Advertising relaxation

Hi Graeme,

Thanks for your comments. We're testing things out this month to see how it goes. The current setup means that yes, members can link to and recommend their business in conversations when it's relevant to the OP or how the thread has progressed. For example, if someone starts a thread asking about office furniture and you felt you could offer a good deal as well as your expertise - that's the perfect time to develop a new business relationship that'll hopefully benefit the both of you. To remove and punish a post like that would be counter-intuitive.

There's a bit more detail in the existing site rules that are in place to prevent the site from turning into purely a self-promo platform. UKBF is and always will be about sharing advice, experience and opinions but it's also a place where a lot of small businesses get together and it makes sense for everyone to be able to use the forums to help find opportunities and network. Starting a thread purely to promote is advertising and therefore isn't allowed, nor is jumping in with an out-of-context ad (even with a clever segue ). For that kind of thing, there's still the marketplace and for sale / wanted areas for Full Members.

Hope that explains it all Any more questions or comments are always welcome!

We definitely want to keep the focus on people who want to provide good, honest, useful answers alongside any self-recommendation. It's certainly not a case of opening the floodgates but a lot of people both on the team and using the site had raised that it feels, at times, like people were being punished when simply trying to offer help and legitimately network.

Spammy posts are always a tricky area, even more so on a site where so much of the focus is on doing business. The aim of these updates to the rules are to give people space to find the best way to network whilst still encouraging more than a simple "PM me" or a link drop. In those cases where people don't put in the effort, they're likely to find themselves beaten to the punch by someone who has taken the time to establish themselves as a helpful, friendly member, as it should be

Funny you should mention slouching. I present my current view, without any further comment

Having just followed the link provided, my 2c's are that both those responses were against the ethos of the new relaxed rules as neither offers anything of value to the forum or the OP and only puts themselves forward. I don't think either answered the OP's question at all.

As a rule of thumb, if the OP is asking for "Advice", as in this case, then that is what they should get, not a pitch of any kind or a "Give me a call to discuss". If, on the other hand, the OP had asked for members to put their hands up if they could offer insurance then those two responses would have been acceptable.

This is, however, just my take on the new rules but I'm as keen as any member to ensure that we get the balance right and don't end up with a whole forum full of pick me posts like in the example link.

Agreed and I think that relaxing the rules is important to allow for the natural networking that should go on between businesses but we need to ensure that the forums don't become stale with no real content on other than a "pick me" fest on every thread.

To my mind the OP of that thread you highlighted was asking for specific advice and they didn't get it. If someone asks for advice on an open forum them I guessing that they want advice on an open forum and not just requests for them to contact members for a chat but that is just my take on things.

Had either of the responders offered that advice and then backed it up with an offer of a follow up chat then to my mind it would have been acceptable under the new rules, however that was not the case.

Had either of those posts been reported at the time I'd have had no hesitation in removing them, however there is little point now especially as we are having a discussion based on the thread in question.

Ray - you've got it pretty much on the nose. It's harder to police this kind of thing after the fact but we encourage any member on the site to flag up what they think are bad posts when it comes to not being helpful and/or ignoring the OP's initial question or whatever relevant conversation that the thread develops into. Where applicable, we can use reports to more quickly enforce the community rules. In situations where it's less black and white or we see a situation that can be easily fixed with a little assistance, we can also simply contact posters and talk to them about what they could do to improve a post and made any necessary edits. That way, everybody gets something out of it and can benefit from the thread

When reporting a post, if you're unsure or feel it's borderline, just include a note about that in the comment before sending it to the mod team and we can take it on board before doing anything. That way, we can help the POSTERS be more self-moderating and avoid as many unhelpful threads as possible.

I have to agree, those posts are completely unnacceptable as they are pure 'Pick me' posts.

The eothos is quite simple.

Someone within the community asks a question
Others in the community answer that question for the benefit of ALL the community.

That is how a community works, the sharing of knowledge (knowledge transfer system) is how businesses move forward together, and is a MAJOR element in my personal business ethos, I have seen it work so well.

When we move on to

Someone within the community asks a question
Others in the community reply taking the conversation OFF the forum and AWAY from the community, then they are breaching the core reason for the existence of the community.

For me it is that simple.

HOWEVER there are times when a PM is what is needed. if there is anything sensitive in the reply etc. or if further PERSONAL information is needed to be discussed that really wouldn't benefot the community anyhow.

E.g. there are number of things you need to consider yada yad ayada, also the following scenario could occurr yada yada yada, in the case of xyz, the outcome was ABC, you can prevent this by yada yada yada. if you want any individual information then feel free to contact me.

Now for me that has helped the community as a whole, so that when others within the community read it they benefoit from it.

What we can't become is a dating site for businesses, purely ona take take take basis, as that would be the death of the community.

Sorry for the delay, Graeme. You're right that there's the opportunity for abuse (sadly, there will always be people who try to push something as far as they can and take advantage). It's at that point when the human moderation element steps in though. We're certainly not keen to allow posts that aren't helpful even if a commenter says it is. In those cases, it'd be subject to normal moderation with an aim to first resolve any confusion or misunderstanding before resorting to warnings and strikes. The aim is to help those who may have held back in the past when they could have added a useful link rather than open the floodgates for those who chase any opportunity, no matter how small / tangential