n2diving

Well that's the key issue and a very gray area. Any post that furthers a business could be interpreted to mean any post that contains information about any product sold, any fact about the business itself, etc. How are the circumstances to be interpreted, particularly in reponse to another post that might not be accurate? What differentiates useful information from advertising from spam? Is a post by any member become commercial if it refers to a third party for-profit business that is not an advertiser? Who makes that determination and what are the criteria?

Let's take a hypothetical example to illustrate how unclear this can become...

John Doe posts in a RBW forum a question like "Where can I find cheap Snarfle for my Death-Trap brand rebreather?"

The manager of RBW Store then makes a post "You can buy Snarfle right here at RBW Store for $3/ton and by doing so you are supporting the RBW community, we also sell Effluent a competing brand".

Someone else replies "I bought some Snarfle from SnarfleOnline.com for a great price of $1/ton, much cheaper that RBW Store."

The owner of Snarfle On-Line then posts "I've been deluged with calls asking about buying Snarfle at $1/ton. I'm sorry, but the sale price on Snarfle ended over a year ago and our price is currently $2/ton."

The manufacturer of Snarfle then writes "We here at Snarfle Industries are aware that our wonderful product Snarfle is currently in short supply, but we have posted on our website a list of Snarfle Platinum Dealers who currently have stock on Snarfle"

Whereupon the owner of Your Local Dive Shop posts "John, my store YLDS is just down the street from you and we have Snarfle in stock with no shipping for $2/ton also. I'm also a dealer for the Death-Trap and we have the new Hyper Death-Trap accessory that extends the life of Snarfle by 50%"

Someone else posts "Hey what's the deal with the Hyper Death-Trap, how does that work?"

Then the Death-Trap manufacturer posts "We have just introduced new Hyper technology for our Death-Trap series and here is a link to our promotional video that shows how it works".

Brand new member snarflewiz posts "SNARFLE, SNARFLE, SNARFLE, we've got dirt cheap Sharfle here at Snarfle Works!"

Someone posts "Hey, I just heard Muddy Springs Super Discount Dive Store is having a try-out day in the muddy ditch behind their store for the new Hyper Death-Trap, and if you order one at the try-out day you can get a giga-buck discount!"

And of course someone posts "Snarfle is crap and the Hyper Death-Trap will kill you. I bought a Death-Trap, nearly died on it and YLDS wouldn't refund my money!"

The owner of YLDS then posts "Well, it's true you nearly died using the Death-Trap, but we did tell you that you had to use Snarfle. We here at YLDS stand behind all our products but since you used Effluent, it's not under warranty."

Which triggers the post "As the manufactuerer of the Death-Trap, we want to warn everyone that the new Hyper Death-Trap life extending technology for Snarfle does not work with Effluent. Only when properly used, the Hyper Death-Trap has been tested and proven to extend the life of Snarfle by 50%"

Let's assume for the moment that none of these people are advertisers on RBW with the exception of RBW Store itself. Which of these posts are commercial and should be deleted from RBW?