Dear list:
I just want to address a couple of points on this topic. Not in any official
capacity, but my personal reaction.
My concern is not the volume of these posts - the number of posts we're talking
about permitting per year can probably be counted on the fingers of one human
hand.
But, as I wrote to Isabelle, I'm of two minds about posts from organizations
selling a program, like a summer program. On the one hand, it's useful to know
what programs are out there.
But on the other hand, we know nothing about the organizations behind the ads:
Who's a crook and who's honest. Who knows what they're doing and who doesn't.
Certainly, our listowner and listemembers have no time to check this stuff out.
However, a commercial organization that accepts paid advertising, like Classical
Singer Magazine, does care about these things. And when they get complaints
from their readers about advertisers, they go through a process of allowing the
advertiser to address the complaints, and at some point, they may decline
advertising from a particular enterprise.
That's fine for the Magazine, because it has an economic incentive, and
presumably staff members whose job it is to do this work. But this list
doesn't. So it could be argued that it would be more beneficial to not allow
such posts than to have to take our hard-working listowner's time to deal with
issues, such as that which occurred recently with the Rome Festival post.
As I said, I'm on the fence, but am leaning towards supporting some kind of
limitation or ban.
I like the file idea that Karen suggested, which I believe should include a
disclaimer that the list knows nothing about the advertisers or any reports,
positive or negative, made by users of the advertisers' services. Another option
could be to send non-spam vocal advertising posts to the "Backstage" list, where
any responses could also be posted. That way, folks that want to see them can
subscribe, and those that don't want them, don't.
Peggy
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Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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