The need to balance common sense against forum spamming

[Stuart Wright]

AVForums is an unbiassed platform for discussion. Those people having the discussions are usually far from biased, but hopefully there are enough people contributing to produce a balance of opinions.
As you know, we need to show you banners in order to pay for the AVForums. Since we take paid advertising, people will always be tempted to accuse us of bias towards the advertisers. Let me explain where we stand in this regard.
No advertiser is allowed to break the forum rules. The moderators’ remit is to apply the forum rules fairly and evenly no matter who they are dealing with. We can do no more than stress this fact to you. So we take advertising, yet we remain unbiased.

We have a problem with the AVForums rules as they exist at the moment. Rule 7 exists for two main reasons:
1) to stop spam. Nobody wants to see people posting adverts in threads.
2) to maintain AVForums revenue. If people could post adverts in threads, they would be less likely to purchase advertising.

Rule 7 is a tricky one to judge (as well as implement). Nobody may solicit business in posts. This extends as far as us preventing a retailer from letting people know when they have stock of a product.
There is a situation when rule 7 works against the ethos of the forums. Let’s look at a reasonably common example. Someone asks for a retailer in their local area. One of our advertisers is not allowed to reply to their question yet another member is allowed to recommend a non-advertiser. That seems very unfair because advertisers supporting us are putting in the effort to contribute to the forums, yet are gagged by our rules and are unable to help a poster.

Our proposal is to create a special group for those advertisers who commit to 12 months advertising called ‘Assured Advertisers’. They would be identifiable by the text 'Assured Advertiser' in their signature linking to a page explaining what an assured advertiser is.
The advertisers in this group would be allowed to reply to direct questions with answers which would otherwise break rule 7.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Say someone asks for details of a dealer in their locale.

‘Can anyone recommend a retailer in Sheffield?’

A premium advertiser could reply saying

‘Yes we are in Sheffield, check out my signature for details’.

The advertiser has answered the original poster’s question and so the reply is allowed.
If they then went on to add

‘and we provide the best service in South Yorkshire’

Then they are definitely breaking rule 7 and their post would be dealt with by the moderators.
Another example.

‘Where can I pick up the JVC HD1 projector?’

The reply

‘We have them in stock for £4,000.’

Is ok since it’s answering the question. The additional availability and pricing information is acceptable since it’s pretty much essential to the original poster. But

‘give me a call and we can get one out to you for tomorrow’

is pushing it too far.
I hope these examples illustrate that we are giving long term advertisers a little more latitude to provide useful information without getting stomped on by the moderators. If, however, they go beyond answering the original question, breaking rule 7 with gratuitous solicitation, then their post will get removed. So we are not in any way giving a green light to spam.
This change, I think, will allow common sense to prevail.
Also, by restricting the change to long term advertisers, we are ensuring that only those companies committed to being around for 12 months get the publicity.
We plan to make this change from June 1st. The proposal may be tweaked as we get feedback from people.
Related to this change is the issue of the displayed user group. Currently retailers have 'Retailer/Installer' displayed under their user names. This exists to alert readers to the fact that the advice these people is giving may be commercially skewed. However, the down side is that these people are getting free advertising. So we are removing these titles, happy in the knowledge that if a retailer gives dodgy advice, there are enough knowledgeable people posting in the forums to put forward an alternative opinion or even 'out' the bad advice for what it is.
We plan to make the user title change pretty much right away.

[Figment]

Some commendable changes there IMHO Stuart but not too sure about the last one re- retailers/installers. I personally think members would prefer to know that a post is coming from one which and as for free advertising I would have thought the likes of Gordon & Neil have more than earned that, given their large input of invaluable knowledge over long periods of time. Just my thoughts anyway.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Figment: As a long time member and paid up advertisor I am allowed to have in my signature what I do and my Company details. I think that folk will be able to work out I am in the biz. In actual fact it annoys me when I see folk who are in the biz posting about stuff and not actually saying anywhere they do work for a retailer or distributor as I think that open and honest discourse is a minimum standard we should expect.

I am glad that at least Stuart is looking at possible solutions for the rule 7 headache that has been afflicting many of us for so long.

Thanks

Gordon

[Dr Force]

Stuart

I understand that running sites like this is quite exspensive and requires alot of work.

The revenue obtained from retailers is a good source of income and I for one beleive that the amount of time and effort put in by retailers gives so much back to memebersthat they deserve payback.

Is it not unreasonable to create a section allowing donations from members for the general upkeep.

every little helps

[Badger0-0]

It strikes me that it won't address the policing issues, the mods will have just as much work in figuring what is straightforward fact and bias/opinion/advertising, IMO.
But there you go, it's not my choice

Personally, I like to know I'm reading a retailer's post.
That way, I'm automatically more guarded.
IMO, there's personal bias and commercial bias. The two are different things.

Also, I fail to see how there is any advantage or free advertising if the retailer is not actually allowed to say what he sells

But as I intimated, it's your site and I abide by your rules, simple as.
At least we get a chance to air our views

[Neil Davidson]

100% agree with the comments from Gordon.

Rule 7 is undoubtedly required but I would imagine that some forum members would be surprised how easy it is to unwittingly fall foul of the rule in offering advice to others. It is not fun to see your user name in the dreaded itallics!!!

