Promoting products

[NateHanson]

How do we keep vendors (versus owners) from registering and saying they're something they're not?

You'll never prevent that, unfortunately. If you provide a big enough audience someone is going to try to sell something to that audience. The forum I moderate is one of the larger regional Reef Aquaria forums, and we've got about 400 different people viewing the site each day. That's a big draw for vendors, and we spend a lot of time weeding out shills and reigning in salespeople. Perhaps the Ericson site isn't perceived as such a big potential market, or perhaps it's just a matter of time. I don't know.

The way we handle it over there is that vendors who want access to our members can pay to become sponsors. Then there are specific places on our site where they can promote their products. Vendors who aren't sponsors can participate on the forum, as any other member, but they cannot promote their products.

Occasionally we do spot users who are pretending to be something that they're not, and it's pretty easy to recognize, generally. Shills like that don't put a ton of effort into creating a persona, so it's typically a new member making a clumsy attempt at pretending that they were really blown away by this great product that they have absolutely no interest in promoting. We've even had people create 2 false accounts, and then strike up a conversation with themselves about this really outstanding company that they've found.

What if the forum had specific rules, that said if you're a vendor, you can post a thread (read: one thread) about your product, and provide a link off site for it - but other than that, the forum is for owners to talk about "..this product works, that one does not..." blah, blah, blah?


//sse

That sounds like a good compromise, and a fairly simple approach.

I don't mean to force a solution to a problem that others don't perceive though. Perhaps this isn't an issue on this forum. The only case I'm aware of is this one which is by a real member, not just some salesperson spamming forums, so maybe it's not that big of a deal. My experience is that advertising can really get out of hand if not controlled on a forum, but certainly this forum isn't at that point right now.

 

[Shadowfax]

My Two Cents... Long, Sorry

I’ve been following this thread and feel that a number of very good points have been made. I can see where someone that really likes a product or service would want to relay that experience to the list. I’ve done that myself a couple of times. I’ve also related my experiences with products or services I didn’t like, as have others. The concern seems to be that when a list member has a financial interest in a product or service, no matter how small, that he or she might not be as objective as someone without a financial interest might. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that statement.

Having said that, a separate page where products or services could be listed, thus avoiding a search of the archives, could be beneficial. The listing would be somewhat controlled by the moderators not placing obviously outrageous listings, but members would know going to the page that someone with a finical interest might have made the listing. This could be tempered by allowing list members to comment positively or negatively on their experiences with this product or service. It would not be long before a product or service offered to the list as the greatest invention since ice cubes, but turned out to be nothing but cold water, would actually serve as bad publicity and thus have the opposite effect then that intended by the biased listing.

For instance: Lets say that John Bilge, of Bilge Pumps R Us has been secretly lurking on this site the last five years and see an opportunity to sell his bilge pumps to the list as the best bilge pump ever made because of his soon to be patented widget that allows water to be removed at the fastest rate, with less power, then any other bilge pump. He posts to the page his product with all his contact information, models, benefits of his pumps to mankind etc, etc. Someone looking for a new bilge pump could go to this page, knowing that the listing of Bilge Pumps R Us might have been made by someone with an interest, other then informational, and look up bilge pumps, read of the benefits to mankind and how to get one. Now let’s say I’ve had a very bad, or good, experience with these pumps. I could leave a comment to that effect, as would others and we would soon have a pretty good idea about how good a bilge pump was being made here. I could also make my own listing of say a canvas shop I had a good experience with, but have no financial interest. The archives would still be there for anyone wanting to do a little research and get more detail

The idea of getting into Sponsors, which to me, would be nothing but an advertisement and revenue generator for the list, and I’d treat it as such. I might be more inclined to use a sponsor's product, if I liked it, because they supported the list, but that would be about it.

Hope this wasn’t too long

 

[Loren Beach]

A thought or two

Before further comment on the issue of members selling something to others on this site, consider this completely OK flag-selling thread:
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=5652&referrerid=28

Let's not be too hasty to enact additional "rules" that someone would then have to enforce. Absent the return (Shudder!) of "Sarah@Plasteak", which was dealt with on this site's software by our Friendly Administrator, and by a phone call to the owners of the company by the Senior Moderator, I just do not see the object of this particular thread as a comparable threat to our tranquility.

If the efforts of Sarah were at one end of the "commercial" scale, then Glyn's cargo shifting would seem to be completely at the other "non commercial" and praise-worthy end of the scale.
The rest of us, whether making and selling wood hatches, wood cockpit tables, hats, shirts, or personal collections of boat gear, or reselling some bottles of pollishing & waxing products -- would all seem to fall in a vast gray middle area.

As long as it is owners providing services and sometimes even "goods" to other owners, let's just deal with questions on a case-by-case basis.

Thanks for listening.
Loren

 

[Mindscape]

Bow to the Senior Moderator

I with Loren on this. As I've thought about this and read the additional posts I feel we should lean towards more info than less. We've done well in the past handling this issue, the few times it has presented itself.
I don't think Don was off base in his post, it was done in a manner that let us know his enthusiasm for the product and his relationship to it.
The less rules the better, we're a community of E owners just trying to find answers and help each other out.

 

[Sean Engle]

Yeah, and I don't think it will be that much of an issue in the future as we'll have the 'Ericson Gear' pages on v.2 of the site - which will direct people toward the typical stuff - hats, tee shirts, etc... If enough people like something has to offer (like Morgan's 'Ericson Bottle Bottoms') the they can list it there, and deal with the traffic, etc...

//sse