There is no reason to moderate it when people like you would be right behind them to call it spam anyhow. I've been on forums that weren't moderated to death. On webmaster forums referral links used to be (and still are in some places) encouraged. Networking is done to be beneficial to both parties, starting out your interaction with the other webmaster by yelling at them for doing exactly what you do all day (trying to make money) is so hypocritical it's funny. Like I said, these things police themselves. New Member) I want hosting Link Dropper) Go To http://www.craphost.com/makememoney 42 Established Members) Don't sign up to that crap, I hear x, y, or z is good. What I find even more hilarious is that you posted a thread stating you were starting a hosting affiliate program soon. I've sent over 4,000 webmasters to a handful of hosts over the years. I'll give you one guess on what kind of website 95% of those referrals came from. By the way I'd love to moderate. Don't harass or threaten to harm other members. Don't post illegal content. Don't use a bot to post off topic threads all over the forum. A forum by definition is a place for open discussion but we now have rules on what can be mentioned in threads (legal) and even what can be sent in a private message. The "private" in that phrase should let you know whether or not this should be moderated.
Well you sure have a good descriptive post on the evils of referral links which I fully agree. One thing about forum is as members we follow the rules and regulations laid down. No one is forced to be a member, if you think that referral links are a must and it is injustice to ban them, by all means look for another forum that allow referral links. With regards to what wrong with members opposing referral links, I can't find anything wrong with me. With regards to DP position, I am sure the mods have discussed and considered the implications of banning referrals. I am sure they have weighed the pros and cons.
I'm sure everybody would jump at a chance to moderate here, but when it comes down to actually doing it is another thing. Forum moderation is tedious work, and if you have to do it non-stop every day you'll get burnt out. Kudos to you if you could do it though. Regarding your example, how does it benefit a member when they ask for help and they get 50 link spams? The way DP is currently running, most people will actually post their reasons and justifications, rather than just a link dump. I would rather see 5-10 well written responses outlining what is good/bad about what they recommend rather than just "try this www.myspamlink.com/?myaffiliateid".
If we had refferal we will have every clickbank link here posting in the forum up and down. I think in the link is enough
In sig's are allowed (unless they've changed that policy lately), we're talking about affiliate links in actual post content.
think of it like one of those unbiased consumer magazines If you are looking for advice on what to buy, do you want people to give you honest answers on what is the best product, or do you want people to give you the answer that will earn them a referral?
I've already explained this to you. Nobody listens to people just throwing their link in every post related to a topic. Even if the person asking wouldn't realize it's just someone looking for referrals there would be 20 members come in to call the link droppers out on their "spam". People just worry about such trivial things, and it bothers you enough to actually remove cookies so someone that linked you to a product you did decide to buy gets 0 credit? That is just cold and one can only hope that karma is real. Remember this conversation if you happen to start your hosting affiliate program. When you are struggling to get signups because nobody can even put their affiliate link on the websites the webmasters that need hosting are you might change your outlook. If you think enough people care to post a link to you out of the goodness of their hearts you are sadly mistaken. Webmasters have one main goal, to make money. If that avenue is taken away from them they will find something else to spend their time on that will pay.
Firstly, its your perception (call it ethical or unethical). Secondly, unwanted PMs which conveys nothing but a sales letter with a link in it are considered as spam, just a basic rule.
Just because nobody will listen to them, does that make it acceptable for them to post the link anyways? Simply put, I don't like being mislead. If somebody does that, then I have no quarrels about deleting the cookie. I've already taken this type of information into account. It's one of the reasons we haven't launched yet. The hosting program I'm setting up will be a lot different than what you usually see with hosting companies. We're taking the high road and going for quality over quantity. I personally don't care if it pulls in millions per month like Host Gator or the other giants do, I would rather it stand out from the crowd and do things differently.
