Weddingbee boards

Honestly, I like these forums because they consist of brides chatting with other brides. Most of the time, I find vendor posts aggravating because they're promoting themselves and they seem to have an agenda behind what they say. If they want to link to their business in their personal profile, I think that's ok; if they chime in with "Hey, look at this neat thing I offer," I think it distracts from the overall ambience. 

For example, a vendor recently solicited input from brides about a certain topic, then used each response as an excuse to post an example of what he/she sells. To me, that's soliciting business, not engaging in constructive conversation. 

P.S. I'm glad you're writing the Pro blog post to shed a little light on this topic and hopefully reach some sort of consensus about what is and isn't acceptable.

I know I've been directly approached three times by the same vendor with a personal message and that was super annoying!!  I had mentioned on the Boston board that I was looking for offciant recommendations from other Bees and this vendor wrote me a bunch of times.

I agree with what most people say -- your example 3 is totally cool, especially if the vendor has been on the boards often enough. If those are their only types of posts it's not cool. As the Hive Hostess I would love an officiant to come on and make comments here and there, but randomly pushing is def annoying. 

I think that it is okay if a vendor posts comments if they have something constructive to say and it is not shameless self-promotion.  That said, I don't have issues with a link below or as part of their signature.  It is up to the person reading to decide if they want to click on it or not.  I am also guilty of leaving links to my own blog, though I am not a vendor, simply because I can write the short version here and then let readers know that they can go to my blog for more detailed info or for pictures.

I like vendors commenting when their comments actually are there to help the poster.  Especially when the question is about, say, how a business should be run or a technical question.  They can use terms to explain how they run their business, but I hate when they link back to their website at the end. 

 Sometimes, it's okay if they link back to a specific post that they have written about the question the poster put forth.  As long as they don't do it on a regular basis.  I don't want to read say 10 board questions in one night and find more than one of them with links from the same vendor.  That is unacceptable use of the boards. 

As most people know, I am a vendor as well as a bee.  I don't advertise my vendor status except when I actually had an advertisement on the site.  i write advice and post on the boards here because I am a bee and because a year and a half after my wedding, I am still obsessed with Weddingbee.

I was a knot person before I found Weddingbee and never really got into it.  However, I found out that they have an extremely strict set of rules about vendors posting on their boards.  As in 'even if you are a bride and you never mention your business, you can't have an account and post on the boards'.  And there are a TON of people/vendors out there who will tell you all the ethically things that are wrong about being a vendor and posting on the boards even if you never, ever, ever mention your business.

If this were to happen with the Bee I would seriously go cry my eyes out.  I am a wedding vendor because I LOVE what do and I love weddings.  That is a very personal love for me.  So if I want to post on the boards to help people, but other vendors are attacking me because they know I am a vendor, I would find that incredibly unfair and disappointing. 

I do think that there should be a sense of responsibility among the vendors, but who knows how to enforce that.  Sadly, I don't have an answer on what I think is a happy medium.  I just know that going the black/white no tolerance way would truly take away from the many contributions vendors do give on this site.

I think it's okay to link back to their web site - some member profiles link to their personal blogs. Just so long as the post is about them giving advice (for example, lots of bees on here have had problems with photographers, and photographers will post giving their advice). If their advice is really good and they give professional advice without just hawking themselves, I might want their web site so that I can look them up!

I, personally, don't mind vendor posting provided they are providing useful information. I don't even mind links. For example, if someone was asking advise about what to wear to an engagement session, a photographer responding might be very helpful. Additionally, I think providing a link to the website, also might give some validation to what the vendor is saying. I think that vendors, however, should be very upfront when posting, and stating that they are a vendor, and should never respond to thread simply with "I provide XXXXX service. Here is my link."