Big Al, I think that this would be a very useful point to air, and perhaps some of us could get legal opinion as well?
I was around in the early days. Though I have never before said much about the fact, I actually bought Colin Simpson his very first server out of my own pocket (as he will confirm) when the site became too big for the ISP, because Colin is a very good egg and put the site up to help fire safety (as opposed to help people flog their services). In those days, it was mostly about general discussion (quite a bit of banter), people keeping each other informed about changes in standards (so good CPD), some of my chums in the fire and rescue service interested in interpretation of standards, etc.
It is only in recent years that, as a result of people with dubious expertise and experience selling their services to an unsuspecting world that people have the blatant cheek to set out all details of their consultancy projects and ask people to give them the answer. It is clear from many of the questions that their competence to sell their services is doubtful.
I will be honest, for me, I stopped answering most questions and stopped helping people (other than the fire and rescue services, who are not asking questions so that they can earn more money) when a guy who worked for the FPA (unbeknown to any of my friends in that organization) started putting consultancy job after consultancy job on these boards so he could find out what to advise the FPA clients. Given that the FPA sell their consultancy services on the basis of being "the UK's national fire safety organization" I thought that this was arrogant and morally wrong. Indeed, we lost a consultancy job for a multi national which was to look at fire safety requirements of different countries because the FPA supposedly had better access to the information through their networking with sister organizations in the countries. As soon as the FPA were appointed, the guy was on firenet asking everyone if they could help him with the fire safety legislation and requirements for the countries in question. To their credit, FPA responded to a complaint about the guy.
However, as someone not eeking out a fire brigade pension, I work hard to keep up to date, and spend a small fortune each year making sure the consultancy team do the same and to provide a good service to clients to earn a decent living. So why would I , at the end of a day doing consultancy for 12 hours, do some more free for other consultants.
None of this deals with the liability issue of course. There is no doubt that you have the same liability for the free advice you dish out so liberally, based on sparse information, as the "proper" consultancy you do for a fee. All anyone would need to prove is that they relied on the advice and could reasonably expect you to have the expertise to give a full and considered reply.
I frequently look at replies from posters and the questions to which they respond with horror at the misinformation, wrong advice and the fact that just one bit of missing information, that any competent consultant would wish to have before even offering a preliminary opinion, could totally change the validity of the reply. Worse still some unsuspecting client is paying for the advice gleaned , as it were, down the pub. Even worse, people may rely on the quick fire off the cuff answers, based on inadequate information, for their safety unless someone else bobs up and bothers to correct it.
Feel free to paste this as a debate somewhere else if you wish. I myself am leaving the fireground and returning home station via firstly the chip shop and thereafter the 24 hour gym. Informative message ends.
