"ITB" folks, calling you out

Can people who are “ITB” please put down who it is they work for? It seems there are more and more people who are businessmen posting here who only post “ITB” but never exactly let on where they are in the food chain. It would help to know and clarify issues or problems that can arise beforehand if we know what dog (if any) they have in the fight.

Maybe they don’t post the name of their outfit, because the fear it would be seen as promotion? It is such a fine line that ITB people have to tread on wine fora sometimes.

Maybe better than on posts or sigs, that they post that in their profile?

I think “ITB” in the sig is enough. Requiring more information would be unreasonable.

I believe I was specifically told not to list our store name at one point…

Presumably, it wouldn’t be difficult to have “ITB” followed by a category, e.g., retail, restaurant, distributor, etc.

You could look at this a different way. I have a lot of other interests besides wine and one of those is competitive bass fishing. And that world has forums that are passionately followed and participated in just like the wine forums.

The business of bass fishing is very big with companies fighting hard to get the upper hand in selling fishing tackle, boats and electronics to all us fishermen. And a LOT of the people participating in the forums are also pros working for and/or sponsored by a lot of these companies. So the protocol that is more or less followed is that people with some connection with one of those companies list their sponsors and business connections in the signature line. That way when someone asks… “What’s the best brand of fishing rod for “flipping”?” and someone posts about how great a specific brand is, it’s easy to take their comments with a grain of salt when that company is listed as one of their sponsors.

See my signature. I won’t add my employer since I do not in any way represent them online. I do not participate here from work.

The correct answer us G. Loomis

David - I think your sig is Perfect…perhaps even a little too much, but sounds very honest to me.

What I am railing about are situations like we had when Lyle Fass was starting up his company and he had one of his investors or some other such interested party talking about the very wines he was selling. I’ve also noticed with another recent startup who talks up the wines he carries. Other importers, like Dan Kravitz and Oliver McCrum are pretty explicit about which wines they import. I don’t mind businessmen talking about what they sell, but I do like to know about their interests.
Perhaps what got my goat up this time was the post by someone on the resurrected Premier Cru thread who was openly critical of their business model, but he would only say he was ‘ITB’, so it made me wonder why he would attack another retailer/importer?
I know the wine business is like a small club with gentlemen’s agreements about not stepping on toes, but I see an increasing amount of people who are using this site as a means of accessing customers and promoting themselves and their companies, that while valuable in alerting us to new wines, can also catch us up in the marketers snare too easily.

Listing who they work for isn’t helpful, if someone’s a distributor they sell hundreds of different products. I always mention if I have a relationship to a wine I’m discussing.

I post who I work for in my signature, so anyone reading can consider it whenever I may post an opinion on a wine or related topic.

It was your store URL, not your store name, that was the issue. I’m not sure you - as a non-Subscriber - have enough characters to list your store, but perhaps

Hey Bill!

I could respond to that comment with my preference (which isn’t G Loomis) but THAT would be some serious thread drift… We could take the discussion over to Western Bass .com or TexasFishingForum . com but it would be about as useful as t#ts on a boar. All you’d get is as many responses as there are premium rod manufacturers, with everyone claiming that THEIR favorite, that they use, is the best! Those threads get really boring really quickly once you’ve been around a bit…

Really?

I’m no longer in the distribution or retail wine biz, but when I was I never encountered such “gentlemen”.

As do the Premier Cru threads

+1
If I have some sort of relationship with a wine I’m discussing, I make sure everyone knows.

Kinda like asking a wine forum what’s the best Cab?

I agree with the OP. The fact that someone who works for a distributor or an importer that might handle many wines is not a reason not to. As others have said, if you are talking about one of your wines, you should add that, as Oliver, George, and Michel do.

And Todd has made clear it is not unreasonable promotion to name your employer here.

Kinda like asking a wine forum what’s the best Cab?

I think we’ve answered that one … several times.