On 09/10/06, Kris & Adrian emailus@btopenworld.com wrote:
Will we have to delete Coca Cola etc if they start "demanding" editorial control?
Could we have some further clarification on this please?
Certainly.
Company A makes an obscure sex toy. There appear to be three people in the world who care about it, and they're all trying to use us for advertising.
Company B is an international household name, with a turnover in billions of dollars, about whom entire shelves of material have been written.
I think there is a pretty clear distinction between the two, and arguing we've set some kind of "precedent" for all corporations by deleting an article on a silly piece of unimportant plastic just doesn't hold water.
There are justifiable reasons to worry about the implications of Danny's action, but I really don't think we need to worry that this in some ways means we're now beholden to anyone with a PR guy and a phone. (Personally I feel the article was asking to be deleted pending a user looking after it, since it had degenerated into an unmaintainable mess of spammers and counter-spammers, but I accept that's an unusual view... and I feel it was rather helpful of the spammer to identify the spam for us!)