lo2e

One potential problem with referral links is that it might be hard to tell what is and isn't a referral link in some situations.

For example - If I wanted to post a link for someone to buy the "Yodelling Pickle" on Amazon, I could put THIS link, which is not an affiliate link, or I could post THIS link which is (except I left out my "affiliate tag" which would identify me as the referrer). Without hovering over the links, you might not know which one is an affiliate one and which one isn't.

So it's pretty easy to spot when someone uses an Amazon affiliate link, look for "tag=...." in the address. I have no idea how other sites do it, so that could be harder than doing it with Amazon.

JDiver

Would requiring all affiliate links to be so designated be a possible solution? I could see some might want to use an affiliate link, e.g. to credit a member for an Amazon book purchase, whilst others would prefer not to.

MSPeconomist

I think that would help in that it would at least avoid the situation of someone being unaware that they are clicking on an affiliate link.

However, I personally see this issue as part of the larger question of the extent to which FTers should be permitted to included links in posts that promote their own (financial) self interest, with or without disclosure. Perhaps those who are already proven contributors to FT should be given more leeway here as I find it especially annoying when someone apparently joins FT just to drive traffic to their blog and makes posts for that purpose while providing little or no content on FT.

I'm thinking aloud here. What do others think?

yerffej201

Especially since AMEX USA is handing refer a friend links to cardholders link candy expect signatures to get more linky.

lo2e

I like both of these ideas. If either one is enacted, I think we might need a "master list" of what affiliate links look like for a wide variety of sites (like my Amazon example in post 31. That way if a possible affiliate link is posted without being identified as such (such as JDiver's idea) or by someone under the "proven contributor" threshold (such as MSPeconomist's idea), it can be checked by someone to see if it is an affiliate link. I'm certainly not saying this would be easy, and I have no idea how many affiliate links are posted on a daily basis, but just throwing it out there as something to think about if either or both of those ideas are enacted.

goalie

What describes a "proven contributor"? Yes, that's a loaded question but take someone like me who is a proven contributor (least I hope so ) who now decides to get into "the referral game" with nothing more than to generate financial gain for me. Should that be allowed? I say no as while F/t is about the sharing of information, imho, it should not be about putting money in someone's pocket where F/t and the members get nothing in return and the member posting the referral link is getting a free ride.

Now to use the example above by lo2e where the two different types of referral links are mentioned, could there be a way to have links with an "affiliate tag" not allowed by IB*? To me, having to hover my mouse over a link to "look for certain words/characters" is a pita and adds work to the process by the member. Yes it's a simple step but imho, it's still a pita

*if it could be done, I'm sure there are members who "might" be able to find a work-around and that would have to be addressed both by IB and also by changing the ToS to not allow referral links where the only gain is that financial to the member posting the link

MSPeconomist

I'm not thinking anything deep about "proven contributor." Maybe the same 180 days/posts standard as for CC. Certainly not a member who joined today and has made only several posts for their own financial gain or someone with a small number of posts of which the overwhelming majority are promoting the person's financial interests.

goalie

I agree with you about new members but what I'm getting at is members who have "been around for a few days" and who do contribute valuable information but also do have referral links which are the kind which generate income for them-and that brings me back to my original question of giving someone "free advertising"

MSPeconomist

I said perhaps. I'm not convinced that there should be an exception, but I can see arguments both ways.

chgoeditor

An additional challenge with affiliate links: If someone uses a link shortener, such as bit.ly, you won't see any of the common characteristics of an affiliate link when you hover over the hyperlink.

tom911

Have the moderators across all the forums bought into being the enforcement agent for this proposal? I recently exchanged e-mails with one of the mods who told me he was overworked with his current responsibilities. I just can't see them searching their forums to find offenders, take time to counsel them, and force them to change a signature when they're already short of time as it is.

The proponents plan on the moderators being the enforcers, correct?

As an alternative, could one of the proponents of this proposal be given the assignment of enforcing it and take it out of the moderators hands? Make them the "signature moderators" and they can work on checking signatures all day long. That would make it much easier on the moderators.

lin821

First things first. The majority of posts with unruly referral links are outside SPAM Forum.

Keep in mind the current ongoing conga lines in SPAM Forum are actively participating by newbies and FTers w/ low post counts as well.
I do see newbies who joined FT so they may participate our conga lines and conga referral posts were the only activities they ever "offered" to FT. But we don't have that many conga threads in SPAM Forum to start with.

What you propose, allowing certain activity after members' meeting the post/day thresholds, literally makes SPAM conga become restricted access, just like our CC Forum. The question then becomes whether making more FT fora restrictive is the right approach to better FT.

I rather see a boardwide TOS to address the core issue w/r/t referral links. Both members and MODs would have a much clearer guideline to follow.


I would have expected any TBer to consider a TOS revision in a more thorough manner.

As I said repeatedly, it's more than just signatures:

SkiAdcock

TB is not in charge of the TOS revision. The CommunityDirector has a committee working on it. TB was asked to take a look at some of the suggested changes last year by the committee & provide input, which some of us did. I'm not sure why the new version of the TOS hasn't been released yet. That's a question for the CD (who is unavailable for next few days). If the revised TOS hasn't been finalized, then this thread will provide some additional input to the committee. If it has been, then hopefully it will be released soon & it may have already been addressed. Since it's been a year since I looked at the document I can't remember what it said re: signatures/affiliate links.

In the meantime, rwoman offers a valid suggestion - don't click on the link.

Cheers.

kipper

If moderators are "overworked" perhaps said forums need additional moderators.

jackal

Actually, there already is a dedicated "signature committee" within the moderator corps. They review all of the complaints about signatures (either submitted privately by moderators who see questionable signatures or on issues forwarded from the Community Director on complaints sent by members to the forum administration) and communicate with members whose signatures are in violation of the rules.

That said, they don't work on signatures "all day." And I don't think it's fair to expect any moderator to work "all day." Moderators are volunteers, and we all (well, I assume most of us, that is) have Real Jobs™ and lives to attend to. I have no idea how the mods of busy forums (BA, UA, DL, AA, etc.) do it--they receive hundreds (and maybe sometimes even thousands) of reported posts a day to deal with. Even with the additional duties I now have as an Information Desk moderator, I only get a small handful each day (and sometimes even none) and don't wish for many more than I already get.

That can work in some cases, but when you get too large a pool of mods, you start having other issues (moderating consistently, shared vision, etc.). Plus, the way that the vBulletin software handles reported posts and things, it isn't easy to coordinate with other moderators on who handles what, so you end up with mods stepping on each other working on the same report without knowing it.

I wonder in these cases if it isn't worth the TalkBoard considering splitting these kinds of forums up into multiple smaller, easier-to-handle forums...that idea has been floated (IIRC, either in the private TB forum or here in TBT) before...