I commend Stuart for looking at a common sense solution that allows sensible, direct replies. As ever the exact rules will need to be clarified but all in all a good move for everyone.

As Gordon points out, only advertisers are allowed to put their business details in their signature and it should therefore be clear to everyone who is putting their money as well as their time in to supporting the community here!

There is currently no restriction on anyone putting their business website as their homepage in their profile and I find I use this to check out other trade members! I'm not sure I would get rid of the trade indicators as it helps put responses in perspective - it would be useful if you could have multiple designations though

Neil

[Timbo21]

Originally Posted by ceenhad

There is currently no restriction on anyone putting their business website as their homepage in their profile and I find I use this to check out other trade members! I'm not sure I would get rid of the trade indicators as it helps put responses in perspective - it would be useful if you could have multiple designations though

Neil

Yes, I think Installer/Retailer ID's should stay, but ONLY paid up advertisers should be allowed to put links in their signature, or even homepage links to their business under their profile.

T.

[senu]

Originally Posted by Timbo21

Yes, I think Installer/Retailer ID's should stay, but ONLY paid up advertisers should be allowed to put links in their signature, or even homepage links to their business under their profile.

T.

ditto
I dont think it prevents common sense from prevailing
For instance being a retailer of say, videogames doesnt mean that as a poster in the Digital camera section, the retailer will give "biased" advice . A lot of members would be grateful for with some "seasoned" advice especially when no sales pressure is percieved..If Ive had good service from an advertiser here I would love to refer to them but knowing them first is the key to that
Just my tuppence

[Piers]

Stuart,

At last sense prevails. Rule 7 is good and important here but abiding by it whilst still being able to post (hopefully) good advice to forum members has been a nightmare. As a retailer, every time I post I ask myself the question "will I get done for Rule 7". I admit to having sailed close to the wind sometimes, had very occasional posts deleted, but perhaps lucky enough not to have appeared in italics.

It made no sense to me when someone from the West Midlands might have said "I am impressed by Phil Hinton's review of the Audyssey MultEQ Pro but I want to hear / try one and I am not prepared to drive to London / Newbury to do so". When I have one here in the West Midlands and have been a long term sponsor of the forum why should saying "yes, I have one here, come and listen" be unacceptable. Yes, it may lead to a sale, but I along with the other sponsors of the forum aren't on here purely to offer free advice.

I cannot speak for other sponsors but my own take on the situation is that free advice is given readily and willingly. I just hope that there can be a limited amount of "slack" in promoting our businesses as a result. Good, free advice will be the result, to the benefit of your forum and its members.

[Stuart Wright]

My common sense comment refers to allowing certain retailers to reply to direct questions (not the user titles part of these changes). Piers' example above goes beyond this. We have to be careful not to allow this extra lattitude to go too far. Once we allow retailers to post proactively rather than reactively, we open up an unpleasant can of worms. Where would we draw the line? This rule has to be managed very carefully.

By the way, not all advertisers are Assured Advertisers.

With regard to user titles (displayed under their names), for those advertisers who take an active role in the forums, it is frustrating that non advertisers use the title Retailer/Installer to generate themselves business. They answer a few questions, sometimes inferring that they can supply goods, knowing that people will see their Retailer/Installer title and contact them by PM.
Don't get me wrong, everyone's legitimate contributions to the forums are, of course, welcome and appreciated. However, because of the size and popularity of the forums, the value of the Retailer/Installer title has grown beyond something we can allow retailers to continue to have for free. That doesn't necessarily mean we will start charging for it. At the moment we are returning all retailers to the normal Member hierarchy of titles.
This is all part of managing the growth of the forums.

[PioRow]

I understand the need to remove the retailer tag but I would prefer if it would stay. Now that assured retailers can now indulge in a very light form of advertising I think its important for non assured retailers to be clearly identified. If someone is offering me their opinion on a subject or a product its usefull to know that they are a retailer so I can be wary of what they are saying.

Its clear that the moderators are going to have a tough time deciding what the assured retailers can and cant say. I dont envy them at all.

[Phelan74]

Very interesting topic and I like the way you are handling it.
Seems very balanced and fair.

[Peter Galbavy]

Good changes, and carefully done. However, I would also recommend putting in a caveat about responses to bona fide queries. Even assured advertisers may be tempted to ask a friend or colleague to post a query that they can "helpfully" respond to. Not everyone plays nice, else SPAM wouldn't exist.

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by Peter Galbavy

Good changes, and carefully done. However, I would also recommend putting in a caveat about responses to bona fide queries. Even assured advertisers may be tempted to ask a friend or colleague to post a query that they can "helpfully" respond to. Not everyone plays nice, else SPAM wouldn't exist.

That's always been an issue. And unless we have strong proof, not one that we can do anything about. If we do have proof that a retailer has been playing unfairly in this manner, we'd likely permanently ban them.

[Peter Galbavy]

Originally Posted by Stuart Wright

If we do have proof that a retailer has been playing unfairly in this manner, we'd likely permanently ban them.

Once someone pays for 12 months of advertising, it becomes a very different matter to ban them from posting, especially if part of the package you have sold is the label of "approved advertiser" or whatever.

With us normal plebs you can say "this is a free board, our say is final". Once someone pays for it, it becomes an issue of formal proof and process. That must be accounted for in the T&Cs. As I said, good luck.