Referral Offers - Time to change how it is posted.

[kamchatsky]

Not sure where to post this so I am going to post it here.

I have been reading a lot of Referral Offer post recently and I noticed that there are a lot of people who are not regular AFFers (some are just newish accounts!) and just post the link and get the benefits of referrals, when there are a number of regular AFFers who missed out because their links are "drowned out" by all those threads. I think that is unfair.

So I suggest the following in AFF:

1) Referral Offers posts and threads can be read by anyone but can only be posted/modified by moderators/administrators.
2) Anyone who needs to have referral offers posted can send PM to moderators/admins, and admins/moderators can post it on their behalf.
3) Each type of referral offer is a master thread, with first post listing all the referral by username, and ranked according to the post count. See example below.

So something like this:

Velocity Amex offers - 110000 points etc etc etc

Original Poster:
Name_A: <referral link>

Referral Links (ranked according to post count):

More than 5000 posts
Name_B: <referral link>
Name_C: <referral link>

More than 2000 posts
Name_D: <referral link>
Name_E: <referral link>
Name_F: <referral link>


More than 1000 posts
Name_G: <referral link>
Name_H: <referral link>
Name_I: <referral link>

More than 500 posts
etc


Less than 500 posts
etc



Please let me know what you think.

 

[trixydoza]

Referral Links (ranked according to post count)

I think post count is a poor proxy for value of contribution.

 

[kamchatsky]

I think post count is a poor proxy for value of contribution.

Happy to open up suggestions. How would you propose?

 

[dodgeyhack]

AFF membership status would be a good start. Not sure how best to sort within that.

 

[kamchatsky]

AFF membership status would be a good start. Not sure how best to sort within that.

I agree with this. Given people are going to get benefits from these referral offers, they may as well either:

- Pay for AFF gold membership
- significantly contribute to AFF (eg minimum post count required to put up referral link offers).

Keep more suggestions coming!

 

[trixydoza]

Reducing the clutter of multiple postings would be nice, but beyond that, why not just let people choose whichever link they prefer without imposing any further burden on moderators? There'll be a natural selection process anyway... if presented with a list of names, I'm not going to choose someone who annoys me or someone I don't know.

I don't see any need to push referrals to some chosen few, and must confess that I find the whole referral thing a bit undignified anyway. So maybe I'm not the target market.

 

[smit0847]

I agree there were too many referral threads before they were all cleaned up but also agree having a single thread isnt working either.

Ranking by post count doesnt seem that fair either, maybe the requirement could be:

- paid AFF member plus
- min 100 posts plus
- min 100 days as a member?

That would eliminate new members who sign up just to post but still be a reasonable threshold to meet?

 

[knasty]

I kind of agree, but equally the way I choose a referrer is by considering whose post I saw first and also whether that person is a regular contributor or johnny-come-lately.

 

[muppet]

I agree there were too many referral threads before they were all cleaned up but also agree having a single thread isnt working either.

Ranking by post count doesnt seem that fair either, maybe the requirement could be:

- paid AFF member plus
- min 100 posts plus
- min 100 days as a member?

That would eliminate new members who sign up just to post but still be a reasonable threshold to meet?

Why are paid AFF members such heros? Is AFF a charity? I assumed it is for profit?

 

[RooFlyer]

Reducing the clutter of multiple postings would be nice, but beyond that, why not just let people choose whichever link they prefer without imposing any further burden on moderators? There'll be a natural selection process anyway... if presented with a list of names, I'm not going to choose someone who annoys me or someone I don't know.

I don't see any need to push referrals to some chosen few, and must confess that I find the whole referral thing a bit undignified anyway. So maybe I'm not the target market.

+1 to all of that.

 

[aaronjames000]

Why are paid AFF members such heros? Is AFF a charity? I assumed it is for profit?

Don't you think it would be fair that the contributors and supporters of this forum should have first dibs before the leeches??

 

[gwilli1]

The referral situation has become "dogs breakfast". Maybe referrals should be shut down AFF until a better solution is thought through.

 

[RooFlyer]

Dogs breakfast indeed.

There are still multiple "Amex 110,000" threads running. Not unique in that regard, but next time there's a juicy referral reward, it'll happen again. The only reason many of these threads were started was for the personal gain of the person starting the thread and I can't see how that's compatible with the general philosophy of the forum, as I understand it.

 

[burmans]

Why are paid AFF members such heros? Is AFF a charity? I assumed it is for profit?

I agree, keen as I am to get referrals as an established member I don't really think making work for the mods is a great idea. If I get referral bonus of course I'm happy but I don't think I have some special "right" because I have been here a while and have a high point count. Possibly a simple restriction on < 150 posts as FT used to impose could be an easily implemented restriction.

 

[blackcat20]

Don't you think it would be fair that the contributors and supporters of this forum should have first dibs before the leeches??

Despite not being a paid member, I'd consider myself a contributor and not a leech.

But I'll agree with others that there are far too many AMEX referral threads right now...

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Despite not being a paid member, I'd consider myself a contributor and not a leech.

But I'll agree with others that there are far too many AMEX referral threads right now...

Theyve all been merged. ...

 

[RooFlyer]

Theyve all been merged. ...

Not quite all

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Not quite all

That thread was started for the non referral public 100000 point offer. Only after it was posted did it become known the referral 110k offer was available.

 

[admin]

Thank you all for your suggestions. The Moderators and I have discussed this and we agree that there is a need to prevent people who have no "real history" on AFF from offering referrals, so that our genuine, bona fide members have a better chance of getting referrals.

We have therefore decided to restrict those who can post on this forum to AFF members who have been registered for at least 30 days and have made 5 posts. We have purposely made the criteria quite loose, as the idea is not to prevent most AFF members from posting - just those who are only on AFF to gain referrals. This restriction can be abused, so we might need to tighten the restriction if need be. Getting the balance right is always difficult, and I'd rather not error on the side of being too restrictive for now.

 

[smit0847]

Thank you all for your suggestions. The Moderators and I have discussed this and we agree that there is a need to prevent people who have no "real history" on AFF from offering referrals, so that our genuine, bona fide members have a better chance of getting referrals.

We have therefore decided to restrict those who can post on this forum to AFF members who have been registered for at least 30 days and have made 5 posts. We have purposely made the criteria quite loose, as the idea is not to prevent most AFF members from posting - just those who are only on AFF to gain referrals. This restriction can be abused, so we might need to tighten the restriction if need be. Getting the balance right is always difficult, and I'd rather not error on the side of being too restrictive for now.

I think the 5 posts level is far too low but this is definitely a step in the right direction.