I’m not going to write a long rant, just stumbled across someone posting affiliate links in a new gear’s thread. Honestly, I’d better not see this in here.
Especially if there is no disclaimer that makes it transparent to me as a reader that someone is trying to monetise my click on this link to an online seller without my knowledge.
It’s already worse enough that a growing number of people are using Elektronauts solely as another self promotion platform.
Let’s hear what you say. Maybe there’s something the mods are willing to take forward to prevent this from happening. Cheers!
the affiliate links are also being summarized to the thread’s Popular Links section, a place where I personally look a lot at when it’s a long thread and I want to find links quickly, and I assume anonymous users see it too, not the best thing to have on thread summary.
I’ve noticed that on the Media section too, I see people posting videos (or this YT content stuff) without having a single comment on the forum for years, don’t know, I like the Media section, I listen to a lot of music there, but that makes me feel weird, just used as link farming plarform I guess.
I’ve noticed people who only post links to their videos and never engage, but it’s harder to know what to do about that. I just ignore them, for the most part.
Most companies offering some type of affiliate program require you to communicate the usage of links, codes and whatnot to others very clearly.
If you see people posting affiliate links without proper disclosure, you can report the behaviour to the relevant companies (if you are in the US, the FTC is also interested in this).
I would personally prefer if the people that use a given forum for self-promo only would stop using the forum altogether and go back to spamming YT comments, Reddit and Twitter.
By Elektron’s practice of disallowing banners / third party advertising, I feel that their position on this is implied even if not explicitly stated.
It’s a lot harder for me to fault individuals for self-promotion if it’s content relevant to the forum, even if those videos or tutorials or whatever might be monetized. I’m quite a bit more dubious of affiliate links as it’s arguably more self-serving to funnel traffic towards a third-party point of revenue.
Unless it’s been explicitly stated that the link leads elsewhere, I think that this is exactly what most people expect when they click a link on Elektronauts: To reach an official landing page of some sort.
Part of the gray area is that some companies’ official landing page is a Kickstarter (or other crowdfunding etc.) campaign, and while that type of link can contain valuable information it also operates under the radar, again, as a funnel to monetary gains so it really depends on how it’s used and by whom.
I’m finding it difficult to imagine a way to change, and enforce changes, to any kind of link posting policy which won’t open up new loopholes. I don’t think anyone can be faulted for the difficulty in navigating this challenge because it literally relies on interpretation of intent.
The mods already have a rough job as it is, so this creates another layer of difficulty regardless of whether it’s left alone or if a more definite policy is put in place. It’s a proverbial rock and a hard place because it’s easy to say “the floor should be cleaner” but it’s difficult to make it that way by the belief that it should be cleaner alone.
Just wanted to thank the three people that signaled the affiliate link. I wouldn’t have noticed.
Do you always check (with mouse over) every link before you click on it? (this is very good practice, everyone should)
The second link was a tiny url, even harder to see that it was an affiliated link: how do you detect this? Do you have some Chrome module or something?
I think this is a bit different. The Media section is a bit outside the forum, I’m OK with people dropping a jam that displays some Elektron groovebox but not willing to engage further in this time-eating forum ^^
This, for instance, is pretty cool, even if we don’t see @tomcawley much:
Self-promotion on the forum without being part of it is something else. It feels artificial. Like trying to get clients you don’t know with a commercial smile.
But affiliate links is definitely bad practice, totally agree on this. Definitely taking advantage of the people here.
oh yeah there’s a lot of cool stuff being posted in media, I did say that I listen to a lot of stuff in Media this is definitely one of them, I was talking about them “this video is sponsored by distrokid” videos, but I guess if it has elektron box in it…
Hello! I’m sorry about this - it hadn’t really occurred to me that the Forum and the Media section were linked - I just wanted to put my videos somewhere where people might be interested in them. I’m doing stuff with the Octatrack which people here might want to see - of course they absolutely might not, also. I’m definitely not trying to sell anything, though.
The Forums are great and I do pop on to see what people are talking about - especially the Octatrack Tips - they’ve been very helpful and inspiring. I’ve never asked any questions on there but also I’ve never spammed anyone either.
I’m kind of new to this, though, so please do point out if I’m not behaving with the correct etiquette - it would be very good to know.
In other words: you’re doing good, and it’s your choice not to spend your time on this forum, no problem with your amazing jams, keep on dropping vids
This is sane participation anyway. Not self-promotion.
