Greetings, I am a relatively new member on these forums (just recently started to make posts), and I have been looking here and there for interesting discussions. Then I passed by the advertising forums and got a slight shock. I just want to understand whether there is any control being exercised over that part of DP? I cannot believe the chaos and the quality of offerings taking place. Anything from "I'll submit your site to 200,000 resources for $1" to "I'll post on 1000s of forums for you"... Who buys that? Plenty of non-existing, scammy offers. Even spam services being sold! And then, when you ask sellers about it - they think you are the crazy one for even questioning the quality/validity of their service. So is there any control, validation processes, quality control over the advertising section here at DP?
Yes, there is. And you can report anything that is illegal or against our rules. Though it's not up to DP to police other websites' TOS (selling MySpace account e.g.) or to check whether a website is warez - we leave it up to our wise members to exercise caution, as we all do when buying stuff from people we ultimately don't know. Those examples you mentioned might not necessarily be up to your standards but remember we have 40K+ members from all over the world - some parts $1 is a lot of money and can pay for a few hours work. So don't measure everything at your own standards.
That does certainly make sense. Additionally, if you were to involve yourself heavily in verifying the validity of services offered, that would take a lot more time. I do understand that $1 goes a longer way in 2nd and 3rd world countries, and I realize the disruptive power effect of those offers versus quality services. However, when are exposed to just plain dishonesty (as in '100,000 or 200,000 site submissions' cases), is that in compliance with the standards of this board? Certainly to any experienced enough Internet professional or even enthusiast such offer tells the story. Best, Artashes
The best thing to do is just be smart... like when you buy anything, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.
Yes, such offers would be fine as we aren't the one to judge the quality of the offer. The success of this board is largely due to its liberal state when it comes to (lack of / few) rules. What you see in the FAQ is all there's to it, the rest is up to you guys. In a competitive market place, crap is quickly weeded out by demand for better and supply of superior goods/services.
Actually, very well said. I am familiar with the theory you are referring to, but haven't heard anyone put it in those exact words in regard to forum management. For the person who partly does so for a living, I am loving the phrase. I guess the marketplace works based on freedom of own business decisions and responsibility for own actions. Best, Artashes
I've been wondering the same thing. Not so much the inexpensive services, but the sales of copyrighted material (pictures and scripts mainly). I've noticed on occasion such sales where the seller clearly states s/he has no right to sell the material, but is doing so anyway. Should that be reported or should I just ignore it?
Ultimately, we wouldn't have any way of knowing what's legit and what isn't so it's up to the buyers to make sure they find out.