quote:
Originally posted by tinkerman
is it really a major problem that a local education establishment is looking for host families and uses the forum to find them?
Yes it is. People become members here to enjoy the discussions and not to give up their privacy in the process. The PM facility is here to allow members to contact each other to arrange meet ups, talk about things that may have been put in the buy & sell forum and the like. CBF is not for people to join so they can spam everyone we have in our membership about things they have expressed no interest in. As you said, there is enough of that arriving in all our inboxes without CBF adding to the problem. It isn't correct to think that as there is a lot of something about, that a little more won't matter. There's a lot of murders, it doesn't mean we can knock somebody off because it's only one more. Turning up here spamming members (and not contributing to the many questions asked on CBF whatsoever) is no different to turning up at your house and without even having the courtesy to ask you pasting posters for it all over your windows.
The sad part is that if they had contacted one of us to ask if they could make a post about their venture we would almost definitely have said yes and possibly even helped promote it.
I feel entirely convinced that chasing down this disrespectful use of our forum is the correct thing to do, and if you join a few other forums that don't have that attitude you will soon appreciate why.
