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John Lenaghan
Joined:
09 Nov 2003
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86
Location:
Langley, BC, Canada
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 9:21 pm
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Peter,
The following is copied/pasted from the 5 Pillar affiliate spam policy, as posted in the "5 Pillar Club". It seems quite clear to me that they do not support posting affiliate links in forums that do not want such postings.
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2. Two-Way E-media (Newsgroups, Forums, Unmoderated Mailing Lists)
Affiliates are expressly prohibited from posting messages that promote their 5 Pillar Affiliate business, to unrelated Two-Way E-media and to Two-Way E-media whose charters forbid commercial content. Posting to more than one newsgroup at the same time is expressly forbidden (even if they are related).
Affiliates may post to Two-Way E-media which permit commercial content relating to Internet marketing
NOTE: The affiliate is required to determine in advance which newsgroups or discussion forums are appropriate for their posts, and the policy regarding commercial posts.
All complaints will be investigated and the Affiliate will be required to defend their actions. Affiliates found to be spamming Two-Way E-media will be terminated immediately. No warnings will be issued. The Complainant may be required to provide additional information to assist us with our investigation.
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I wonder if you maybe had a miscommunication of some sort with whomever you were in touch with at Sitesell? I own a number of their products and have been receiving their newsletters for quite some time, and it has always seemed to me that they are quite specific in being against spam.
I don't frequent a lot of forums, but most of the ones I read regularly seem to allow signatures to include affiliate links. Blatant spam like the post you received are obviously not acceptable anywhere that you would want to read regularly.
I have never seen your forum before reading this thread, but I took a quick look at it. It looks like it has some good information in it, but I had to search a bit for the forum "rules" regarding commercial posts and spam. It might help you to put a link to your policies or even include them right in the registration page so there is no question for new users as to what they can and can't do. Or alternatively, if they are there, maybe make them a little more obvious as I couldn't see them 
I use SBI but I'll be the first to admit it has some shortcomings. In my experience, however, I don't think they deserve to be blacklisted for allowing spam.
John Lenaghan |
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Charlie
Joined:
22 Aug 2003
Posts:
3305
Location:
UK
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Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 12:11 pm
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| petertdavis wrote: | | Sorry Charlie, but if they read the rules of even a few forums, they wouldn't even be suggesting to their affiliates to spam like that. |
I have to admit to lurking in various forums where I haven't read the rules, but from what I can see, affiliate links are often the norm rather than the exception.
It seems the forum moderators are often much more tolerant than we are...
Doesn't the definition of "spam" in the sense of forum posts have to take into account the local rules as applied?
If Sitesell included the words "within the rules of the forum" would you be happy for them to encourage affiliates to use forums as a marketing tool?
Just a thought,
Charlie.
_________________
"Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx |
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Charlie
Joined:
22 Aug 2003
Posts:
3305
Location:
UK
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Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 12:24 pm
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Sorry I didn't notice your post John - no excuse. 
Thanks for the actual words from Sitesell.
Cheers,
Charlie.
_________________
"Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx |
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Guest
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 3:50 am
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Interesting, really interesting. Posting one's website in a sig line isn't spamming, but posting one's affiliate link in a sig line is spamming. How about websites that have the letter "a" in their name? Just another example of how anytime someone sees something they don't like, they scream "SPAM!". Maybe, just maybe, if you stopped worrying about whether or not something is SPAM and spent a little more time concentrating on your business, you might make a little money. I mean, what a total waste of time it is to contemplate that life-altering, fork-in-the-road decision of "duh, I wonder if I should allow affiliate sig lines in my forum?"
By the way, you folks do realize he started this entire thread to get his website out there, don't you? |
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robertb
Joined:
09 Aug 2003
Posts:
1837
Location:
Columbus, OH
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 6:13 am
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| Anonymous wrote: |
By the way, you folks do realize he started this entire thread to get his website out there, don't you? |
That though crossed my mind a many of times. 
_________________
Robert
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mdr02125
Joined:
13 Jan 2004
Posts:
146
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 11:22 am
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| Quote: | Anonymous wrote:
By the way, you folks do realize he started this entire thread to get his website out there, don't you? |
petertdavis, I've only just found this thread and I got the feeling on the first page, pretty quick, that you started a controversial topic for the main purpose of getting to reply a lot and get your URL all over the thread for the spiders to find. Being unwilling to state what product you prefer over SBI and then creating a separate reply for each item, several replies in a row (when it's very easy to edit and add to a post) made it seem like by creating this thread you were spamming this forum.
You did not really break any rules of this forum as far as I know. I know that you did manage to make me increasingly less interested in possibly looking at the site listed in your sig line.
SBI is not perfect. The software isn't and their support staff sometimes misunderstands or has a bad day. This happens in every business, even the best. (Though hopefully not so often, it still happens occasionally).
Sitesell has sold over 100,000 copies of SBI so it's hard to see making a generalization about everyone who uses SBI due to a few spam posts.
One thing I do believe that Sitesell does not do well enough considering the strictness of their anti-spam policy is to explain what they consider spam in plain language. I have been on the internet using forums and such since before they really existed (circa 1990) ... and I never really understood until a few weeks ago that the term spam was or could be used in reference to a forum---I thought it was only email. Most of the forums I go to are technical ones, until I came here, and very rarely is anyone on those forums doing any marketing of any type, very rarely are they spamming either (escept the occasional offtopic post about viagra that the moderator deletes) as they are usually working as a corporate slave and on the forum trying to resolve a tech problem to please their bosses.
Given this--I think some SBI owners simply may not understand the prevalence of such spam on forums and therefore not understand that what they are doing is wrong. I think it is quite possible some people will unfairly lose their opportunity to use SBI simply because no one told them the rules.
Mark
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AllanGardyne
Site Admin
Joined:
02 Jul 2003
Posts:
6326
Location:
by the beach, Australia
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Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 12:30 am
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| Quote: | | Sitesell has sold over 100,000 copies of SBI... |
It's successful, but not quite that successful yet! It's sold more than 100,000 ebooks and more than 10,000 copies of SBI. There's still an enormous market to target.
[...as they are usually working as a corporate slave and on the forum trying to resolve a tech problem to please their bosses.[/quote]
I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority of forum members are working full-time or part-time on their own Internet businesses and come here in that capacity.
If you continue adding to this discussion you'll keep pushing it up high in the forum, giving a silly argument even more publicity and the person who started it more publicity.
So I'll take advantage of the publicity but adding a signature any doubters should read 
Allan Gardyne
Site Build It! builds sites that work
for ANY small business. See the proof...
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