John H. Moore
Contributor
After sleeping on it and digesting Pete Murray's message to me (which he cc'd to ScubaBoard on the other thread), I'm struck by the inconsistency of the following:
- I may, under the rules expressed by Pete Murray, post the following, "Hey, I found great deals at XYZScuba.com, go check it out!" (when I'm either not at or claim to not be at XYZScuba, even though it's a commercial diving website)*
- I may not, under the rules we've been discussing since last night, post "please help me identify a bunch of fish at DivingInfoABC.com" (when I'm associated with DivingInfoABC.com, even though it's utterly non-commercial).
The first is not advertising, but the second is.
That seems to leave the door absolutely wide open to spam while shutting out useful non-commercial content.
*Pete Murray (NetDoc) said, "There can be non-solicited primary posts by someone who is not an agent of the entity like Hey, go check out XYZDivers.com way cool! We believe that this type of word of mouth advertising by contented users is wonderful and less likely to be self serving."
- I may, under the rules expressed by Pete Murray, post the following, "Hey, I found great deals at XYZScuba.com, go check it out!" (when I'm either not at or claim to not be at XYZScuba, even though it's a commercial diving website)*
- I may not, under the rules we've been discussing since last night, post "please help me identify a bunch of fish at DivingInfoABC.com" (when I'm associated with DivingInfoABC.com, even though it's utterly non-commercial).
The first is not advertising, but the second is.
That seems to leave the door absolutely wide open to spam while shutting out useful non-commercial content.
*Pete Murray (NetDoc) said, "There can be non-solicited primary posts by someone who is not an agent of the entity like Hey, go check out XYZDivers.com way cool! We believe that this type of word of mouth advertising by contented users is wonderful and less likely to be self serving."