How is this advertising?

[John H. Moore]

Received the note at the bottom from some dimwit moderator who deleted a post of mine in the Marine Life section where I asked for help on identification of Sea of Cortez marine creatures and perhaps the contribution of photos to an UTTERLY non-commercial Sea of Cortez Field Identification Guide which I am putting together. The Field Guide can be found on http://baja.divebums.com/

Someone with a functioning brain please tell me what about my post and/or the website is ADVERTISING. Look at every single page of hundreds on the website and find something commercial.

Who is this fool?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey John,

Congratulations on such an excellent site.

Unfortunately, we do not allow this type of advertising on ScubaBoard. Now, we don't want to discourage you from participating here, so let me tell how you can advertise a little less conspicuously.

Go to your UserCP and edit your signature and put your URL in your signature line. Then every one of your posts will advertise your site without being so blatant about it.

Post often and please continue to contribute to our forums.

We look forward to hearing more from you!

Regards,

[moderator username deleted]

 

[Ted S]

(1)to make something known (2)to call public attention to especially by emphasizing desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize - webster.com

In order to be classified as advertising you do not have to ask for something that would benefit you in a purely commercial sense. As an example, a few days ago someone asked several users (via pm) to post their under water photos at a new website, the site its self may have never been about profit but it still violates the rules. You are of course free to promote your website in your signature and if you need help identifying anything that is fine. It is not fine when you cross the line and ask people to join your site, service, etc... It’s just about impossible to separate benevolent requests from deviant ones especially when you consider that a website can change completely in the course of a day. This is not to say your request isn't honorable, just understand that the rules we make to keep the junk out have to be applied to everyone.

 

[John H. Moore]

The post was in the MARINE LIFE section and asked for "any comments, identifications, corrections or even pictures if you've got them!"

The moderator who removed the post is telling me that I can post a URL in response to a question, but not as the first bit of a thread. So how, then, in the section on this site which usually deals with identifying creatures, do you post a request for help with identification without giving the URL to where the picture(s) are located? It's nonsensical.

Divebums is an utterly non-commercial Southern California diving information website which has been around and running millions of hits each year for five years now. Has never had anything commercial, never will have anything commercial. It wouldn't take someone all that long to figure this out.

But instead some [expletives deleted] person deletes the post and tries through several messages to convince me that I'm advertising?!? Please, find something even remotely advertising on http://divebums.com/ or http://baja.divebums.com/ . Or go to the SoCal area on ScubaBoard and post the question "hey, is there now or has there ever been, or will there ever be any advertising on Divebums?"

You all aren't making any sense. And I'm the non-commercial zealot. You folks DO advertise and yet you block me for giving away information?

What gives?

John H. Moore

 

[Ted S]

John,
I think you are missing the idea here. We (like webster) do not define advertising as promoting a site that makes money; we define it as promoting a site, if you choose to profit from it is another issue entirely. I am well aware of what your site is and what it is about and again, we have no problem with you mentioning it here within our guidelines. Please understand that if we say Divebums has the right to promote its self freely then it is impossible to say someone else does not if they appear non-commercial as well. We do try and give everyone some latitude in this area, businesses and individuals are welcome to put their site in their signature, if you have something to advertise you can even place it in the marketplace although it doesn't apply to you. You can even respond to posts with your url if it has applicable information, photos or resources to help with the question at hand.

With this said you are more than welcome to ask for comments and identifications, it is asking for photos that goes beyond the boundaries. This may seem silly to you but we take it very seriously because again, the same rule that applies to you applies to everyone else. If you still don't get the reason for the policy think of it like this, if we allowed people to post requests for photos, articles or whatever it is they wanted for their non-profit websites we would have pages and pages of posts with people asking for users to go submit photos, articles and everything else that could be dreamed up and I don't think you would enjoy using a board that was full of "send me photos for my website" posts.

 

[John H. Moore]

My original post was for "comments, identifications, corrections, or even pictures"

If there's some problem with the fourth of four parts to that request, then instead of deleting the post and trying through four messages now to convince me that I'm advertising something (four messages now from the moderator in question, not one of which makes any sense and the person won't even give me a name by which to address him or her), why not send me a note saying, "Hey, John, we have a policy against asking for photos, so we edited your post down to "comments, identifications, or corrections."? ...which was the real purpose anyway.

It's not all that hard to take a moment to think something through and do the right thing... (not that I think it's the right thing, but ... if that's the heart of it, then I have to deal with your rules here just as you have to on my home ground...)

John H. Moore

 

[Ted S]

John, our moderators are volunteers and also humans. They don't have a 20 page manual to cover every situation, they aren’t paid and do we give them a lot of latitude to do their best, which generally ends up being what’s best for the board. Perhaps the moderator thought your intentions were different, perhaps he has had a lot of experience with people doing things like this or perhaps it didn't occur to him that without one part of the post the thread would be fine, who knows. In any case you are welcome to make your post and ask the question, just try and be aware of the fine line that exists. I hope it is evident to everyone that while a rule may not always seem like it is proper for their case the rules only work by applying them to all cases. Of course the rules aren't perfect, we are always listening to the users and things are always changing...

