Agreed.

Whether the intention is good or bad will always be hard to determine. But referral links in general make any discussions hard to trust because you don't know if the person really likes the service or is just saying that to get a few bucks.

And I have no problem with people making as much money as they want in a general sense. It's just about trust.

I would rather here the review from a user with a recommendation than the" zero buffer never down" crap from some providers. We all know the score so no need for the bull.

When we started off a resellers, affiliates was a way to reward people who help tell the FABIPTV story. Now since we are a provider, we are going to redesign this. We have the flexibility to make changes. It is part of the reason we became a provider. We always listen to the community and make adjustments inflight based of the needs of our customers and potential customers. Look for a change in how this works in the next week with full details. It should help.

I suggest the mod implement the use of Flairs to tag the posts which are referral or affiliates links. In normal journalism practice a writer should always disclose his direct and indirect links to the subject, so as to avoid any clash of interest.

Here is where I stand on this.

I don't mind referral links at all. As long as the poster is not spamming the same damn thing in response to every post irrespective of what the OP has asked and the main intentions are to help people.

There is also nothing wrong about them BECAUSE if you are allowing providers and resellers to spam in every post about it, there is nothing wrong in posters who are actually trying to help people posting referral links but as I said if it's gonna be some guy spamming the same damn shit in every post regardless of OP needing the suggestion or not, then yeah that should be banned.

I anyways don't see it happen much, I mean there is just one guy spamming them in every post anyways.

Link spamming posts will be removed. That is probably the only rule we will have.

New users will join this subreddit to ask for help and resellers/affiliates will reply to the person request for help. I seen resellers/affiliates reply back with a copypasta response to a question that comes up time and time again. So the same question gets the same response. Would a targeted response be better? yes it would be... but most smart people can read through a canned response.

If we want to ban affiliate links then we would have to ban reseller posting their links too.. since both entities have something gain in the post. Who is more trust worthy? A reseller or an affiliate.. I think the reseller has more to gain in terms of money.. so if we go this route we would band resellers before affiliates. If we do that this place would be a ghost town.

My concern is posting of reseller/affiliates who are bad providers or scammers.

Well here is my perspective from a reseller / provider side.

I thought about implementing a referral scheme as well, but I pictured it as a friends and family referral program. Not online posting it everywhere type of referral. I see why the providers like me like it, because it is free advertisement in the end. Although constant spam offers a negative image, instead of positive.

Maybe the providers need to put some controls or maybe the mod's here need to define how the referrals can be used.

I am in agreement with whatever the community wants. My 2 cents will be to limit it or define the rules around it.

To be honest, I don't know how many people actually follow referral links.

I know for myself, I won't, unless I intentionally go looking for it because someone warrants it.

I think it's ok for people to put a little thing at the bottom saying

"If my review seems useful to you, feel free to contact me for a referral link"

But, realistically, I don't think it makes a huge difference. Most of these service reviews are a waste of time anyways, after all, a service can change (or disappear) overnight.

And no service is perfect for everyone. I say get rid of the reviews altogether. Word of mouth is enough.

I don't think it bothers me too much, but it also doesn't help me. I guess its kinda like spam which I just ignore. meh, doesn't bother me either way.

I do post referral links from time to time but it is always with other suggestions too but only if the OP is asking for suggestions. Spamming the same thing again and again irrespective of what the OP has asked or posted about should be banned.

Reviews with referral links should be removed.

I don't have any problem with someone offering a free trial.