<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
The listowners would like to remind everyone of our policy against
self-promotion on the CELIAC List.  We encourage (and depend) upon our
subscribers reporting their candid views of products and services
available to the Celiac community.  However, out of deference to the
free telecommunications services donated to us by St. Johns University,
a non-profit entity, it has always been our policy that members should
not use our List as a place to advertise for their own entities.  We
are revising slightly the paragraph on this subject in our welcome
message to make it clear that this applies not only to commercial
entities, but to other forms of self-promotion:
 
2.  This list is not a free forum for company/organization ads or
other forms of self-promotion.  The interpretation of this "rule" is
not an easy matter in the celiac field, where so much of what we
discuss is by necessity oriented around commercial brand names or the
many excellent support organizations.  The important distinction is
to AVOID SELF-PROMOTION of products or services.  If an unaffiliated
list subscriber wants to write "Company X has an excellent GF muffin",
that is perfectly OK....that is just the type of information this list
is set up to distribute.  But employees of companies should not openly
promote their own products, and support group leaders should not
openly promote any of their group's products or services that have a
cost associated with them.
 
As an example of how we would draw the line on this topic, if a member
of a celiac support group wrote about how they felt the group provided
excellent services, we would consider this useful information for
fellow celiacs, similar to a customer of a GF food company writing
about their products.  If an officer of the same group wrote and said
the same thing, we would consider that self-promotion, similiar to a
salesperson or owner of a GF food company promoting their own products.
 
Considering the nearly 1400 subscribers and the List's 19-month
existence, this has almost never been a problem.  We thank everyone for
your prior help, and encourage you to continue sharing your
experiences, good and bad, with products and services for Celiacs.
 
Mike Jones <[log in to unmask]>
for the Listowners