 

[saf_25]

With this said you are more than welcome to ask for comments and identifications, it is asking for photos that goes beyond the boundaries. This may seem silly to you but we take it very seriously because again, the same rule that applies to you applies to everyone else. If you still don't get the reason for the policy think of it like this, if we allowed people to post requests for photos, articles or whatever it is they wanted for their non-profit websites we would have pages and pages of posts with people asking for users to go submit photos, articles and everything else that could be dreamed up and I don't think you would enjoy using a board that was full of "send me photos for my website" posts.

I don't know - I usually agree with most of what you guys do and respect the work of the moderators, but this seems pretty silly to me. Granted, I just see what happens here and not behind the scenes, yada, yada... But, I have seen lots of links to photo contests on here, requests for pics (I specifically remember another moderator not too long ago requesting pictures of a "nemo" fish - for her nephew, I believe it was,"etc... Heck, even the weekly, "show me a picture of xyz" threads could be along those lines - granted, they're hosted here and not elsewhere, but it's still a post asking people to submit pictures.

Not that I think that there's anything wrong with any of those examples either - in fact, Leesa's weekly picture posts seem very popular, but I just fail to see what is wrong with showing a link to a completly non-profit website like Divebums requesting fish id help, and then mentioning as an aside that people can post there, too. No different than the references to Single divers, digital diver, and even recscuba as I see it, all of which are sites that I learned of here on SB because I was directed to them by post content, not someone's signature line.

Ok, now I know that you guys do your thing without asking for feedback form us users, and like I said, I respect that. AS well as the fact that I don't have all of the facts here. But, John seems pretty upset, and I just wanted him to know that, based on how it appears, he has support from a fellow divebum. But, also a word of advice with my support - from what I have seen, the mods are much more reasonable when people are a bit calmer with them. Toneing it down a bit might make your message heard a bit more.

 

[John H. Moore]

But, also a word of advice with my support - from what I have seen, the mods are much more reasonable when people are a bit calmer with them. Toneing it down a bit might make your message heard a bit more.

Hi SAF_25, whom I may know but not by that name,

Yes, I'm ****ed... and I know that I shouldn't be. But the private messages from the moderator in question have been a string of really seriously weak reasons for why my post was "advertising". And people deleting stuff and unable to come up with anything beyond weird as to why torque me off.

You put about eighty bazillion hours into doing something as a gift to the diving community and someone from nowhere near California just deletes it without bothering to put a few minutes into researching it, and then comes up with silly reasons...

...and then I need to take more deep breaths!

No way is it advertising. But if it's asking for pictures, then tell me that and deal with that. I don't like it, but it's at least not nonsense and I'll just deal with it.

Sorry.

 

[Tweak]

This is not at all about picture request. Slow down and understand the concept.

This is a very clear rule. You can not come on this board and ask members to got to another website for any reason.

if we allowed people to post requests for photos, articles or whatever it is they wanted for their non-profit websites we would have pages and pages of posts with people asking for users to go submit photos, articles and everything else that could be dreamed up and I don't think you would enjoy using a board that was full of "send me photos for my website" posts.

BUT

If I asked where could I find a "Sea of Cortez Field Identification Guide" then you could post the link to your site without a problem.

I admin on another forum dealing with another topic and I totally understand. I wouldn't want hundreds of posts asking members to got to another site for any reason unless it was to answer questions from other members.

 

[Ted S]

saf_25,
There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing off your website! In fact, if you have a website, article or photo that helps answer a question we want you to post it. What we do not want is for people to come to the board and use it as a place to recruit users, spam members or do anything that would violate our rules. In this case it's the old rock and a hard place, we don't want to let one person do something when we wouldn't let someone else do it but at the same time it is obviously a non-commercial, well intentioned request.

Asking for people to help you out is a good thing but it can cross a line and when it does it becomes a very bad thing. So far we have kept most of the spam and junk off the board but there are certainly things posted that do not belong here and they get by for one of a million reasons. As I think about this issue it makes me wonder how we can revise the rule so we don't harm good users but then I remember that in order for us to make an exception we have to evaluate every instance and every website. In the case of Divebums this is an easy call but it quickly gets murky from that point on, what if someone has hosting sponsored by a company, is it ok for them to ask people to go to their site and send photos? How about if they have a website that doesn't any commercial content now but could tomorrow? The question becomes when do posts stop being content and start to become advertisements, certainly asking for advice is no an ad but is asking people to use your site, no matter what the nature of that site may be, an ad? It would seem so to me.

The key to our success has always been balance. In this case our best solution is to balance our need to keep the rules in place with John's need to have his question answered. THat means he can post his url, ask for help and all of that good stuff but he can't ask people in a post to go to his website to upload photos. He can of course make a signature entry that says "Post your SoCal Scuba Photos at my website blahblah.com" and that's fine.

Does this sound fair or logical or do you still have questions?