On 5/17/07, David E. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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.
As I put it, I think there should be a limit of what should be included
in a
signature due to the fact that it could and is inevitably advertising your
company.
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.
I agree
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?
Wispa vendor based advertising is, or should be limited to the specific
advertisement only based posts that that vendor has paid for.
What if I don't disclose that I own SuperDeluxeEmail?
Good question, this is a "fuzzy" type of situation, and the person is being
dishonest in posting their views because it is biased. they should disclose
this info. Most companies do when they report on a financial partner. Ever
watch the evening news when they report on a parent company? They purposely
disclose this information.
What if I'm using a sock puppet to tell people how awesome
SuperDeluxeEmail is?
Dishonest and shoud be treated so.
What if, instead of being the owner of the company, I'm just a minority
investor? Or "merely" a very satisfied customer?
Disclose it then.
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?
Not quite sure what you mean.
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.)
Rules
http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
5) No selling or self promotion allowed.
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...)
Not talking about a booth, talking about direct advertisement in a
community
post.
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.
No, just no self promotion that you can "buy this product through me" in a
general post. this doesn't mean you can't say "this product is good because
it does this and this"
It is all a little fuzzy, but I think signatures should be limited to a
single link to their site, if not, the majority of the list is breaking the
rules.
If you don't agree, then maybe the rules need to be changed, or enforced
differently.
David Smith
Employed by [[ That information is not available at your security
clearance, citizen. ]]
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