Janet wrote:

Gardenalley is a commercial enterprise using urg posts ( under a
different name of origin) to populate their website so they can sell
webspace to advertisers.


This taps into the whole question of the "free" ethos on the internet;
somebody, somewhere has to pay for everything. You get these situations
where people are providing value and others are earning from it; the
question of ethics becomes problematic. The people who foolishly provided
free content for Arianna Huffington's website didn't get upset until she
sold it for 300 million smackeroonies. I sometimes post free art onto
websites, but I get publicity out of that (and they get to sell ad space).

I think it's a question here of misrepresentation. GA are in my view
pretending, or implying anyway, to be something they aren't. I can't really
prove that what they're doing is wrong, but it just doesn't feel right to
me. That's more on behalf of others than myself, because as everyone knows I
know sod all about gardening and mostly only post to ask questions, while
gaining from reading the posts of others.

They could at least just acknowledge where the heck their content is coming
from. It's not too much to ask, is it?


Ian