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That's one of the good things about MR: It's easy to tell the difference between someone with 2,514 posts and 14,214 karma, who obviously hangs around and does something useful, and some random schmuck with 3 posts and 10 karma, who's here for nothing but advertising. Look at how things work over in the Flea Market. Who's going to trust some guy who just regged today and his one and only post is selling a ridiculously low-priced iPad? I think most of us have no difficulty telling the real members from the bill-posters and occasional shills.
The author self-promotion section seems to be working out well (except from the point of view of my wallet, anyway!), partly because of the whole post-count/karma system, and partly because books of interest often spawn reviews, discussions, etc. This can work for either the benefit or detriment of the author, depending on if he's Tim Myers and hangs out to chat about his books and writing in general, or he's Karl Klein and insults prospective readers when they point out his entire premise is highly improbable.
By the way, Rhadin, the reason Neil has his company in his .sig is to sell books, him being a publisher and all. Aside from him being a useful fellow in many other respects, his company has some rather good books for sale.
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