro. In my short time here I have seen this repeatedly. Some are truly just cruising for business, others are interested in the board, but include a commercial link in their signature, much the way you might include a link or e-mail address in a signature block. Unfortunately, both these kinds of new members are tarred with the same brush and some potentially good members have been driven away to chants of "spammer".

I think you nailed it, Janet. The problem is that it's "fuzzy." And that means we'll have different ideas about who needs to banned. The result is that the membership here often feels the need to police the site themselves rather than letting the moderators exercise their judgement.

So, even if we *should* leave the fuzzy calls to moderators, there's going to be a riot if some poster doesn't pass some self-appointed sitecop's sniff test.

My suggestion would be to explicitly forbid any self-promotion, since that's the ethic here, and let the moderators exercise their judgement in who gets disciplined. Personally, I think the self-appointed sitecops need just as much moderation as the self-promotors, but that's just me.

 

[Andy R]

Thanks again for your input. This is not at all about creating another revenue source. Vendor's forums on other forums have worked (I don't make money from them) and I wanted to see if some people wanted to try it out. I do hear you and I am not trying to smack around the consensus, I was just playing devil's advocate to see if the idea got any traction from the other 430 people that have visited in the last day and did not chime in. I am not trying to make something simple complex but I do think it's wise for us to challenge the way we think to look for better solutions over time. We may not always find a better solution but it can't hurt to think through the process and try.

 

[haha]

Acting as the devils advocate, if this is a feeler for a process that would allow people trying to sell products and services, without those people having been a contributing member of this society, in order to leverage a little extra profit...I dont think that would be well received.

Unfortunately this thought is also uppermost in my mind. Management seems to like this idea- why? Might the new new dog walking area be a revenue generator? If so, I imagine we will be getting it, no matter what we vote. Remember, "this is a private business and the owner can do what ever legal thing he wants".

The most useful fianncial product salespeople who have come by are those who contributed to some thread or other, and mentioned their position, or pointed to a white paper or website. Not everything offered for money is junk-though much of it is I admit. I would think that by destroying trust, letting spammers around might also destroy traffic and capital value of the site.

Still, remember Gresham's Law: Bad whatever drives out good.

Ha

 

[twaddle]

Unfortunately this thought is also uppermost in my mind. Management seems to like this idea- why? Might the new new dog walking area be a revenue generator? If so, I imagine we will be getting it, no matter what we vote. Remember, "this is a private business and the owner can do what ever legal thing he wants".

Ironically, I see this as an example of the prevailing ethic here. No matter what AndyR contributes to the site, people will distrust his self-interest and view anything he says as having some hidden profit agenda.

Since the prevailing ethic here is obviously "don't even try to exploit me, mofo!" I see that as the reason that self-promotion of any kind should be explicitly banned. It goes against the grain, and the membership gets uptight upon sniffing even the slightest hint of it.

 

[Andy R]

I just wanted to reiterate that there is no financial driven motives to this discussion. I hear you and based on the discussion we are not going to have a forum for this. I was just an idea that has worked well on other sites.

I am looking for health insurance now that I am back in the States (I had international coverage from Lloyds while I was abroad) and has an insurance person posted in a forum like this I would have probably given them a call to get a quote. Some people might be looking for an adviser, or some other service. That was part of the logic driving my thoughts.

 

[haha]

Ironically, I see this as an example of the prevailing ethic here. No matter what AndyR contributes to the site, people will distrust his self-interest and view anything he says as having some hidden profit agenda.

Since the prevailing ethic here is obviously "don't even try to exploit me, mofo!" I see that as the reason that self-promotion of any kind should be explicitly banned. It goes against the grain, and the membership gets uptight upon sniffing even the slightest hint of it.

A subtle observation, Sir.

Ha

 

[twaddle]

A subtle observation, Sir.

The gentleman from Seattle honors me in recognizing my special charm.

 

[haha]

I am looking for health insurance now that I am back in the States (I had international coverage from Lloyds while I was abroad) and has an insurance person posted in a forum like this I would have probably given them a call to get a quote. Some people might be looking for an adviser, or some other service. That was part of the logic driving my thoughts.

There was a life and health guy from California who posted for a short while about 3 years ago. I contacted him and he was very helpful. You may be able to find his posts by searching. I bought insurance from a broker in Oregon who is licensed in OR and WA only. He also was very helpful, and has a good website.

I believe I still have this guy's contact info.

Ha

 

[chinaco]

Did this issue come up because of the Viatical b@$t@rd that posted?

 

[Andy R]

nah, it's just something that I wanted to hear your feedback on. The message is loud and clear. So now we can put together a plan to make sure new members know the rules so when they do screw up they can't say "I didn't know".

 

[Coach]

Andy, thanks much for soliciting our input. I like your idea about a specific forum for sales pitches, as long as I can make it disappear for me (not show up in new posts, or on a forum list, or especially searches). A heavy-duty ignore forum feature like that would come in handy for ignoring other forums.

Coach

 

[Nords]

So now we can put together a plan to make sure new members know the rules so when they do screw up they can't say "I didn't know".

I thought that had been done already. In fact ignorance of the rules was no excuse for at least the last two years.

 

[Sandy]

Andy, since you wanted to hear from others, let me add that I agree with the concensus. No special forum for self promotion, there are plenty of ways to find these ads and services if someone is interested. Le the moderators do their job and of course, other posters always seem to be willing to assist.