Acceptable how? I find it 100% acceptable that a webmaster would use an affiliate link when sending someone to a website covering the subject there were looking for. To not do so is dumbfounding, if you are a webmaster. Misled? How on earth is using an affiliate link misleading someone? I guess I can assume you don't promote affiliate programs or you would be misleading all of your website visitors. So now no website being linked with an affiliate url is quality? You know, maybe I expect too much when I believe it is your duty to research what you are signing up for. I don't care if Jesus himself refers me to a program I am going to look it up to see what it's all about. If the program is up to my standards I am going to use the affiliate link I was given. I've made people tens of thousands over the years from being their referral and I've received hundreds of thousands referring others. If I ran around referring crap to people all day my reputation would be ruined and things would..... police themselves. I know this, if everyone acted like you then no requests would get answered because what is the point. The guy that I'm helping is so naive that he's going to remove my cookie because it is misleading? Never mind that I spent my time to share my knowledge with him, I shouldn't get rewarded for that! Laughable. What you and others fail to realize is that you are forcing your beliefs on everyone. There are many people (dare I say most) that don't care if you use your affiliate link when referring a website. While you can go ignore people you find offensive I can't uncensor the people that aren't even posting their links because they'll be banned. But here's to everyone keeping the good programs to themselves from now on. Wouldn't want to offend a link nazi.
You are putting words into my mouth. I never said that affiliate url's don't have any quality. There is the occasional gem that you find, but 99% of the link spam that appears on this forum is crap, usually some pos clickbank product. That's great that you do that. 99% of the people here don't. They see a product that they can make $100 per sale off it and spam the **** out of it. They don't care about credibility. I guess to some of us, helping people really means helping them for the sake of helping them rather than trying to get a buck out of helping them. To each his own. I am not forcing belief's on anybody. I am simply adhering to the forum policies. Don't like them? Then as everybody else has stated - leave. Yes this is a public forum, but all public forums have rules you are expected to follow. The only true form of what you want is anarchy. No rules, no policies, no structure. There are webmaster forums out there that follow this practice, but this is not one of them. That's what most real webmasters do. Most of them don't want their real prize picks to be getting more popular as it makes it harder for them to compete. Who cares about a 5% downline commission when I can make 40% commission on my own sales? Yes it's nice to have a little army that is essentially generating money for you, and in some markets that works really well. I'm not a link nazi I just follow the rules that this forum has established. If somebody posts an affiliate link I ignore it, but it somebody does major spam then I'm happy to report it to weed out the crap on this site. This is the best public webmaster forum out there right now. Some people would argue that Warrior Forum or SitePoint or the other big ones are the best, but I think DP is the best.
What happen to being a "Community" helping each other make money? Referral links each other make money!
There will always be people who will abuse things (so I can see why people will wonder, why just get tough on ref links and not everything else?), and because no board will hire 1000 moderators, they just adjust the rules when things get too much to handle, which I always think is better than punishing some people, while some get away with it (that annoys me the most). Good always has to suffer with the bad. That's how it goes offline. Now, online, that motto doubles, and sometime tripples for moderating a forum especially.
I do read the threads properly and that’s the major reason for not finding time to post many replies (as I read whole and have to reply in the limited time). Unlike what you said If I was that, I would have had many post counts by today. I gave my opinion to your question. Every reply doesn't need to address your whole issue. Coming to the referral links in post, well because of the strict rules DP is what DP today and any other successful forum. May be DP can have a section where it allows referral URLs but again it will be stuffed full of crap links. This is because there is a huge amount of SPAM if the section is not moderated. Having a section which allows referral links will lead more work for a moderator which is simply unnecessary. The reason for allowing signatures is, user is responsible for his clicks if he/she follows the signature links. Because ultimately the forum rules clearly says NO REFERRAL LINKS in the posts. If a user really wants to tell/guide what he/she uses/promote, then have it in signature as a link and refer it?
if the rule changes, 20% chance of good ref, 80% of crappy ref if the rule stand, 20% good ref will be pissed off, 80% spammy ref never existed not everyone out here is trying to make money, some are just trying to make friends...