Re: Event Spam..???

Dave Page wrote:
> Chander Ganesan wrote:
>
>> I see your point. However, perhaps there is some other mechanism or
>> restriction that can be put in place to limit the likelihood of this
>> (one course of one type per month, a limitation on annual courses
>> listed, or a "per listing" fee charged to not-for-free companies)? Such
>> restrictions would at least limit abuse to some extent.. Or perhaps
>> limiting listed courses to states where companies are registered as
>> corporations... Such information is freely available, and it could be
>> required that companies provide a link to their articles of
>> incorporation in the states where they provide training - easy to check
>> without undue work on those that filter events...
>>
>
> Limiting the number of listings is not in our interests - we want to
> show how much PostgreSQL is being used. Perhaps more importantly, how
> *widely*. We'd want to list courses running in every state, even if they
> were all the same company.
However, corporate marketing is not a quantifiable metric as to usage.
I'd argue that the number of courses offered has no bearing on how
widely or how much PostgreSQL is being used.
> Charging would almost certainly cause us problems given our financial
> status. I suspect we could 'solicit donations', but that would obviously
> not have the desired effect.
>
Charging (or requiring a sizable donation to get "front page" status)
would provide a commercial entity an incentive to offer genuine events.
We already make fairly regular donations through SPI (btw, I was told
there would be a donors page at some point...any ideas as to when that
might appear?), and I doubt that any commercial organization that makes
a profit from PG would be loathe to donate 50% of the "per-head cost"
for 1 student or something along those lines for each event
listed....especially when they expect that they'll run a class with a
lot more than a single student.
> Limiting to the states in which companies are registered is a nonsense
> as well - what about a company in Japan? How do we check them? Or what
> about EnterpriseDB UK Ltd for example who cover the whole EMEA region -
> would they (== we in case you didn't realise I work for them) be
> restricted to listing courses in England because that's where we're
> registered?
Yep, it's not nearly a perfect solution...
> Don't misunderstand - I'm not trying to dodge the issue. I just don't
> think there's a straightforward solution :-(
>
>
>> If others (ourselves included) are forced to take the same action to be
>> competitive then it results in a reduction in the usefulness of the
>> tool. One could argue that removing it entirely to prevent abuse would
>> be less disruptive than having PG related companies flounder due to the
>> actions of a few "bad citizens".
>>
>
> Let's remember that there are no proven 'bad citizens'. Unless that
> should change, for you to 'take the same action' would mean scheduling
> more legitimate courses - which I'd welcome :-)
Understood.

Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC 27560
Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999

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