[wp-forums] Ethical practices of consultants

[Mark Ratledge]

Sounds like there are many different ideas of how acceptable unsolicited email might be. And if there's money involved; that seems to be one of the keys to the discussion.

I've received unsolicited email from people at wits' end in forum threads and helped them for free. Some have offered to pay me afterward. Some people have emailed and offered to hire me right away, and I've worked for them. I've even put my contact link in two or three threads for individuals (at wits' end) to contract me if they choose, and they have, and I've helped them for free. And I've gotten email months later from different people via same thread, and sometimes I have the time to help them for free, too.

> Any "web professional" who has been entertaining the notion of pulling such a stunt is also on notice of the consequences of doing so. 

Joni. Relax. I doubt very much the forum mods want to segueway into a police force.

So how complicated do rules regarding forum communcation need to get? Boilerplate to advise people that the forums are for free, community-based help and emailing one another to solicit work is frowned upon is as far as I think it can go.

> We could reword the professional services bit in our sticky/forum welcome message (indeed it needs modification anyway to cover unpaid professional work) but I personally feel that going much further than that (such as into public blacklists etc) is perhaps a step too far, and potentially opens up into worlds of legal issues, which I think would be best avoided. -- mrmist

A blacklist is a bad idea, as ethically at very least it brings to bear these ideas: who decides who goes on the blacklist? And who takes them off?

And a blacklist is a bad idea legally. I doubt Automatic's lawyers would let a blacklist happen, as it is arguably close to defamation. And any lawyer worth his/her salt will use Facebook, Whois, etc., to track down the forum mods who did the blacklisting and get them a nice, friendly cease and desist letter. Automatic is already familiar with this: see http://en.wordpress.com/complaints/ to find a FAX number for court and legal documents.