I just wanted to share with everyone my somewhat vague stance on commercial advertising/posts on SEQanswers, and get some feedback from the community. My "policy", which has basically been formed over time, is that when a post has significant scientific content relevant to the community, I will happily welcome it [benchmarking posts (see most of those by kmay from Genomatix), algorithm discussions (see those by the novoalign guys), spirit's posts, etc].
I have always wanted SEQanswers to be an open community for users to openly communicate with one another, even including commercial vendors...
...but I definitely feel, based on my experiences on other large boards, that there is a point where commercial vendors should incur some advertising charges to help support SEQanswers, and to prevent a "spammy" feel to the board. There are quite a few unobtrusive ways in which this could occur (ie custom user titles, vendor sponsored subforums etc), which would not encroach on open communication (my nightmare is inline ads, popups, etc, that will never happen), and ensure full disclosure.
In any event, I welcome anyone's comments or thoughts on this topic, and please continue posting as usual, I'll tell you if you cross "the line" (as ambiguous as it may be).
I have always wanted SEQanswers to be an open community for users to openly communicate with one another, even including commercial vendors...
...but I definitely feel, based on my experiences on other large boards, that there is a point where commercial vendors should incur some advertising charges to help support SEQanswers, and to prevent a "spammy" feel to the board. There are quite a few unobtrusive ways in which this could occur (ie custom user titles, vendor sponsored subforums etc), which would not encroach on open communication (my nightmare is inline ads, popups, etc, that will never happen), and ensure full disclosure.
In any event, I welcome anyone's comments or thoughts on this topic, and please continue posting as usual, I'll tell you if you cross "the line" (as ambiguous as it may be).
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