Sorry, but you just can't cast Steve and I of the same iron. I'll gladly address my own participation on this site before I address Steve Lackmeyer's participation. Hopefully you will be able to see the difference and revise your quick quip. However, even if you still think I am guilty of the same or similar inappropriate usage of the OKCTalk, that doesn't excuse Steve.

In the thread that you quote, I introduced my personal website and asked for feedback on the service that I was offering. The service is free and I wasn't paid to create the site. The site was setup to scratch my own itch as a new OKC resident looking to buy a house in a safe neighborhood. I also have a personal interest in crime statistics. I felt it appropriate to post a request for comments on the site because the website isn't "similar in nature to OKCTalk or in direct competition with OKCTalk". There is no chance that my website would draw users away from participation in the OKCTalk community. I was looking for some feedback on the site design and usefulness.

Since joining OKCTalk, I have tried hard to participate in this community. If you look at my posting log, you will see that I have participated by posting helpful replies and starting discussion threads. I've already posted 232 times in 7 months and started 25 threads on various topics. I have done nothing to draw people away from this community. I have only helped to build it.

Steve is employed by the Oklahoman and writes about downtown issues in the Oklahoman newspaper. As Shane453 points out, some users (not I) inappropriately and potentially illegally repost Steve's copyrighted work onto this forum in order to start discussions. Many people find Steve's articles valuable. I am not contesting the value of Steve's articles. In any case, I suspect that Steve is aware of this practice and appreciates the added visibility with respect to his page rankings. Contrary to Shane453's opinion, discussion on this site would still continue without this practice.

While the topics of Steve's articles from the Oklahoman are discussed on this site, Steve has not contributed significantly to this site through his participation. Steve has been an OKCTalk user since 2004, posted only 150 times and started only 11 threads. In fact, Steve uses this website largely for his own benefit, to promote himself and his employing organization. With a few exceptions, Steve's contributed threads are written with the explicit aim to promote an offsite article, e.g., on his website or blog, and to ask questions that generate content that he can uses for his commercial blog. I'll give you some examples. He used OKCTalkers when he asked about "downtown's five worst eyesores?" and then compiled the answers for a blog entry. He neither warned OKCTalk users nor asked permission of them. In another instance, Steve cherry picked content from a thread in which he didn't participate for direct use in use in his blog. Finally, in this thread, he refused to do me the kindness of answering a simple question, and instead asked me to wait a day for a blog post that he would write. I suspect that he got the idea for the blog post from my question. These are examples of using the community and not participating in it.

Steve is a print journalist, but because it is part of his job, he also earns money for his blogging. His blog is branded by NewsOK.com. It is commercial. Steve's blog is "similar in nature to OKCTalk or in direct competition with OKCTalk". Steve's blog allows for users to post comments and the topics that are covered are similar. You can think of his blog as being the same thing an OKCTalk thread, one over which he personally controls. His promotion of his blog in his posts violates the forum policy.

But mecarr asks "Who the hell cares if he promotes his blog?".

Not me. Really. It's in the forum policies, but It's no sweat off my back if we want to change the policy. I'm much more irked about Steve's lack of simple courtesy, admitted shameless self-promotion, and lack of participation in the community.