Should vendors get a tag on their user profile?

[neotrog]

Seems like the best place for this.

I've noticed that most questions are answered with a barrage of sales calls. I'd like to see a very clear tag on a user profile, something like a modified icon, for employees of vendors. Maybe an additional tag for sales staff. The true value of these types of discussions comes from objective user to user feedback. I'm not saying you need to dismiss vendor comments out of hand but it'd be nice to very aware that you're looking at a a sales pitch and not a practical bit of advice from a kindly and generous mentor.

[Cory Smith]

Hi Neotrog -

Thanks for the suggestion. I do agree that it's important to know when you are reading vendor information as opposed to an end user. So far (for the most part) everyone has been good about putting a note in their post that they do indeed work for a vendor (I find it's usually pretty obvious). We also just introduced user signatures, so I think you will start to see them using that feature as well.

We do require that everyone put their company in their user profile, so you can also check there.

My hesitation with tagging vendor posts automatically is that sometimes they are making a post out of the umbrella of their position/company and if we tag it as a "vendor" post, there might be some confusion if those statements reflect those of the company or the individual.

It's something that I am keeping my eye on, but so far I feel like everyone is keeping themselves in check. If you see something you feel is inappropriate please let me know at cory@printplanet.com

thanks!

[OffsetGuy@presstechnician.com]

I have a question. I am an independent service rep on the east coast and I follow this board because printing equipment is my passion and livelihood. I am an expert on ABDick, Ryobi and Hamada small press format. I find it a great place to share my knowledge about small offset machines and small digital presses. Whenever I post a comment about presstek I see this in my net stats.. firewall.presstek.com

Are they sniffing me? I know they are very litigious. So maybe disclaimers about views spoken here are protected.
How can I keep them off my butt?

[Cory Smith]

Please read the privacy policy.
http://printplanet.com/privacy-policy.jsp

We do not sell or make available personal information like email addresses and IP addresses.

[neotrog]

Well... I must admit, I can usually tell a vendor reply but not always. OK, tech. geeks will sometimes drop the company line but salesmen are always on ( the good ones anyways ) and always have motive. There's a recent response to "Working from home?" that's as close to board spam as one would expect to tolerate. Cory would know better than anyone what the "lurker" ratio is. There's probably way more people that monitor the talk than ever actually speak up. It's a "public" forum in a way, and I have no expectation of privacy when I post. Just because your information isn't sold to anyone doesn't mean it isn't available to everyone. it takes me forever to get posts out because I'm constantly thinking and editing , "oops, boss would hate that" or " ..eeeehhhh that's precariously close to the non-disclosure ", but sometimes it's "heh,heh, that'll piss off so-and-so but they are in fact wrong!"

So, I guess I'm in the vast minority here but perhaps because we true work-a-day load bearing "end-users" are in the minority.

[G_Town]

Minority here.

[SlaveToTheMan]

I say tag 'em with a small, unobtrusive graphic of some kind. If a Member is looking for truly un-biased opinions on a solution, they sshouldn't have to track a user all the way back to their profile only to see if somebody is pimping their goods.

If a vendor is offering their product as a solution, Members can always chime in to support it as well.

[G_Town]

Brand 'em with a cattle iron

[Penink]

I thought everyone who posted here was a vendor.

[stargate]

Yep. I am with you.