As far as outting affiliates goes, I liken it to running a retail store (which was my past life). In a retail store it would go something like this: Pepsi guy pays store owner a bonus upfront to put his product in the best spot. Store owner takes the money, but doesn’t ever seem to get around to fulfilling his part of the bargain and Coca Cola stays in the best spot. Everyone can agree that this store owner is a jerk.
The other store owners hear about it, probably from the pepsi guy. They agree that the other store owner is a jerk.
So what are the other store owners to do? Are they expected to write up a big ad in the local newspaper to say way a jerk this store owner is, therefore preventing pepsi, coke, or Frito Lay from being taken advantage of? Do they plaster the name of the storeowner on all the bullentin boards in town? I can tell you with the upmost certainty that they do not. They mind their own shops and keep their own relationships with the distributors positive. They can’t possibly assume that they have the power to determine or to influence the actions of other store owners.
I know how they are affected. They’re probably going to be receiving fewer offers of such payments because one or two (who knows how many) other store owners aren’t trustworthy in their business dealings.
CAP isn’t an association of store owners, or even a formal association of webmasters. It’s a public message board, open to whomever wishes to post here. I don’t believe that CAP can or should assume it has the mandate to regulate webmasters.
Don’t get me wrong, jerks piss me off. I just don’t see how we can regulate each other, any more than one store can regulate another store. Maybe the GPWA would like to give it a try.