Good job on the trees, Jon.

What about the forest?

Respect the public that this community serves and derives its living from.

Remember that we're all subject to fair housing laws and, as real estate professionals, support both the letter and the spirit of those laws.

I have some questions, Jon.

If it's inappropriate to advertise your services in comments on another person's post, shouldn't there be a limitation on signatures on those comments? If your policy has any meaning at all, I believe it should.

Show me a principled line between 1) a comment that simply says: "You go, girl! I'm your Denver metro professional." and 2) another that says: "You go girl!" and is signed Joe Jones - your Denver metro professional, and 3) another that says "You go girl" and is signed the [name of religion omitted] Real Estate Network.

The first example presumably violates your policy. The second and third apparently don't.

All three are the same to my way of thinking, all equally iniappropriate, all the same wine in different bottles.

I don't believe you can make a compelling argument to the contrary.

Jon,

Thanks for adopting my first suggestion. I'd preferr to see a more elaborate statement re fair housing laws, since they're so central to this business. They don't stand on a pair with a sign ordinance or a parking sign. And, given the fact that HUD's policy is that it heavily weighs the existence and adequacy of a fair housing statement in deciding whether to take enforcement action, fair housing should preferably be highlighted from a bottom of the page link just like About and FAQ. I realize this sounds presumptuous, but I'm trying to look after everyone's interests here.

There's a simple way to handle my second issue, and a principled basis for it that's grounded in what blogging is all about.

People blog, not companies. Individual names should be required as signatures on comments.

When people introduce themselves to strangers, or remind acquaintances of their name, they're simply "Joe Jones" not Joe Jones CRB,CRS,GRI,CRA,XYZ, and not Joe Jones, your Denver metro professioanl.

The addition of anything to the person's name is advertising, and it's intrusive, unprofessional and unwarranted. The reader always has the option of clicking on Joe Jones' name when the reader has an interest in learning more. S/he shouldn't be forced to confront a commenter's marketing message in any fashion, even if it's simply a statement of credentials. S/he should be given the courtesy of being allowed to focus on what the participants in the conversation have to contribute to it, without distraction.

People are individuals, also - not teams, not husbands and wives. They have individual names and they should use those. I want to know whether Mary or Sam is commenting, not wonder which of Mary and Sam Jones I'm talking to this time.

People don't wear signs and wave them at you during a conversation. All logos and graphic signatures should be barred from comments.

Adopt and enforce the simple rules that people live by - in fact, insist on - when conducting conversations and your problem is solved. 

What's more, the enforcement of these simple rules will introduce everyone to the minimum expectations they'll meet when they begin to blog beyond AR. You'll be helping them and saving them a lot of embarrassment by teachinig them manners that prevail elsewhere.

Jon,

The Fair Housing logo will increase my comfort level here. We're all busy, but just knowing it's on a checklist helps a lot.

I know agents also. I know that the good ones respect guidelines that make sense even when those guidelines don't embody their preferences.

Since this is a professional community that's open to the public, respect for the public ought to trump agents' wishes. If agents' wishes are to prevail, this community should be closed to the public. It can't serve both masters without hurting agents. I prefer not to see them hurt.

In the 20 years I've been doing real estate advertising in Chicago I've faced down a lot of misguided agent requests that they insisted were mandatory and backed down on when standards were set for them. Virtually all Chicago print real estate ads today contain exact addresses and hardly any did when I started - you can all guess how easy it was to change that practice. It changed, and is now second nature for most agents, and they see the benefit to consumers and to themselves.

For what it's worth, I did a scan of the top 52 (by AR points) accounts in Chicago, my home town. Only 6 of 52 accounts would be affected by my proposal. The rest already understand professional standards. I know a number of those people personally or through comments on my Web site. Not a single agent who comments on my site has ever used a professional designation or a tag line in their signature. I may have missed one, but I don't think so.

You'll interest more agents in participating here and contributing if they know they're in a professional environment rather than among people yammering inappropriately for attention to no valid purpose.

