I see it like this . if my sister brings a boyfriend home to meet the family and we are all sitting at the dining table eating drinking and sharing than life is wondeful .we welcome him into our conversations and into our home as a cherished guest .
IF he decides to leave his business cards taped to the bathroom mirror and pulls each of us aside and discusses our need for insurance and again and again and again presses a business card into our hands each time we see him then IMHO he's a piece of trash that my sister needs to NOT bring to our table ever again .
Affilliate linkers have only corrupted something that never needed fixing in the first place . it only sought after a weakness in the system (mr admins kindness) and sought to abuse it for his own gain and greed ..All the time crouched and hidden under the guise of being helpful .
9 million members did it for free and were indeed helpful and i've mentioned the tens of thousands of deals found by Chibi M in the past as an example ..No one needed to pay him to offer up deals he'd found .
this isn't slick deals or a site just about deals ....the fact that many members are cheap asses and a bit stingy themselves only gives traction to these parasites. they are preying on peoples fears of NOT getting the super deal . well that;s certainly never happened .
it sends a crap message to new members ..one that says come and abuse a lax under moderated site to shill your ass off...the lust towards any and all decent vendors when they show up on site is evidence to the fact these scumbags live and die by sucking off of our members .
look at the people who are affiliate linkers . they post almost no helpful info . they participate only when there is something to gain and by being so obvious about it they spread the virus to ALL new members that they don't need to care about others ..naturally a new member has no reason to love or care for the site ..he has real affection to it ,so having a mentor that says hey get what you can and abuse the system while you can ...all this done on a site that has "budget " or cheap ass built right into it's name ..
I mean hey why not make a category named ..
* How to scam ebay vendors to get free stuff .
* How to coerce established vendors into giving you free stuff by using the buying power of 15,000 members as a tool against them .
* How to leverage a community of enthusiasts into paying for your stuff .
* How to see yourself as better than the person sitting next to you ...and how to use them to get what you want .
The POLLS have all been taken and every one of them shows that people are against it .
Somehow people reading the poll think that the people who vote >>"I don't care " means that it should somehow be considered a YES vote .
Any poll i've ever taken about what should we do . where should we go ....or what should we eat ....anyone saying ...I DON"T CARE < it is considered a NON - vote and is dismissed .
i have 40 other very good reasons that affiliate linking is a horridly stupid idea and will share if someone wants to PM me .
but suffice it to say ...that if some scum bag comes into my circle of friends or my families kitchen table and seeks to abuse them solely for their own gain .
they are asking for me to jump across the table ..grab them by the throat and kick their asses to the curb .
I've almost left this site a number of times over this issue and the repercussions from it .
And I know for a FACT that FOY and numbers of other older members have left because of it too ..
personally i wouldn't trade 1000 new members for one Foy or one Match .
Affiliate links hasn't done anything positive at all and instead has made the forum a much less friendlier place to be .