Something smells

"enoavidh" wrote .......

to which "Mark Lipton" commented....

As the person who stirred up this hornets nest, this is my point.

I am not against honest, commercial posters using AFW, provided they are not blatant advertising.

I am totally against bullpoo posts, purporting to be enthusiastic comment, but which in fact are made by persons with a vested interest, and are designed to mislead.

If a person was fully upfront (Hi, my name is Fred and I have recently started exporting our new label of Central Otago to the USA - keep a look out for it - we think our SB & PN is something special etc etc) I hold this to be an honest merchant.

OK - it is commercial, and I personally *may* gently remind the poster that AFW was not commercial - but over the eight years I have frequented AFW, I have seen a proliferation of posts, where, by their nature, the poster knows implicitly that commercial posts are not tolerated, but by stealth, advertise anyhow.

Now, I am not against any new contributor joining this ng, contrary to what my friend Mr. Neidich says - I encourage any and all to join this society of wine lovers.

Professor Lipton says that my initial judgment (in respect to this incident) may not be Stealth Marketing.

I will reserve judgment - to me the proof will emerge one month from now - when I recheck the Google Groups archive to see if either has made any further contribution to this or any other forum. (OK I may have too much time on my hands: sobeit - it is a pooty job but someone has to do it - otherwise, the spammers win !!!!!

Anyone want to place a small wager??????