Commercial Activity

[StuartDH]

We delete quite a lot of spam and adverts on here, and we've also binned some obvious new member "where can I buy" questions that had answers from new members with "the best place is...". We've recently received a complaint from someone telling us to level the playing field on 'free ads' and basically allow them to post, or they'll report us to the charity commission. With regards to PMs, they've apparently been given PM recommendations that gave 'biased' support for some suppliers and 'unfair' criticism of others.

Their complaint is that we delete some recommendation threads, but apparently allow others to promote suppliers on the site, so in effect we must be endorsing or looking after these suppliers. They've also made the insinuation that we must be getting well looked after by these suppliers to let them get away with it.

Personally, I've put a massive amount of time, money and effort into WAB and I doubt that the total benefit from sales on all of the recommendations on every thread on the site would add up to what I've put in over the past 2/3 years. Wild About Britain doesn't benefit from any way of the recommendations on the forums, and nor do any of the trustees. If anything the charity loses out as the suppliers don't have to pay through the usual google adverts to get publicity.

So to level the playing field we've got one of two options; heavily restrict the use of supplier recommendations, or allow every ebay trader, retailer etc to use the site as a place to post free ads in forum threads (including the more discreet "where can I buy..." spam). There's no way the second one is going to happen, so we're going with option one.

As I've said above, we'll allow the occasional post of a recommendation for a supplier, but if it looks anything like one supplier is getting too much publicity on the site then we won't hesitate in deleting all references. If you need to make a recommendation, wherever possible, please be vague enough to not specify a single supplier.

As said before, everything in moderation. We'd certainly never allow every post to include a recommendation, and it appears that even the amount we had before was too much for some. However, we don't expect there to never be any more recommendations, so I'd simply ask that we keep it to an absolute minimum and fair for everyone. That said, if a recommendation for one supplier is soon jumped on by lots of other suppliers who post (or it looks like others are posting on their behalf) to also recommend them, then the thread will probably be binned.

As for the charity situation. Wild About Britain is a registered charity, which provides us with some benefits, but it also means that we're subject to many extra laws, rules, regulations, public accountability and scrutiny by the Charity Commission. This means that we can't always run the site in the same as we maybe would if it belonged to us personally. It means that we can't support commercial activity where the charity doesn't gain anything in return, so obviously adverts and sponsorship are OK.

First and foremost we have to protect the interests of the charity and then we have to ensure that we're serving the true beneficiarie; and that doesn't extend to helping out suppliers who can potentially make a lot of money out of the site and in no way contribute anything in return.

Stu

[eeyore]

I understand what you say stu and will obviously abide by the new rules but my opinion is that there is a third way - we could ban spam and overt advertising but still allow supplier recommendations from established members as there is a difference between a supplier posting to recomend themselves and a member posting to reccomend someone who has given good service / price /deal

My opinion is that recommendations are not advertsising they are advice to other members which is a large part of what the forum is for - if the complainers wish to be recomended in the same way they would then only have to offer the same excellent service as the people who have been previously reccomended. - still I guess the complainers(whoever they are) will reap what they sow as now even if they give one of us a keen deal and outstanding service then we wont be able to reccomend them to anyone else.

I am still suprised about the PM issue though - I cant see how wab would be anymore liable for what a member writes in pm than google are for what someone writes in their google mail

But at the end of the day I recognise that this is only my opinion and it is not for me to make the rules, and although I might do it differently if it were , in this as in every other case I support stu's decision 100%

[agrumpycow]

Originally Posted by eeyore

I understand what you say stu and will obviously abide by the new rules but my opinion is that there is a third way - we could ban spam and overt advertising but still allow supplier recommendations from established members as there is a difference between a supplier posting to recomend themselves and a member posting to reccomend someone who has given good service / price /deal

But how could that be achieved without a huge amount of time and effort by the mods? And what would you define as 'established members'?

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

And what would you define as 'established members'?

the general rule is 25 posts - as in the right to add signatures etc , and the mods already put a huge ammount of time into deleting spam adverts. But I probably shouldnt have posted that above - it would have been better in a pm to stu.

At the end of the day admin make the rules and the rest of us play by them so i'm not going to argue the toss on this subject anymore as i dont want to make stu anymore work.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by DaiTheDragon

Does this work both ways. If a post is made giving information about a disreputable retailer or one that has continually given bad service, is that wrong also.
I don't quite understand how the site is a charity, could Stu give a brief rundown on how it works.

Dai

I was wondering that too. I recently received absolutely atrocious service from a well known Internet supplier and said so in a forum post, advising others not to use them. Is this still allowed?

Dave P.

[StuartDH]

Again, everything in moderation. I think it'll be OK to add the odd reference, but if there are 100+ posts that give the same supplier a bad review (like there were 100+ posts that praised one supplier in the forums) then we might expect to get complaints from them.

[StuartDH]

Originally Posted by eeyore

I understand what you say stu and will obviously abide by the new rules but my opinion is that there is a third way - we could ban spam and overt advertising but still allow supplier recommendations from established members as there is a difference between a supplier posting to recomend themselves and a member posting to reccomend someone who has given good service / price /deal

My opinion is that recommendations are not advertsising they are advice to other members which is a large part of what the forum is for - if the complainers wish to be recomended in the same way they would then only have to offer the same excellent service as the people who have been previously reccomended. - still I guess the complainers(whoever they are) will reap what they sow as now even if they give one of us a keen deal and outstanding service then we wont be able to reccomend them to anyone else.

I am still suprised about the PM issue though - I cant see how wab would be anymore liable for what a member writes in pm than google are for what someone writes in their google mail

But at the end of the day I recognise that this is only my opinion and it is not for me to make the rules, and although I might do it differently if it were , in this as in every other case I support stu's decision 100%

I don't think the third way would work, because it would just give some members the facillity to make recommendations and not others, and that's not a level field. Also, the complaint was basically directed at established members adding the reviews, and new members not being able to do the same.

One or two recommendations isn't necessarily advertising, but I've spent hours going through lots of recommendations for one supplier after it was pointed out that it looks a lot like 'adverts on behalf of...'.

With regards to PM, WAB has a responsibility if we knowingly allow it to go on. It would be ridiculous to stop it in the forum, but feel free to do it when nobody is watching via our PM system.

The fact is, for the sake of some recommendations I'm simply not willing to put any aspect of this charity at risk, just so that a member can save a couple of quid, a supplier will give bigger discounts, or another can make more sales. It should be enough to say 'look on ebay' or 'some garden centres have...' without giving the name/webpage/email address/phone number of a particular supplier dozens of times each month.

The major beneficiary here are the recommended suppliers, who have literally been laughing all the way to bank. Some members might save a couple of quid by getting a bit of a discount. But all the charity gettings is grief.

So the forum rule, which is pretty much the same as it's always been, is now: 'You may not advertise any products, services or suppliers.' Everything in moderation, and obviously it's down to the moderators to decide if it's a recommendation or advertising, but members can expect a warning and/or being banned if we feel that they are breaking the rule.

Stu