Message-ID: <4644A423.6030406@postgresql.org>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 18:13:07 +0100
From: Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (Macintosh/20070326)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Chander Ganesan <chander@otg-nc.com>
CC: PostgreSQL www <pgsql-www@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Event Spam..???
References: <46449018.9070202@otg-nc.com>
In-Reply-To: <46449018.9070202@otg-nc.com>
OpenPGP: url=http://www.pgadmin.org/pgp/davepage.pgp
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Chander Ganesan wrote:
> Also, I notice a lot of events in the training database that seem to be
> dedicated more to "lead generation" than a reasonable effort to run a
> training course.  For example, 'Certfirst' lists PostgreSQL courses
> throughout the US in a wide range of different cities.  It is my belief
> that these courses listings are designed not to actually offer a wide
> range of courses, but to maintain a "main page" list of courses to
> generate leads.  Is this an acceptable practice?  I'd hate to see a
> bunch of vendors adopting this practice to be competitive....
> 
> It seems to me that such a practice would not be to the benefit of the
> community - since it wouldn't help community members find events that
> were actually running - rather it would put them in touch with companies
> that could add them to their marketing databases (or they'd get taken
> with a "bait and switch" - where they sign up for a class in the
> Bahamas, but end up being redirected to a course in Chicago).

I agree it's not good if that is what they are doing, but do you have
any proof? How would we distinguish between that, and say a dozen
courses put on by EnterpriseDB, Command Prompt or OTG?

> Also, how about putting a disclaimer on the training pages indicating
> that the listing of training courses doesn't constitute the endorsement
> of a company by the PG community - and that customers should do their
> own due diligence to ensure they get what they pay for.  I think many
> customers look at a listing of training and consider it to be an
> endorsement by the community..

I haven't gone quite that far, but following a discussion with Magnus I
have added a line saying that PGDG doesn't endorse any third part events.

Thanks, Dave.