THE MAN has spoke guys. Let's all get along.
KumbayaFoyFish..
Im so glad that we can all get along again now. In celebration, please click the vid below, turn up your speakers and feel free to sing along:
That is a great video
to sum up
6% support it
36% dont care ( understandable )
54% feel its wrong or should be announced
guess i like full disclosure ,whatever i will say no more
.
At this moment:
32% - pro
36% - neutral
26% - oppose
Dang Flash...I'm going to have nightmares!
And you got some funny math df2dot. ;)
32% say YES or YES with disclosure
36% don't care
26% say NO and think it's unethical
5% don't like their flashlights
There are reasons why forums don't allow referral links. For one it's prone to abuse. Another is that it is somewhat sneaky and may offend some people. Sure, it doesn't offend and affect you in any way. A lot of things doesn't offend you but it doesn't mean it's ok for everybody else. I don't have anything against referral links personally but for the benefit of this forum it shouldn't be allowed. No other forums I now of allow referral links. It is a common prohibition in forums.
I think one of the reasons is that you shouldn't profit from engaging in a free forum. Especially without full disclosure. Another is you cannot discriminate ref links. If you allow say fishmaniac, then you cannot prevent dinoguy from dinodirect to spam the forums with hundreds of referral links. The distinction is not black and white it is best to not have it altogether.
My $0.02.
"There are lies, d@mn lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
I would lump links benefiting someone with spam and even with the Commercial Sellers forum. I don't see a reason for it. It's not all that bad but there is just no reason for it.
If someone posts "Hey look at what just arrived at DX" so they can get referrals this basically is spam. No one else is doing that who doesn't get some benefit.
It's one thing to allow a member to post about whatever they want to even if no one else cares but when it's done with benefit to that member then it's just spam and it encourages more spam to be generated. What if everyone posted "Hey look was is at DX today"?
I also don't think the Commercial Sellers area (if it has to exist) should be used for anything other than a special deal. As it is it is just spam. One item from a website is spammed to our members each day that way when there is no real deal.
It's the same with the Lightbulb forum. It's all spam.
I'm not a fan of Dinodirect but at least those posts are now going though the Commercial Sellers area and they are all about group buys.
Ledlight100 posts every day (somehow without his post count increasing) about light bulbs and in an almost incoherent way. Who needs that?
I'm sorry I'm not seeing this. Link please? The Ledlight* spammer comes and goes, but everyone quickly marks his posts and his junk disappears quickly, from what I've seen.
I don't care for it but it's not that big a deal. If I don't like a thread/subject, I just move on. In fact . . .
ImdoingitrightnowFoy
If we melted them all down, could we collectively produce a solid metallic structure larger than this?
Sorry, my mistake on that one. I don't think I've ever been to the Light Bulb forum directly (not via the new thread feed). I see Ledlights100 here almost daily and just assumed that he was being allowed to stay just because he was posting in the Light Bulb forum about light bulbs. I thought maybe that was the purpose of the LB forum ...for commercial sellers to go there.
I just went there and I see that's not the case so my mistake!
You should have started saying this, my friend ;)
And that's how DX ref. system works: http://www.dealextreme.com/affiliates/affiliateProgram.dx
I have to admit I thought it was based on "more clicks - more "cash"", my bad.
For the record ... I will start marking every post that starts a thread and has no additional information/usefulness other than to place a referral link as "spam" from now on.
Its sneaky and disingenuous...
I didn’t even know this was going on. Seems a sneaky way to make money but i guess if it is between letting people spam a little or not allowing any links like CPF, I would take the spam. I don’t even bother with CPF much because they became too strict and you couldn’t even link to the product you wanted to know about. I say, let them spam but make them admit what they are doing.
The forum should automatically append BLF referral info to the end of links so BLD admin can get some money that way.
So if people here post DX links, sales resulting from referral traffic go to BLF not the original poster.
Its lame the referral money goes to the sneaky spammer and not BLF who provides the forum in the first place.
[20-OCT-2015] Refinements of forum categories and rules on affiliate links / codes has been posted by the forum owner. This remains a reoccurring theme.
3 years old, and still alive!
Actually it's not, New members from the last 1-2years haven't seen any talking about shills. Because Now they are called aff linkers, and even are allowed and even carried on the shoulders by some not well informed members.
I wonder if we change the word back to shill this whole discussion would go in a different direction.