Originally Posted by
Jordan Y.
The only caveat- it's great, as long as it doesn't influence the editorial position of the moderators. I've seen forums in which a guy will come in and post "X Shop screwed me out of $7000- I have pics and receipts to prove it. Stay Away!" And then the owner of the shop, who happens to sponsor the forum, comes in and posts "That's a lie, I never promised you that, etc" and the mods follow up with a lock, delete, and/or ban.
Thats why Shops have thier own forum and we dont moderate it, they do (pretty much, we will remove excessively bad stuff). If they are a sucky business, it will show in the content of their forum and people will know to avoid them.
Sponsoring a forum doesnt buy a shop anything more than getting their name out there, and being able to run banners in their sig. its the same concept as buying banner advertising at the to of the site except its for a specific forum only.
We play no favorites and its why as much as possible I try to make sure our staff are not shop owners. If they happen to be, then its made clear to them they get no special privileges at all.