There have been quite a few blatantly, self serving commercial posts on the Public and Members Forums lately. I would like to remind all that the Marketplace Forum is the appropriate place for this type of activity.
COPA is a non-profit, member supported organization run by volunteers. By posting commercial adds, you are in effect asking the members and volunteers of COPA to subsidize your business. We appreciate that the products and services you may offer may be of great benefit to our membership, and for that reason, we do provide space for you to communicate.
At this time COPA does not offer paid advertising, but at some point in the future we will probably do so. Our intention will be to provide advertising opportunities, which will offer good visibility and attract interested ‘eyeballs,’ yet respect our members by presenting the ads in an unobtrusive fashion. Instead, we currently offer, free of charge to all members and registered nonmembers, the Marketplace Forum. Please try to respect our members and volunteers by restricting your commercial announcements to that venue.
To date, COPA management has never edited nor removed a post, for any reason, but we always reserve the right to do so. We feel that this policy is clear, well explained and in no way constrained by any freedom of speech issues. However, we have and will continue to try to give the utmost respect to all opinions.
There have been quite a few … commercial posts on the Public and Members Forums lately. I would like to remind all that the Marketplace Forum is the appropriate place for this type of activity.
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In reply to:
To date, COPA management has never edited nor removed a post, for any reason, but we always reserve the right to do so.
This morning there were 3 purely commercial posts in the public forum. I have moved them to the Marketplace Forum, with an appropriate note that they were moved by me. They were not deleted, just moved to the proper forum.
Please remember to post commercial advertisements in the Marketplace forum only. In the future, depending on how much time I have, I might just start deleting purely commercial posts rather than moving them to the Marketplace.
This is the first time we (COPA) have ever changed any posts in any way. As always, we welcome comments from the membership on how these issues are handled.
Steve: Thanks for moving the posts to the appropriate venue. As we discussed, we really do not want to be involved as editors or police, but when there are three, blatantly commercial posts in the shadow of our request to keep just that type of advertisement off the Forums, we have few options. Let’s hope that we don’t have to do this again. Again, I’ll request that all commercial activities respect our policies, members, volunteers, and other users by following our guidelines. We are actively discussing advertising on this site, which we hope will provide the publicity that we believe advertisers want, while maintaining respect for our members - no Banners and no Pop-Up Windows.
As a COPA who sells nothing aviation related (I know to make a small fortune in aviation is to start with a big one), I appreciate your efforts.
Maybe a clearly written policy on advertising should be added to our site. Something like:
We have a special forum for advertising called the Marketplace. Please refrain from posting items or services for sale in other forums. First time offenders will be emailed the policy and their post moved to the Marketplace Forum. Second time offenders will have their post deleted with or without followup notice. THird time offenders will have their registration in COPA revoked with out refund of dues and/or blocked from using the COPA website.
Just a thought from a member who really appreciates our Board’s concern on this issue. Keep up the good work.