Posted by Ann, a resident of the Vineyard Hills neighborhood, on Apr 16, 2008 at 7:32 am

Mike, thanks for sharing. I heard from a friend that SolarCity is a pretty good outfit. I think they are connected with Tesla, the electric car company. I plan to be at both tonight's workshop and the one in Ptown next week. I'll be sure to tell all my freinds that care so much about our future - we've gotta make positive changes!

Posted by antispam, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Apr 16, 2008 at 9:26 pm

Is spam allowed on this forum?

Posted by Not sure, a resident of the Highland Oaks neighborhood, on Apr 17, 2008 at 7:35 pm

So, now I'm wondering... what is considered spam and what isn't? To me, the first message seemed to be of a public service/informational nature, but I can see how the reply might be considered a possible "shill". For the sake of background, Wikipedia defines "shill" as:

A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group's ideological claims.

So perhaps not "spam", but a possible set-up situation to then allow a "shill" to chime in enthusiastically and sway us, the reading audience. Is this kosher, since it's a topic of public benefit, i.e. information regarding alternative energy/greening, very trendy these days? Does the editor decide these things, or is it a matter of individual opinion?

To extend this debate, how do all public service/non-profit announcements fit into this formula? For instance, there is another discussion topic announcing the times and services of a local church organization, right ahead of this comment. How do folks feel about that - spam or not?