WISPA has "responsibilities" to the Vendor members? Yikes. Isn't WISPA responsible to the Members and Industry first?
I've resisted joining as a Vendor because I disagree with the commercial nature of it all. It is not the money, but rather the principle. When WISPA was being formed, I contributed about $2,000 in direct cash and Server Licenses to induce others to pay up, yet I have never been a member, let alone a FOUNDING MEMBER as some can claim. I got real discouraged to be throwing my weight behind the whole things and the VERY FIRST act of WISPA was to allow Charles to act as if it were his private list for marketing. Why did they do that? Because Charles gave them some freebies and support. WISPA has to decide if it is an Organization that is for Vendors to market to members or is it an Organization for the Industry to represent the needs of the Industry to Government, and other regulatory bodies. This period before elections is a good time have those discussions and see where all the proposed board members sit on the various issues. I for one would support a strict "no self promotion policy" in ANY email. Keep it to PAID ads (if you need them at all) and limit the number of those that can be distributed. A Vendor should be happy to support the Industry and should not expect a return or special privilege. Lest people jump on me for self promotion, I'll point out that I always try and point people to our Support Forums. This list should NOT become a free support arm for ANY Vendor too lazy or incompetent to set up their own support lines. This list should be for issues that affect the Industry. Your troubles with routing or bridging or particular brand of equipment, although important to you at the time, have very little to do with the Industry in general. There are other lists for that and also Vendors should have their own solutions to help you. So, this is what my day looks like. Now I'll get back to work. We're building 4 more towers this year and I get to run the Bobcat today. It'll be fun after all. Lonnie On 5/17/07, Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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. ]] > -- > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
-- Lonnie Nunweiler Valemount Networks Corporation http://www.star-os.com/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
