ForumsMerchant Services

I agree with you, I beleive the best way if someone need services it is the creation of forum private messages, so threads can stay focus on advises, help, etc... and not advertising.

I agree, we don't want things to get out of hand, but at the same time you have to give people a chance to share what they do. Connect is what the site says when you sign in, so if I don't tell folks how I or my business can help them, it is hard to connect.

Now I will admit, so folks go way overboard, we ignore them or the moderators disable their accounts. I've seen users who have had accounts disabled come back on the site and change their behavior.

I don't think this board will ever be advertising free, but we have some great users who post excellent responses to questions and those are the ones I pay attention to, others I ignore.

Luckiest, I know Bank of America doesn't pay SCORE for participation, but are you sure you don't secretly work for the bank? lol!

If you don't they should pay you, you are a great advocate for them.

Some people find this site and think, "Great, a new place to interact, learn, and share with substantial number of small business owners." Others find this site and think, "Great, a new place to pitch my product, service, or MLM-scheme to a substantial number of dupes. Of course, legitimate small business owners (and future owners) are not dupes -- so those who arrive here hoping to score quickly are usually disappointed and move on, but someone just like them joins and takes their place.

My real concern is that if a legitimate business owner arrives now and sees that the forums are mainly "pitch" posts (instead of business questions, answers, and discussion), he or she will decide that there is nothing useful here and never return -- and we'll cease to attract knowledgeable new members who could really contribute and help us all. I've written this before, but I'd prefer it if the Business Classifieds were a tab at the top like the Stories and Experts sections rather than a forum category. (It could incorporate Nat's idea of using a member's contributions to determine how many attachments and live links could accompany an ad and where the ad ranked relative to others.) With a separate section designed for self-promotion, maybe we could keep the forum threads more on-topic.

Community ~ I have to be careful of this advertising aspect to the community, as I have been known to post like an interstate billboard.

I apologize for this, and will do what I can to stay away from this type of mass posting.

I did not realize this was an issue, but really it makes sense that it would not work with this community.

I have noticed that alot of these types of posts are removed quickly after they are posted.

I will work hard to follow community guidelines.

Thank you, Michael

I don't think any of us are laying the blame at any one person. It is more of a matter of a general trend that has been in place and seemingly amplified as of lately. So we are all voicing concern to help find a solution now before it too badly damages the reputation and objective of this forum community.