Should it be disallowed to post a personal invitation link?
Certain deal sites are exclusive, and though they have public registration, this public registration places you on a waiting list to be given membership.
Alternatively it is possible to be personally invited to the site, circumventing the waiting list, which can obviously last an indefinite period of time.
Do the wooters think that it should be disallowed to post personal invitation links to sites which have waiting lists to join, if those personal invitation links will circumvent the waiting list?
I look forward to the communities response!
by
algorath
asked 2 years ago
When inviting people to sites a lot of them give reference bonuses which could end up causing a lot of spam to fill the boards. There are other places better suited to that then here.
Maybe make a thread about different invite only sites, but I don't think deals from them should be posted, the potential for abuse gets high quickly.
I posted a question on your deal to a membership by invitation site - In the case of that site the person who does the referral receives a $25. credit if the referral makes a purchase. Were they doing an open membership and there was no referral reward?
You might notice I am purposely omitting the name of the site because I do not want anyone PMing me to refer them, I am a member there, I do not think it is appropriate for me to receive a referral for a board posting. It is meant to be personal.
When that site & another similar site first started up a few years ago the postings caused fighting between members on one of the designer goods boards - they decided to just let folks throw their referral up there & it became a catfight about who to choose to go through. On another designer goods board we decided to not allow it for that reason.
If it's open membership time - as that site has done at least once since starting up - then it's just information.
So what about a situation where the information is posted, and if people did not feel like being placed on a waiting list they have the option to PM the poster for a personal invitation.
To me it seems like a waste of perfectly good deals on a daily basis, especially considering the nature of the site.
If the site was one which had both open invitation as well as referrals I would whole-heartedly agree that it would be unnecessary and wrong to post referral links, but in the situation of this particular site the waiting list is the only alternative. A waiting list which I have seen last 1+ months for membership to be given based on whatever formulation the site uses to calculate its membership quota.
Personally I think certain situations warrant different approaches, especially with invitation only sites. It is no different than a coupon code or exclusive deal which people share, which others would not be able to get without that persons personal exclusive information given.
You can make a logical sounding argument saying that you are just trying to help the community by showing them a good deal, but we all know that you are looking to get a green flag to rack up hundreds of dollars in referral commissions.
I am not a mod, but I can guess pretty well that Woot does not want to host pyramid scheme referral ladders and such here.
The 1 honest user is buried in the spam of the greedy.
Woot, on our general community boards, has a long standing policy of not allowing posting/linkage that financially benefits the poster via kick back programs. from the main faq, this is:
2. Do not post any advertising to which you are related or stand to profit from the referral. (This means any reference to another site must be on topic, such as a lower price found, a product review, articles of particular interest to Wooters, etc.)
(ref: http://www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx#q26)
I wrote this in 2004, well before deals.woot existed, but it has been a very solid rule to police things by (it totally saved us from the 2005-6 plague of "free ipod" forum spam game). The key exception here on deals.woot is that retailers themselves are desirable content generators. Stil, excepting direct store contributors, I don't think that we would re-draw the line for community sourced content here. (even though Woot itself is in the lead-gen / profit-by-referral business on deals.woot.)
@snapster: this reminds me of our little Twitter conversing after you posted that link about group-buying sites.
@snapster: so that means @gpearre is violating that rule with his deals. Because they are masked as being from fleetbuying.com but really they are not. They are deals from elsewhere framed or otherwise on this other site so that he can financially benefit from the deal if some unsuspecting buy goes through the link to buy the deal.
@hobbit: yes, I haven't researched but I'm almost certain I'd agree with your assessment.
@snapster: http://deals.woot.com/deals/users/gpearre this morning's jewelry item is obvious. It was a deal from Amazon.com someone else posted it later with the proper link. Really this member has been doing this for a long time. Before linking from fleetbuying.com it was another site, and before that another site. I just don't like cheaters.
www.fleetingbuy.com is deal after deal posted by "G P", strikingly similar to the post record on deals.woot. Is this just GP's site? I guess I'm not clear on where the financial gain comes from otherwise.
@myrlin: Say what you like about my intentions, but on the rare occassion that I actually buy from gilt, I have no problem spending my own money. As for racking up hundreds of dollars, if gilt.com is willing to suspend my account from incurring money for invitation I am more than willing to agree to that.
Just because a deal has added rewards for a user doesn't mean that their intention is dishonest. Nor do I appreciate the assumption that I am a greedy spammer. Considering my active participation in Woot.com for half a decade now, as well as my contribution of other deals to this site, none of which were invitation only, or referral deals, would it most logically make sense that I posted this deal today because they were offering good deals on items. If I were concerned with the referral income, why wouldn't I have posted an invitation months ago when I joined deals.woot.com . . .
Logic seems that your assumption that everyone who posts a referral is a greedy spammer is false.
@algorath: Well now I do question your intentions since you threw up the name of the site, and a link to the site in your last reply. Especially after I so carefully explained why I was not putting their name up, you were told by staff that it's not allowed, and you obviously knew not to do it in your coy first post.
@combustiblekitty: This is getting ridiculous, I slipped on the site. It is a legit typed link, no invite ID or anything, so no harm no foul. Besides that, woot automatically links anything ending in .com it would appear, so I just typed the name, they made it the link. If you are all looking for someone to persecute for trying to post up a deal, then what are we even doing here on deals.woot.com?
The staff stated what? That referral links were at this time not allowed, well that is fine, as there was no prior ruling on it, and now there is. And yet I have no referral link up, so what are you trying to get at combustible? Is there some issue you would like to air with me personally at this point, or do you have something to contribute to the question? If you feel like airing personal grievances feel free to message me so we can keep the question on topic.
@algorath: I saw where you were going with this and your previous question. You were told "no." You seem to accept it. It's cool.
@myrlin, @combustiblekitty, @everyone else: Let's all just go enjoy deals.woot. Or watch funny YouTube videos. Anything but argue.
Here's one where the OP admits it's his referral link:
I tattled; the more the merrier. ;)
Well, thanks for not giving me the chance to correct my own innocent mistake (and yes, I've reported my own post).
Also, I'm not sure how I would have been expected to know this... can you point me to a terms of service clause or something I missed? This thread was created a day after I posted.
...and given that I tattled my own post and Woot hasn't removed it, maybe it wasn't such a big deal?
@clubjuggle: read @snapster's post from 5 days ago. This has been the policy since 2004.
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