I do not like how people place random chatter before advertising in a place like general chat, especially when advertising has a proper reason to be there while the "chatter" usually do lack this.
General chat should have it's own chat window to not flood up all players screens that you must enter to chat in. Advertising do belong in general chat honestly since it's the only chat that goes out to the whole map, no one wants to run around to every character they see and tell them about their roleplay they are hosting when they can post once and let the whole map know.
While random chatting can pretty much take place anywhere but in general chat, local, group, party, whisper even. Another thing to keep in mind is that the chatting in general chat very often turn into everything but chatting.
So in my eyes, I want a general "stuffed" with advertising, and I'd want a new chatroom that all the chatty users go to that isn't active unless you activate it, or learn others how to use the other chat functions as well.