Sig files and "special treatment"

We received a report about this post, by Brian Kindsvater. The report began with "How is this not just promoting the "Law Center" in his sig-file?!" and ended with "Sorry, but this makes me angry. It's different rules for different people."

I will not mention who reported it, except to say they report a lot of real problem issues, and are generally among the most helpful people in this group. That's what makes this such a perfect example of how failing to understand the rules can create a lot of unnecessary frustration and inaccurate interpretations of policy.

We see a lot of reports about perceived sig file violations that are based solely on the fact that the poster's signature is somehow relevant to the content of their posts. This is not, by itself, a problem. If it were, the policy would be a problem.

Let's use Brian's post as an example to clarify the rules about signatures.

There are two things that the person who reported the post probably looked at when considering this a violation. Both are credible, if (in my opinion) inaccurate. The first is that this looks like an article. That would not be an unreasonable perception. It certainly could be used as such.

A quick Google search didn't show any results for the content of that post except the reported thread. And, frankly, even that wouldn't be enough to save it from the "No articles" rule without some additional context.

The relevant context is Brian's history of participation here. He regularly posts warnings and suggestions about the dangers of certain typs of claims in advertising, and has a long track record of helping the members avoid these problems, both publicly and privately.

Perceived intent is definitely part of the thought process behind moderating posts like this. A person's history in the forum definitely affects how the mods perceive their intent. To that extent, yeah. Some people can do things others can't.

Remember the point of the rules in this regard. They exist to prevent people from flooding the discussion sections with self-promotional posts. Not to keep people from posting useful content in their areas of expertise.

It's not as though we have a lot of licensed attorneys with long histories of helpful posting talking about areas as critical to business as making unfounded claims that could damage someone's health.

The second issue is related. Much more scrutiny is given to thread starters that relate to one's line of business. That always raises an eyebrow among mods and the more vigilant members. And rightly so.

It wouldn't take a lot of looking to find other threads that fit that same category and weren't deleted. The same reasoning applies as for the article objection. In the end, it's a judgement call, like many aspects of moderating.

For those who want 100% objective rules, easily plugged into a formula, that comment is not going to go over well. It is an inescapable fact, nonetheless. (Despite the claims in the ad, my "Universal Mindreading Helmet (tm)" doesn't do anything but mess up cellphone reception.)

If you're an actual expert in your field and have a multi-year history of helping people here, you're going to get a lot more slack than someone who's unknown and been a member for less than a month. That sort of consideration applies in virtually all aspects of human interaction.

And yes, that DOES mean that someone with exactly the same qualifications as Brian could join today, post the same thing, and see their post deleted.

Anyone who has a problem with that, welllll... get over it.

Some privileges have to be earned. Interestingly, the sorts of people who would abuse them rarely earn them. And if they earn them and then abuse them, the privileges are withdrawn.

Onward...

We get a lot of reports about perceived sig file violations that are based on nothing but the fact that the content of a person's post relates to the field promoted in their signature. Again, that is not a problem by itself. A policy that was based solely on that would, in effect, forbid many people from posting on the subjects they know the most about.

Think about it. That would be stoopid.

There's something you need to know when looking at this stuff. People who post for sig file exposure don't normally do it once every few months. They either play hit-and-run with multiple new accounts, or they do it repeatedly and often. Those people represent a threat of flooding discussions. They're who the rules were put in place to stop.

There're probably things I've forgotten, but this covers the high points. I hope people will bring up the ones I've missed, so we can clarify them further.

Okay. Fire away.


Paul