A few words on advertising
Generally, we don't like commercial advertising on Birding-Aus. Comments
by people like Trevor Q and Tony P have been spot on - nobody minds being
told about the dates and deetails for boat trips and other days out, and
we certainly like hearing trip reports, even if they are from commercial
operators - most of these are discreet enough to avoid "advertising"
anything in their reports. Nobody has objected to contact details
appearing in the signature at the end of this sort of message, and this is
how I think it's best handled.
I would have appreciated a note from O'Reilly's before the message was
posted, and it probably could have been worded a little differently, but
of course once it was sent there was little anyone could do about it.
The other difficulty is defining 'commercial' services. I don't think the
boat trips are 'commercial' because the organisers don't make any money
out of them (I think they lose a bit, but that's another story!). The
boat owner makes money I suppose, but he's not the one doing the
advertising - just as the operator who ran a trip for a group of
birding-aus folk last year didn't do the advertising about it - I did,
because I organised who went on it (in a manner of speaking...)
Selling equipment is occasionally a grey area, but the bottom line is, if
commercial operators and services want to avoid offending their potential
customers, they should use Birding-Aus with caution. Anyone who is unsure
of what they can or cannot say should check with me first - I've often
been happy to forward information to the list, and I've not yet had any
complaints about any such 'information' posting.
Thanks everyone for keeping this list 'nice'!!
Russell Woodford
Birding-Aus Maintainer
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