I'm definitely in favour of labelling vendors with a highly visible icon or user title. A good idea to include type of commercial interest in their profile as well. I imagine this should be done automatically at registration for new members and retrofitted for current ones. Bring on the vendor amnesty.
Vendors should benefit from this too as there will no longer be any cause for snide remarks regarding their possible commercial interests (as any interests will be open and declared for all to see). Any vendor found to be hiding their interests ("Don't brand me with the red V"
) should receive short shrift.
This seems to me to be a no-brainer.
However, the designated forum idea is more difficult to implement and I am against it. Charlton has touched on some of the reasons why. It will introduce more levels of grey and confusion because then T2W has to decide which threads should be put in a special forum. What is the essential quality of a thread (one that can be encapsulated clearly in the site guidelines) that renders it suitable for inclusion? One post by a vendor? Two? Fifteen? Quite hard to pin down the distinction, I would think.
Perhaps there is
some cause for a designated forum for threads that are started by a vendor(s) and in which the majority of the posts are by that vendor(s), with their ultimate intention obviously being the attraction of business, even though they are not overtly advertising anything specific. But again, even this 'extreme' category of thread would be quite hard to codify into concrete rules.
Either way, I certainly wouldn't put every single thread to which a vendor contributes into a special forum as the site would become absurdly fragmented. T2W would virtually need two of everything. e.g US Stocks - no vendors .... US Stocks - vendors
(If the vendor forum route is taken, imho a new one should be created as the existing Resources one is not very suitable, seeing as it is for members to talk
about vendors / commercial resources.)
I also think that regardless of how popular or useful threads with underlying commercial intent may be, there is no reason to slacken policy on advertising within them. As we have seen, this can lead to confusion as to what is allowed and accusations of selective application of guidelines. Adverts of any kind should stay strictly off the boards (and not travel by PM either).
Thus imho commercial products and other services provided by vendors should
never be mentioned unless a member asks a specific question about such a product or service. Thus, posting commercial chat room transcripts, for instance, would probably be a no-no (sorry I didn't mean to single that out, it was just a practical example of something "grey" current on the site) and [repeated] mentions of a product by name definitely a no-no.
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OR - If vendors wish to run threads in a new vendor forum laced with advertisments then perhaps they should pay T2W to use the new forum and the guidelines could be changed to reflect this more obvious distinction? A bit like the sponsored one already in place. But I rather hope this route isn't taken as one of the joys of this site is not having to wade through adverts at every turn.
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I'd also like to echo Charlton in saying that, though I may sound a little hard on them, vendors who are up front about their interests and also professional traders can and do add a lot of value to the site and I would hate to see them driven away purely because members do not like them selling as well as trading. If T2W can sort the transparency issue once and for all, we should all be able to coexist peacefully and continue to share information, which is what the site is all about.
