[wp-forums] Proposed draft

[Vicki Frei]

Matt Mullenweg wrote:
> 
> Even if we put a fat disclaimer at the top, if someone has an awful 
> experience with something they find through us, it'll reflect badly on 
> WordPress. (I got gypped on eBay in 2001 and haven't used it since.)
> 

Join the crowd.... never again.  And I fully agree with the "reflect badly" 
assessment.  True or not, bad press sticks like....  (I cleaned up the rest of 
that quote from my father....)

> The problems around trust and reliability are non-trivial. I think it 
> would be irresponsible to simply create a free-for-all commercial arena. 
> The scammers would overrun it within weeks and anyone legit would avoid 
> it merely because of the bad association.
> 

All too true.  And all too likely.

> I am *very* open to highlighting the commercial services of trusted 
> community members. I don't think it should be in the support forums 
> though, and I think we should give some thought to what the barrier to 
> entry is for someone to be able to promote their services. (It shouldn't 
> be open to any Joe off the street.)
> 

"Just any Joe off the street" is who's going to ask for admission first, because 
while some of those Just Joe's will be up front, have viable businesses in place 
already etc. many of them (perhaps even most of them) will be people looking for 
that coattail, cheating ride I mentioned in an earlier post.

But this isn't really the sort of thing that can have stringently defined 
"signposts" or "milestones" to passage for the applicant/supplicant, is it? 
[I'm not trying to be cynical here (though I've no doubt you all would logically 
think so!), I'm genuinely asking if there's any possible way to "vet" someone 
(well, other than NOT having a "wp elite" splogging tool page....)]

V