New section idea

[TJ Hopland]

How about a new section where members can list places they have had good experiences with service or parts?

Subject should have the type of service and general location like:

472/500/425 engines and parts  Apple Valley, CA USA

First few lines of the text should be what ever contact info there is like:

MTS Maximum Torque Specialties
13641 John Glenn Rd #B
Apple Valley, CA 92308

http://www.mtscadparts.com/

Technical Contact:   Marty@MTScadparts.com
Business Relations:   Paul@MTScadparts.com
General Information: Info@MTScadparts.com
Phone: (760) 247-2533
Fax: (760) 247-0062

And then you can add whatever details

They specialize in parts for the 472,500,425 engines. Complete motors available from stock to wild.   A few parts for Cadillac cars.
Great people that know their stuff. Fast reasonable shipping.  Most parts in stock. 

[Johnny]

Nice enough idea, but I think, mostly for legal reasons, the club doesn't wish to post businesses.  SOP has been, when a member needs a reference, they usually are notified by private email, by someone that has helpful info.

[Tom Hall 7485]

It's a good idea as you write it, TJH. 

TJH has not suggested posting negative comments. Our problem arises when the web
site displays negative comments about vendors of cars, parts and services.  At that point,
the club is put into a difficult position.  We do not have the ability to independently research
complaints and must not publish libelous (false and defamatory) comments.  Positive
feedback we don't have any trouble posting. If you use the search device, you can see
praise for some vendors on our web site now.  The problem is that it has not been put
into one forum of its own, as TJH suggests. 

The club is not in a position to verify any endorsement of a vendor but can publish your
positive perceptions about one.  The club has also decided not to post commercial ads
here, so endorsements need to be from bonafide customers, not shills.

The idea also works to the extent that you, the visitors, volunteer to communicate privately
your experiences to those who may inquire of you after they see on the club's web site
that you had an experience with a seller of cars, parts or services.  A different version of
what TJH suggests would be:  "BRAKE PARTS - Contact me for a reference about
Millender's Cylinders of Las Cruces, NM. Boris CLC 12345, frizzyhair@yakyak.net."

[Johnny]

On the surface it does seem simple enough for a person to give a positive vendor reference, but what happens if another person had a negative experience with the same vendor?  Does the person say nothing?  Post their negative experience?  The obvious answer is to send a private email to the person asking, but what about others that read the positive reference, but don't get to hear of a negative experience?

[Tom Hall 7485]

To be thorough in their research, people should also look for negative experiences.
Negative experiences are discovered by following up on messages such as that in
"BRAKE PARTS...Millender's Cylinders...", which could be a positive reference, a
negative reference, or a mixed positive and negative reference.  Please see my
example above.  What gets posted is that someone has had an experience with
the vendor.  The negative part of it, if any, doesn't get published here.  The
positive part can be published here.  After a while, people will figure out that if
someone has a reference but doesn't give any positives, then he probably has
some negatives to say about the vendor and can follow up privately to find out
what those are.

[Johnny]

As you suggested, I did a search of brake parts, and got quite a few hits, in fact 7 pages worth.  I guess a person could go through all 7 pages of posts to reach a verdict about a vendor.  By the way, I think I should point out, that I am not debating the webmasters decision to eliminate negative posts, due to legal ramifications, even though I don't know if any legal action can be taken by a negative post on an "Internet Message Board".  I am not referring to defamation of character type of post, but just a basic "I was not satisfied by them, because................." type of post.

[TJ Hopland]

Ok, if it is all a 'legal' issue who ever is the 'legal' department needs to write up a disclaimer for this section like you hear on radio and tv all the time to the effect of ' the views expressed here are not the views of the ownership / management of this site'.  Perhaps only allow CLC members who are registered on the baord to post in the section because it will be harder for some anonymous angry person to just stir things up.  It should then turn out like anything else there may be one angry person out there but if there are also 5 people that said they got great service. 

It seems to me other than the 'how to'  info on this board the next most useful thing would be 'where & who'.  For how many Cadillacs are and were out there for some reason they seem to be among the hardest to find parts for and like most cars finding any service people that can work on a car more than a couple of years old.

[Tom Hall 7485]

TJH, the disclaimer has already been posted.  In the Revised Forum Rules near the
top of each forum it says,

"Because of the public nature of internet access, the Cadillac & LaSalle Club cannot be
responsible for the content of any message (whether or not from a CLC member), and
the listing of any message in this Message Forum shall not be construed to indicate that
the CLC endorses the content thereof."

We can easily prevent anonymous angry people from stirring things up -- even
people who are not anonymous.  (Fully anonymous isn't allowed here; a true first
name or last name is required.)  It's just a matter of the moderators pushing a few
buttons to remove messages that are not in compliance.  I think references from
people who are not club members could be useful.