What are people thinking of when they say "excessive"? If it's s term that all the vets already understand but there's no more clarification, it may seem more cliquish than anything else.

I see that point, and it's kind of hard to define.

Hmm. I would say no more than 1 direct link per month, but that begs the question, what if someone offers, say, a special promotion for May and then also offers an additional special that month?

But then I suppose a direct link wouldn't be required; you could just write "Hey, MyBiz is running another special on widgets until May 30th. Check it out at mybiz.com or email me at blah@mybiz.com"

Also, I can't take all the cred for this idea -- I'd been thinking about it for quite a while and wondering what the etiquette/board standards were for pimping my new biz, be was hesitant to ask, until I was talking to Ginger, and SHE mentioned it, too, and I thought, "OK, it's not just me, then!"

I would say don't post just a link to your business and/or special deal without contributing to the conversation. We don't want it to be an announcement thread, right?

I really don't think it's going to come up, because I don't think any of us are selling anything that lends itself to spamming. At least I can't imagine posting, "And if you buy now, your newsletter will be 10 percent off!"

I expect the conversation to be mostly brainstorming and talking about things like working from home, productivity and marketing. Possibly it will mostly be about that bane of the home office, the leaf blower. I think we can trade off on things like proofreading.

Sharing information about selling things on eBay and making money from crafts could be part of this thread, and someone may occasionally post "I just put some new things up on my Etsy store."

Already I think pointing out you have a special where the discussion isn't about specials is pimping. I don't think there should be unsolicited self recommendation. If someone says they need service A, or suggestions about how to run a certain promo, or how to advertise service B is a valid prompt, but I think it should always be in response to a request if some sort, our at least part of a question.

I think it might actually be helpful to have a list of buffistas with business and what services they offer that might be helpful to other buffistas as part of the thread. Only for those who want to be on that list of course.

I'm fine with pimping.

Christian dollar store pimping, Jesse?

No, I'd call that spam.

To expand on that, I think it's great when members of the community promote what they are up to, and when what they are up to is making a living, I like the idea of others of us knowing about it and being able to use their services/buy their products/whatever.