I think the big problem here is that Dee almost never posts unless he's got
something to sell folks.
Naturally, people have to be able to talk about what they know. And when a
person is selling a product he'd better know that better than anyone else
eh? grin
WISPA needs funds to accomplish anything though. And the vendor members pay
4x what the wisp members do for membership. With that comes some marketing
rights and protections.
Back in the day I spent quite a bit of time talking to Chris Night (anyone
else remember Sparky of the isp-lists???) about how to run a good list. The
most important thing is to make sure that people are on it and are there
because of a perceived value to themselves. This means that folks need
information, from whoever is giving it. It also needs financial support.
When you start billing for ad content, those paying for it expect, and
deserve, that those not paying for content won't be allowed to post ads.
Especially not blatant ones.
At the risk of offending folks (and none intended!!!!) I'll use Patrick and
Dee as examples. Both are good guys, care about the industry, are deeply
committed to what they do etc. Patrick is a paid member, Dee's not.
Patrick answers general questions about issues whether he's got something to
sell or not. Dee often tells people to contact him for a solution but
doesn't help on list.
See the difference? If you have solutions to problems, you have to offer
them up, even if it doesn't benefit you directly. In this way you become a
vital part of the success of the list. Personally I think one also has much
more credibility. I don't usually read posts from anyone that's always
hocking a product vs. giving away what he knows so that the rest of us can
benefit from it. And no, I don't fall for the trick that friends use to get
each other's names or products out there all of the time.
I hope that Dee does join as a vendor member. I think that would be great.
I also hope that Frank (and the other vendor members) can let this water run
off his back.
I also think that WISPA really should do a better job of policing our lists.
We now have enough vendor members that we're seeing some overlap and we have
more responsibilities to them.
laters,
Marlon
(509) 982-2181
(408) 907-6910 (Vonage) Consulting services
42846865 (icq) WISP Operator since 1999!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam
----- Original Message -----
From: "David E. Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Promotion of services on-list
Zack Kneisley wrote:
I don't feel that ANY promotion of products or services in a signature of
this particular list should be allowed unless you pay for it.
That gets into the incredibly fuzzy question of "what counts as
promotion," though.
Let's take the email thread, as an example.
If I'm the owner of SuperDeluxeEmail and post "you should use my company
because it's the best," that's probably self-promotion.
What if I say "you should use my company because I'm a WISPA member?" Is
that promotion, or an advertisement of the sort WISPA has been known to
offer to paying vendor members?
What if I don't disclose that I own SuperDeluxeEmail?
What if I'm using a sock puppet to tell people how awesome
SuperDeluxeEmail is?
What if, instead of being the owner of the company, I'm just a minority
investor? Or "merely" a very satisfied customer?
What if I think it's a lousy company and I want you to use their service
so you'll think it's lousy and join me in publicly bad-mouthing them?
There's a lot of subtle levels here.
Honestly, IMO a lot of the value of this list comes from the fact that a
lot of different vendors are directly, or indirectly, represented here.
A little self-promotion is probably inevitable, and probably healthy.
(If you can't promote yourself and your business at least a little bit,
you won't be in business for very long.)
Giving WISPA money doesn't (or at least shouldn't) mean that everyone
walks on eggshells around your booth in the ongoing trade show that is
this mailing list, and doesn't mean that we'll overlook any problems or
shortcomings in your product. Conversely, if you make a good product, we
won't ignore it out-of-hand because you haven't yet tithed. (We'll
probably encourage you to do so, but...)
If we're going to start treating some folks differently based solely
upon whether they're paying members of WISPA, this list loses a lot of
its value.
David Smith
Employed by [[ That information is not available at your security
clearance, citizen. ]]
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