I'd respectfully suggest that you amend your prohibition against ads in comments to read as follows: ads in comments are prohibited unless the person advertising has a preference for doing so. Is that your idea of a principled policy? It's not mine.

Brian,

Your suggestion may, in the long run and preferably even in the short run, be the only solution that makes sense. I've suggested several times that it's not possible to speak to the separate audiences of consumers and real estate professionals in the same voice and make sense to both and not lose credibility with consumers.

Professionals need to be free to talk among themselves if they're to encourage and support and train their newcomers. That's as true of doctors and lawyers as it is of real estate people.

The programming issues are never as simple as anyone outside the system thinks. It would be nice if it were as easy as you hope it is, but it's not likely that's the case.

My suspicion is that the folks at AR recognized the wisdom of what you're saying some time back, and that's partially what prompted Localaism.

Bryant,

I think we're hijacking the topic, so I'll leave it at this comment and pick it up with you somewhere else if you want to pursue it.

I just looked at your blog, and I'm clueless as to who you're talking to. You have absolutely no focus except what's on your mind - i.e. no reason for much of an audience to want to come backc.

When I have a job I want to get done - i.e. learning about real estate or my community - I'm going places that have a focus. If I'm a gun-lover (long, long ago days), I want to subscribe to Guns & Ammo, not to the magazine that once contained a fascinating article about guns and hinted they might do it again.

I have no reason to dispute that you're good at talking to real estate people and to consumers. That's largely irrelevant to my point. A separate focus on each group would gain you a larger audience of real estate people and a larger audience of consumers.

Each audience has a very different job it wants to get done here and, while a small minority might pay attention, I think you're missing the people who look at you once and can't find enough of a reason to come back.

You're also benefiting, right now, from the first blush on the rose. As more people learn to focus and offer content that consumers value, they have a growing body of content and a big adantage on the people who didn't focus. At the end of their career, they've also built an asset that's salable - that content. You can't sell a blog whose only asset is you if you're not going along with it.

You're in the media business now. Look what's happened to general interest magazines and the big TV networkss over the last 20 years. Their business models are being eroded daily by niche publications and focused cable channels. General interest radio niched out long ago. And so on. For good or ill, this isn't simply the real estate business any more.

This is a good subject for a separate discussion, but probably shouldn't continue on this post.

Jon,

Here's an off-the-wall suggestion that may go a long way toward solving a number of comment problems - problems that seem to be unique to AR.

On all of the online journals that we run (we don't much like the word "blog" since most people don't recognize it), we've had only one instance of a real estate agent trying to advertise through a comment. We politely suggested the inappropriateness of that, and it never recurred.

The problem commenters, I suspect, think they're getting a dual bang out of their ad-oriented comments: they're getting the ad, and they're getting points.

Since you seem conflicted about allowing what you call "personality" - I'm guessing you mean the taglines, team names, corporate names, graphics, etc. - consider allowing the person writing the journal to flag comments as inappropriate.

If the journal / blog writer flags a comment as inappropriate two consequences would flow: 1) the commenter would be denied points for the comment, and 2)  an unobtrusive, small icon would appear that would reflect the writer's judgment that the comment doesn't advance the conversation and is not worth reading.

This would allow journal / blog writers to quietly tell people that they're behaving inappropriately - sort of a little nudge - and enable readers to speed past what the writer doesn't think is worth reading.

Result: when the junk is sped past it has no advertising value, and earns no points, so there's really no reason to continue engaging in it. Not that that would stop everyone, but it would deter most.

There's little possibility for abuse in this scheme on the part of the writer, if you think through the consequences - his or her reputation is constantly on the line with the readers who value the conversation.

Jon,

I'm happy to see anything you decide that advances the professional atmosphere.

Hopefully your "unacceptable" examples will deplore the class clowns who wave signs around and the vandals who erect billboards on others posts. They always have a following, but they ought to be discouraged.