At any given time, the number of guests visiting this board greatly exceeds the number of registered members. All of those "lurkers" are potential members who could be moved to join to share an experience (good or bad), make a recommendation, etc...but the general consensus here is that a first-time poster making any negative comment must have some ulterior motive. It was recently suggested that perhaps members' first 10 posts should be approved by admin. I personally find that idea offensive. Everyone posting on this board was a first-time poster at some point, and every first-time poster is entitled to express his/her opinion as long as the post follows forum guidelines. We all have a brain and hopefully the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.
As for myself, I have been here for 7 years and did not know this forum existed until very recently. I have a small business, and a client of mine called me and told me that she recommended my services to a poster on this forum. She had been a long-time lurker and was moved to join to reply to the person requesting a service. I checked out this board and decided to join. A few days later admin posted a thread about people using the forum for free advertising by basically referring themselves, etc...I called my client and asked her to please not recommend me again, and told her why - you would have thought I shot her best friend, and she may never post again. I do not advertise here because my business is too small to support banner advertising, and what I do does not fall into any of the categories in the "Products and Services" section. Maybe I'll ask Talk Host to create a category for me
And I agree about TooJay's pastrami - I was with a group of friends at Perkins and we were talking about good pastrami, and I mentioned that I was pastrami-spoiled by the Golden Ox. A gentleman in the booth behind us turned around and said "I love that place! Best pastrami in the world!" The Golden Ox is a little dive joint in a very, very bad section of East Los Angeles, and the man was a retired LA cop. It is indeed a small world.