Forum feture suggestion for your kind consideration.

[Techxan]

I often find little jewels of advice on this forum. People often recommend a tool or site that I find valuable.

I understand that we do not want to turn BHW into an affiliate pitch farm. But I would like a way for people to use their affiliate links unobtrusively in the forum, so I can do more than just hit the thanks button when they help me out.

Take for instance when the person who told me about a site a while back.

I would gladly have signed up under his affiliate link to thank him. However, he of course did not mention in his post that he had an affiliate link, and I only found out about it when I signed up and could have given him a free month with BL for referring me.

What I am suggesting is that Jr. Vips and above be able to place a small icon (like the "tags" icon) at the end of their post when it contains a link to the website or service they are mentioning in the post. Clicking on this icon would take interested people to the place in question via the posters affiliate link.

Only one icon per post, and infractions given to those who spam the icon in their posts. Keeping it as a JRVip perk will weed out the majority of icon spammers (we will slap the rest of the offenders around), and give the JRVip section another perk.

I have great respect for this forum and the members here too, and I do not want to diminish this forum in any way.

BUT, I would be happy to sign up under many of the members affiliate link if I am going to buy that product or use that service anyway.

But the method needs to be unobtrusive, and not lend itself to spamming, or it will not be a positive thing for the forum.

 

[Trepanated]

I agree with the principle of this idea and in examples like the one Techxan gave, using someone's affiliate link is more than fair.

The only issue is how to police it and prevent spam - if that could be done properly this could be a good idea.

 

[BHW-News]

If it could be managed effectively, sounds like it has potential...

 

[Hawkster]

Good idea for sure. Everywhere i go on the web i try to use affiliate links of those who help me. I would have no problem using someones affiliate link here.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

I'm for that myself, let a guy get some "revenue" love for going out of his way to share... glad I'm not a Mod as that could be a pain to manage.

Get the management thing out of the way and this could be a winner.

 

[arganrecords]

It can work and it is an excellent idea, the problem is just your last sentence.
Anyone can create false methods to obtain clicks on their affiliate link.

There are many respectable members here but in this way we will induce the same members to break the rules and spam!
I do not have long on this forum but I can see that many users are unfair and will not wait to abuse this opportunity.

Make this opportunity more exclusive and give it by Jr. Executive Vip up (just a suggestion)

 

[Duffers5000]

Sounds like it would "encourage" a few more people to go to the trouble of writing up a good method and posting it.

Would need to be mod approved though...otherwise spamville.

 

[LostConnection]

Sounds like it would "encourage" a few more people to go to the trouble of writing up a good method and posting it.

Would need to be mod approved though...otherwise spamville.

A lot more work for the mods, but requiring mod approval would be a solution to the whole policing factor. The threads created that include those kinds of affiliate icons would go through the mod insoection before being publicly released, much like a BST would.

Naturally that means limiting it to that a someone buying a two year old account that has 2 posts cannot come here and make the mods work their butts off for the sake of deleting their stupid spam bollocks...

 

[BHW-News]

This is something we will look into implementing as part of the BHW refresh we have coming up.


Stay tuned.

 

[iamsolo]

Really nice idea, but shouldn't allow gpt ptc ppd/cpa affiliate links as they contribute majority of spam posts

 

[divok]

that would also mean people recommending services/tools which are shit and but offer higher commission.
Then people would stop taking recommendation seriously .
ref links in signature are already a mess , i see a lot of posts where people directly ask to look at their sig while other post about the imaginary benefits of a product whose aff link is in their sig . This will make it worse .
i would say a big NO.

 

[Techxan]

Let's put a minus sign by the affiliate link, if enough people click on the minus sign, the affiliate link gets removed.

Every time someone hits the minus sign it counts as a demerit for that affiliate link, 10 clicks on the minus sign removes it from the thread, anyone who gets 10 affiliate links minused out in 3 months can no longer use the feature for 6 months.

Let the readership do the policing. I am sure we will all be as ruthless as usual over unacceptable behavior.

that would also mean people recommending services/tools which are shit and but offer higher commission.
Then people would stop taking recommendation seriously .
ref links in signature are already a mess , i see a lot of posts where people directly ask to look at their sig while other post about the imaginary benefits of a product whose aff link is in their sig . This will make it worse .
i would say a big NO.

 

[Hawkster]

But then you would get non jrvip members hitting the - out of spite. Because they cant post affiliate links of their own. Pretty complex all this when you think about it. Tough one for the decision makers.

But still your idea is a good idea not trying to knock it

Let's put a minus sign by the affiliate link, if enough people click on the minus sign, the affiliate link gets removed.

Every time someone hits the minus sign it counts as a demerit for that affiliate link, 10 clicks on the minus sign removes it from the thread, anyone who gets 10 affiliate links minused out in 3 months can no longer use the feature for 6 months.

Let the readership do the policing. I am sure we will all be as ruthless as usual over unacceptable behavior.

 

[Techxan]

But then you would get non jrvip members hitting the - out of spite. Because they cant post affiliate links of their own. Pretty complex all this when you think about it. Tough one for the decision makers.

But still your idea is a good idea not trying to knock it

Only JRVips and above would see the minus sign.

All it is is a little code, in the grand scheme of things.