Seth,
If you allow this from one commercial polisher, do you plan to offer it to all commercial polishers?
Howdy @Atwater_Mary - thanks for your inquiry. I responded to you privately, but I thought it might make sense to highlight publicly my perspective on commercial postings.
First to define a “commercial” posting. A commercial posting is any posting that seeks to solicit interest in the purchase of a good or service. Of course, I recognize that any commercial posting takes up the inbox space of participants, and therefore I want to be careful with what we allow and do not allow.
What we do now. As folks are getting used to the new Orchid system, @leah-ganoksin-admin and I have allowed reasonable and limited commercial postings that we felt were relevant to the Orchid community or that the Orchid community would be interested in. This is much the same as the way @Hanuman handled such things. I’ve limited those postings to one per member. Right now, I’m using my discretion. In the case of @Jeffrey_Herman2, he is well known to me and is well reputed, specifically as it relates to anything to do with polishing silver. Given his reputation, I thought the community would be interested in his offering.
What we will do in the very near future. In the very near future, my intention is to create a new category – something like “commercial postings and for sale” Any goods, services, workshops, or other items for sale (basically anything that isn’t for the sole purpose of knowledge exchange amongst Orchidians) would go into this category of being “commercial” in nature. This sub-forum would only be available to Gold or Platinum members, and any Orchid subscriber could change their settings to be notified or not via email of postings in that category (the default being you would be notified). Any member could see the postings, but only Gold or Platinum members would be able to post in that particular sub-forum. The idea is to add more value for those members, while creating an incentive to support Ganoksin/Orchid. As you know, Ganoksin.com remains entirely free and devoid of third-party advertising, so it is now entirely supported by members and jewelry manufacturing companies like @RioGrande and many others. I intended to do this upon launch, but @leah-ganoksin-admin and I have been quite busy with customer service and the full re-work of our article organization system on Ganoksin.com (so that articles and videos are searchable with the same category system). I expect this to be in the next 30 days or so.
For anyone who thinks they may wish to sell things or market anything of a commercial nature on a limited basis, now is an excellent time to avail yourself of the 50% discount on Legacy Gold, Legacy Platinum, and Lifetime Platinum plans that are only available for a limited time. If anyone has any questions about upgrading, kindly email “support@ganoksin.com” and we will get you squared away. It is $4 per month for Gold with your discounted legacy rate, and it would mean a lot to us - every dollar helps us! Details of membership are on this page, and we are going to be adding more and more for gold and platinum members over time.
Mary…When I joined Orchid several years ago, very quickly it became clear
to me that Jeffery Herman was someone whom I should listen to. It makes
sense to me that, based on his many posts, he would eventually develop his
own kind of jewelry polish or some other product. One that did not have
many of the undesirable characteristics that he and others have educated us
to avoid. Jeffery and I have communicated both via Orchid and privately
about a number of jewelry related topics. I appreciate anything that he has
to post regardless of its commercial nature. Jeffery’s business is
conservation. Polishing is just one small part of it and he could probably
commercialize many of his ideas. There have been several commercial posts
and resulting threads on Orchid in the last couple days. As a result of
one, I have ordered titanium strips from which to make soldering jigs.
Whether commercial or not, I appreciate the sharing that goes on via
Orchid. If I make a purchase as a result of it, it is a well informed and
considered purchase, and I am not at all offended by the post that lead up
to my purchase. Seth’s plan to create a separate commercial page on Orchid
is fine and it would address your concerns. At the same time I would like
to see there be some kind of connection between both pages. These are just
my thoughts. I work alone. I take a lot more away from Orchid than I give
it and I appreciate people like Jeffery who are willing to give more than
they get from it. Thanks…Rob
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Seth,
Herman may be well known and well reputed. I do not dispute this.
My point is that in the last two days I have received 17 inbox posts via Orchid regarding this product.
Could it only be me that is receiving this amount? Doubtful. All came via Orchid.
This is excessive. Deleting 17 inbox messages takes time.
Can you please consider a limit of perhaps four postings from commercial companies and then
charge them advertising fees and post them in advertising sections not email to Orchid. Please try not
to wait 30 days to do this.
Thanks for reading my suggestion. MA
Hi @Atwater_Mary - no worries at all. You need not wait for me to add the new category, that is more of a structural change.
In fact, you can rectify the excessive emails yourself immediately by changing your communication settings in Orchid. Right now, your default settings are to receive an email every time a new posting is made, and you can control that. That is why you are getting an email every time anyone responds to the thread.
We have posted instructions on how to adjust your settings here.
Again, anyone can control their own communication settings. We simply imported (created) a new profile for people based upon how they previously preferred to interact with Orchid when it was a mailing list.
I hope this helps save your inbox 
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Hi Mary,
I would strongly recommend setting your Orchid to come daily instead of having every post sent separately 
. That way you can even easily skip over whole threads that may not be relevant for you. And you can go to the site for threads that are of particular interest (because the full post does not appear in the Daily–for instance, images are left out).
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