Commercial Activity

[StuartDH]

We've recently received a complaint that the site appears to be promoting particular vendors as a place to buy camera equipment. This could prove to be a problem if the charity is seen to act as a mask for a commercial company, which it definitely does not.

Just to make it clear, Wild About Britain belongs to the Wild About Britain charity. We don't receive any money from any vendors and we have no association, partnership or loyalty with any vendor. Other than through the google adverts, we do not promote any suppliers of cameras or other equipment.

In the future I'll remove any references to any vendor that looks as though we're giving free promotion for their products or services, and I'll work my way through some of the older posts to remove the same.

Part of the complaint is that some of the references looked similar to spam, or at least attempts to get a bigger discount from a vendor by putting in a good word for them on the site. To this end, please avoid adding links or references that advertise company's products or services

The above could have very serious implications on the charity and any member who continually promotes a company, including in Private Messages, will likely be banned from the site.

Thanks

Stuart

[Gill Catton]

how would this affect a 'where do you recommend i get ??? from' thread or have you had any problems with 'boggitand leggeit' queries etc......is it just a case of adding in a 'other companies may be as good / bad' type caveat?

[StuartDH]

I think it all comes down to what's reasonable. The odd reference should be OK, but it was pointed out to us that some members have repeatedly posted recommendation for the same vendor on lots of occasions. I don't think that even a caveat like 'other companies...' would be good enough for the Charity Commission.

We've been playing with the idea of setting up the directory to include paid listings from commercial companies, that could then be used as a reference for recommendations. Without a listing they can't be recommended etc, but even that could be a problem if there's too many references from the forum to one company.

[Tormentil]

Does this effect the "Reviews" page ??

[StuartDH]

Originally Posted by Tormentil

Does this effect the "Reviews" page ??

It will if there's a particular vendor being highlighted as the place to buy the items. The review should be about the product, rather than where to buy it.

[kshotton45]

Originally Posted by StuartDH

It will if there's a particular vendor being highlighted as the place to buy the items. The review should be about the product, rather than where to buy it from.

What about an intermediate supplier - i.e. " you can buy this from E-Bay......", where E-Bay do not directly sell a product. Would this cause a problem?

Keith.

[StuartDH]

That should be fine as long it doesn't indicate any particular supplier. I'm currently going through the threads and deleting tons of references to one supplier and to be honest some of the recommendations are written to look like WAB endorses these suppliers .

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by StuartDH

That should be fine as long it doesn't indicate any particular supplier. I'm currently going through the threads and deleting tons of references to one supplier and to be honest some of the recommendations are written to look like WAB endorses these suppliers .

but what if you've stumbled accross an absolute bargain how do you pass on the good news?

[StuartDH]

As I said above, the odd reference should be OK, but when we get so many references to a single supplier that it makes us look like we're favouring a single company and supporting commercial interests then that's not OK.

[eeyore]

I know some other sites deal with this by having a disclaimer that says that the views expressed in the forum are not necesarily those of the site or the charity behind it - would that work for us ?

I hold my hand up to having given a certain ebay trader a number of mentions but it is hard not to do so when people ask for a recomendation or ask where I bought a certain lense/camera/whatever - Whilst i will obviously abide by whatever you decide my opinion would be that so long as the trustees or charity arent actually endorsing a certain vendor the charity should not be liable for what members who arent authorised to speak for the site have to say