I'm not sure what to think about having commercial activities in
british-cars@autox.team.net. Part of me thinks it is a great idea in
that you could have interactive conversations with professional
experts, quickly and easily find out about parts availibility, special
sales for SOLers, etc.. However, another part of me thinks this could
be a dangerous thing that could change the complexion of the list
completely. It's probably no problem with just a few companies
involved, but what happens when VB, Moss, British Parts Direct,
British Parts Northwest, etc., all get on the list? What happens when
someone has a bad experience with a company that is active on the list
and they air they're bad feelings and the company comes back slamming
that customer over the net? Sure it's easy to say that any bad
corporate citizens can get unsubscribed, but then you have to use some
criteria to determine who should and who shouldn't be allowed and
what's acceptable and what is not.
That said, I think if companies want to interact more, that's fine,
but if it starts getting ugly we would have to eliminate all business
use because it doesn't seem like it will be real practicle to allow
some business to use the net while not allowing others. What worries
me most is a slow degradation of the list quality through an increased
commercialization of it. I do like the idea of companies setting up
ftp nodes so that people who want part # info, price lists, sales
info, etc, will have a place to go to get that.
Bob
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