Has bit ever considered asking retailers who are also forum members to indentify themselves? I occasionally come across posts handing out 'advice' which often come across more like a sales pitch and it hink it would helpfull if people knew the poster had an affiliation with a particular brand or product. I post on AVforums and all retailers there have 'retailer' beside their username.
Speaking personally, no, I have never considered asking this. Why? I am not currently aware of any retailer actively attempting to mask their identity. I'm pretty sure the ones I know about use their company as part of their username or perhaps in their signature so people know who they are. DRB - if you, or anyone reading this, finds suspect posts, please report them to the appropriate forum admin. Of course, you are always welcome to email staff directly about such conerns. Forward links to geoff.richards AT bit-tech.net
If you see a post like you describe, just report it - we don't allow pimping without prior permission and i doubt we'd allow what you describe.
Members with "special knowledge" from their professional side (such as Dorothy Bradbury at SPCR, AntecCSR at Ars Technica, Henry (Matrix Orbital) here at Bit) are valuable assets to any forum. It's also to their advantage to openly declare who they are, it lets us readers know they're giving good info. Blatant pimping, just report as said.
Case in point was a review of a HTPC case with a small TFT screen a few months back where a rep of the company popped up on the boards and no one realized he was a rep until RTT (I think) identified him. Also, the recent article on the hackers group offering a free VPN for secure browsing attracted some members of that group, though I think they found their way here on their own. I remember at least one case in the past year where an over-zealous employee of a company who's product had been reviewed (I think it was a mobo, but I could be wrong) was asked to leave the forums for this. I guess my point is that it seems more common from out here than it might from in there.
I hope you can appreciate that it is hard / impossible for us to force manufacturer employees to openly declare themselves on a pre-emptive basis, as much as we would encourage them to do so. And for obvious reasons, we will enforce Forum Rules which forbid any blatant p1mping. For anyone who has an interest / concerns about this kind of thing, I would strongly recommend this article at The Escapist discussing what is now known as OGM, or Online Guerilla Marketing. I would stop short of assuming that every manufacturer is employing OGMs, and err on the side of caution before we go banning genuine readers for suspected OGM-like activity. Indeed, if they are any good they will avoid detection altogether. I DEFINITELY want to avoid a Counter-Strike-esque atmosphere where everyone is presumed a cheater (OGM) until proven innocent. Any bans will be a measured response, following written warnings to the offender
Fair points form the staff and it is your forum after all. I know AVforums in particular ask all retailers to identify themselves, its part of the forum rules, and then if they are pimping or pushing a particular product all the forum members at least know they might have a personal interest in recomending a product or service. Although not a particulary bad example this thread was the one which made me raise my concerns.
I'd agree. While taking advice from some shop owners might be a less accurate way of finding stuff out(since some would naturally want to sell your their wares) - if they're from a decent place then they're not gonna be anything but an asset to the forum. Like the examples mentioned in cpemmas post above. I kinda share Da_Rude_Baboons concern in some respects though, that OGM thing you talked of The_Pope, is exactly the sorta thing that starts to make you doubt advice you're given.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, since he's also the administrator of Aqua-PCs forum, I think it's safe to say that he's from there. I'll look into the whole retailer/manufacturer identification, because I agree with what you're saying. If a manufacturer/retailer says something on our forums, I want the readers to know where their interests lie.
I agree with you completely there. Another shining example is Coolermeister in the extreme cooling section, he hands out great tips and advice but does not try and steer people towards products he has a connection with. As with everything in forums a minority of 'bad eggs' can ruin the experience for everyone else. Thanks Tim.
