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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
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