shriekingviolet

Apparently looking for consumer trends on the BPAL forums is unacceptable. I fail to see why, given that the information out there is free and the etailer will only make a profit if the information is valuable. This kind of "corporate espionage" happens all the time; HAEE and BPAL don't have enough money to set up focus groups like Coca-Cola or PepsiCo, so they use forums. It may be "unethical" to some, but that's just how things are. Ethics -- ha! This is business.

I don't think anyone means to discount market research as an important element of a capitalist system, but at the same time, I don't think the fact that it's a normal element of the business world means that we the maintainers (mainly myself, quantum spice, and to some extent the mod staff) have to agree to allow for the forum we built and run to serve as a goldmine of information for people on the look out to profit off of our members. The issue is not so much that Michele would want to see what type of blends people would be hot to buy, it's knowing that those of us in charge feel strongly about reserving that element of the forum for the lab alone and not respecting that. It'd be like if all of my neighbors decided that the pool in my backyard was open for their use since, after all, pools are for swimming. What does it matter that the pool resides on private property and enclosed by a tall fence, who am I to tell them that they can't swim in a swimming pool? We can all agree that that sort of logic is warped right? And that I'd be within my rights to contact the police if said neighbors refused to acknowledge that taking a dip in my backyard without my consent constituted as trespassing, yes?

We tolerate feeding the competition in the less direct way of allowing members to enable each other, but we are not supportive of etailers profiting off our forum in a more proactive fashion. We don't hide that fact. And while we don't expect other business people to like that policy or even agree with it, they have to respect that if they want the privileges of full membership here. Our playground, our rules, and given that they basically get free ad space here by us allowing our members to discuss their business on site, I don't think it's too much to ask.

There may be basic laws of capitalism, but there are also basic principles of what is and isn't allowed to occur on private property. And just like businesses can forbid solicitation on their property, we're within our rights to demand what sort of behavior is and isn't okay from etailers so long as they're on our turf. We have the right to say that we don't put the effort into keeping this place running so that business people, who do not contribute to the maintenance and upkeep of our forum, can mine us for information so that they can increase their own profits.

Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? It's why Michele can get away with, say, not allowing Beth or any friend-of-Beth membership at her forum. Capitalist norms don't trump all there either. I personally wouldn't care if Michele did massive amounts of market research at any unaffiliated forum on the internet that allowed such things. Because it's true, it's not a crime. But denying the right of a site owner to decide what is and is not an approprate use of the fruit of their labor? That's a horse of a different color.

My perspective would be that if the Mods or Beth didn't want people to do business with Michelle due to her behavior, they would remove the forum entirely. Which, based on your post, may be next.

Ehhhh that's probably not what we'd do. Though the constant allowance=endorsement sentiment that keeps getting repeated by members certainly does make me keep thinking about it, but I try to avoid throwing babies out with bathwater. There are plenty of wonderful etailers out there and we like reading and chatting about them as much as everyone else, it's a fine line of how to balance the good with the bad. I think we'd sooner see a departure of topics discussing other perfumers (as this is not the first dramatic topic we've had concerning a competitor, it was about this time last year there was a round of Atropa's Cottage drama) rather than a closure of the retail area.

Oh and filigree_shadow, just wanted to make a minor correction:

Keep in mind that until this new competitor had her access restricted, she had access to all the members' posts about which scents they liked and didn't like. Just like any other forum member. She had access to etailer threads of her other competitors, where she could see what people liked and didn't like about those businesses as well.

After her access was restricted, she did still have access to other etailer threads. Everything in the retail section was still open to her. She was only shut out of Suggestions, Swaps, & BPAL + TAL chatter areas. Otherwise, very detailed post. I'm impressed.

testing hey hey