What I was talking about doesn't require a dedicated person getting paid a wage to sit in front of a computer for extended periods to possibly interact w/potential customers.
I visit boards because I'm a car guy. I share points of my builds & look to see what my peers are up to. If I worked for a suspension company or a parts supplier I would be interacting w/people interested in the same stuff I am & I might even be able to help them.
I do this on my own to educate myself & it's done for free.
Not to argue semantics too far, but, there's some legal issues with what you said.
In your first post:
Agree 100%. I just checked on the old
thread to see if Mac/Southside Machine Perf ever acknowledged/responded to my last statement which wound up being the final post of that thread.
Says you were looking for the vendor, not just some gbody enthusiasts who worked for the company and took it upon themselves to engage you.
But as an aside, ballpark, how many internet message boards do you think are out there related to just the core 78-88 a/g body cars. Either an individual make/model or covering more than one?
Then add in all the various social media platforms, groups, pages, etc.
The world is much MUCH bigger than gbodyforum.
And that is before you look at other products and services a particular vendor offers - in the case of Southside you've got 60s/70s abody, fox body, gbody. Harley. Powdercoating. Machining. All sorts of things.
We could go through every vendor and all they make/offer. But.... I really don't think k anyone cares enough to do that systematically.
But back to the start of this post, if an employee answers messages, and does it on behalf of a company, they're entitled to compensation for that time even if they don't ask for it at the time so on so forth... also no need to get into the employment law death spiral. Govt wants their payroll taxes on that effort too. And if the employees are later let go due to cutbacks or economy downturn, well, they can get the DOL to get back wages, back taxes, and penalties for them with free lawyers.