> I don't think I have a problem with this. Consider the MFC FAQ, which
> deals primarily with information for Windows programmers using Microsoft
> Visual C++. The FAQ is maintained by employees of Stingray Software, a
> developer of MFC add-ons; furthermore, the site is hosted on a
> Stingray-owned machine. As you'd expect, the top part of the FAQ says
> something on the order of "if you like MFC, come check out these nifty
> tools you can buy for it". IMHO, this is perfectly cool.
Unfortunately this is not cool. How soon do you think it would it be
before marketting people realize *.answers is a perfect way to get
your foot in the door? "Gee whiz, after writing this here FAQ I've
sold a lot of units." Scary prospect: I can see it now, a toothpaste
FAQ by the people at Colgate.
And why are their tools nifty? Do they have a standard disclaimer
on the FAQ that would at least hint to some bias? Heck I do on a
games FAQ I slapped together. A nice big disclaimer making sure that
mentioning a game's name does not mean I endorse it in anyway.
> Another example is my own FAQ, the Winsock Programmer's FAQ. Like the
> MFC FAQ, it's for Windows programmers. When I added book reviews to it,
> I also signed up for the Amazon.com Associates program and linked each
> review to the Amazon.com site. If someone buys one of those books via
> my page, I get a small fee, which helps defray the costs of keeping the
> FAQ up. But make no mistake: the fees I get from Amazon.com doesn't
> even come close to paying my ISP costs, much less for my time. So do I
> still feel altruistic? Yep! B-)
Ahhh. If it makes so little money why clutter your webpage with it?
But maybe you don't view it as clutter. I had some gaming website
say "would you like us to host your FAQ, you can become an affialite
yada yada yada." I then replied with "Thanks, but the FAQ is freely
distributable as long as you keep it current. So grab a copy and put
it up." They never replied.
> The way I look at it, I am providing a net service, and one of the
> aspects of that service is to point Winsockers at good books. If
> Amazon.com will pay me if I point my readers at their site, so much the
> better.
Right. Because of your fine selfless act, Amazon.com should profit.
But you're not really profitting, so it's ok, because the readers
profit at the end of the day. Love the logic.
Sorry if this sounded a little ad hominem. Really, I would have done
it to the first man who came through the doors, saying "with
banners and amazon.com"
-- Thamer Al-Herbish PGP public key: shadows@whitefang.com http://www.whitefang.com/pgpkey.txt [ Maintainer of the Raw IP Networking FAQ http://www.whitefang.com/rin/ ]
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