Should Audiogon forum dealers be held to a different standard?

No.  All dealers should work to the same high standards.

It is said that bricks and mortar dealers add value by giving objective and useful advice to customers and that justifies their sticking to list pricing and not discounting (as well as the cost of their bricks and mortar, of course).  But can we be sure that advice is really objective and useful when they have so much skin in the game.

eg   Advocating a more expensive component when a cheaper one is just as good or better.

eg   Advocating a component where the dealer's gross margin is larger.

eg   Advocating a component that will take the dealer's sales of that marque over a super-commission threshold.

Gotta have a busload of faith to get by?

Yes they should!

audiogon is a curious hybrid of commercial site and anything-goes user forum, and it's a fair question of whether a dealer should be allowed to, in essence, advertise to free, especially since a non-dealer has to pay to sell its gear. i personally find the flagrant hucksterism of one or two particular dealers annoying, and i may choose not to read their posts or to buy from them, but there are also dealers who are very knowledgeable and illuminating, and like anything else you gotta take the good with the bad.

It sounds like you have a way to identify dealers.  If so can you tell me how to identify them.  I have always felt dealers should be identified because this certainly could explain their bias.  The should identify themselves with the name of dealer so we can Google them to find out what lines they carry.  I wonder if Tammy could address this.  

Just like going into a hi-fi store many times ot is best to keep quiet and find out what the other fellow doesn't  know.