Ipod thread refferals

Poppycat

Can't seem to find the no ipod threads doesnt appear to be in the new rules, has the stance changed on this. Cheers

Edinburghlass_2

No there has been no change regarding this as far as I know and I have reported to Forum Manager that Ipods/pyramid schemes have been missed from the new rules.

Poppycat

There someone posting in teh forums in freebies and refefral forum about free ipod at mo. I guess its somehow got missed or moved by mistake. I do hope the ruleit comes back otherwise the site will be full of this before too long

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

Message from the Forum Team:

It appears that although policy on this has not changed, the new rules were not clear enough on this point. There has now been an amendment > HERE < which cover it

Thanks for bringing this to our attention

Poppycat

Thanks for clarification.

Poppycat

Is it possible for someone to add this to the special instructions in the refferal forum, as I am sure any users want see this and or may feel rules have changed or aren't aware of this, ie newbies. It just may save a whole lot of grief later on, as ipod threads are pretty common, and seem to be popular over recent days. Thanks

Poppycat

I post gone unanswered yet every day people are either not aware or play ignorant to the rules. It would eb far better than have the rule prominent in the referral forum.

Poppycat

Two ipod threads in the refferral forum today. The rules on posting Ipods, and pyramid schemes are hard to find. Surely it would be better for all to amend the special posting thread for the rules in referral section to give everyone an idea of what you can and cannot do. This was the case before in the old rules but for some reason was excluded in the new rules.

Amanda_P_3

Hello there, I am one of the people Poppycat is talking about. I am a member of an iPod site and posted here about it, making it clear what I would get if members used my link.

I didn't see anywhere in the rules (which I read) about not posting these things. Also, I would like to point out that these schemes work on exactly the same basis as many of the things that are allowed in the referalls section. I have had a quick glance and seen both Virgin Casino and Betfair there. If an existing member refers a friend, they get some money from the site for doing so.

With the iPod system, it's the iPod site that refers you and gets the money. Furthermore, they get rather more as they have a special business affiliate deal with the sites. The difference is that the iPod sites bank up the money they've earned, and when you get to a certain number of referals then they send you the free gift. They make a small profit when this happens, most of their profit comes from people who sign up and maybe refer one or two friends but then give up.

I am not trying to sell you the schemes or ask you to join under my link, I merely want to make this clearer for you. Basically I cannot understand why it is acceptable for me to post my betfair link, but not a link that would take you to betfair via an iPod site.

As I suggested on my thread earlier (after having received a rather negative response), perhaps you might wish to consider having a seperate sub-section for such referal schemes. That way you could monitor which sites were being linked to but also cut out work taking innocent posts like mine down.

I also agree that you need to make the rules clearer. I posted what I believed to be a legitimate referal which would interest the members here and had no intention of misleading anyone. I was honest about how the system works and what I would get from others signing up. I was then bombarded with abuse from some members, which I don't feel I deserved. I am told by Poppycat (and assume from this thread) that this happens rather often. Clearer rules and/or a section for such posts would hopefully solve this problem. If they were in a separate section then you could simply choose to ignore them if they didn't interest you.

I hope these comments have been useful.

Edinburghlass_2

Amanda_P wrote:

As I suggested on my thread earlier (after having received a rather negative response), perhaps you might wish to consider having a seperate sub-section for such referal schemes. That way you could monitor which sites were being linked to but also cut out work taking innocent posts like mine down.

I also agree that you need to make the rules clearer. I posted what I believed to be a legitimate referal which would interest the members here and had no intention of misleading anyone. I was honest about how the system works and what I would get from others signing up. I was then bombarded with abuse from some members, which I don't feel I deserved. I am told by Poppycat (and assume from this thread) that this happens rather often. Clearer rules and/or a section for such posts would hopefully solve this problem. If they were in a separate section then you could simply choose to ignore them if they didn't interest you.

I hope these comments have been useful.

When this thread was started it pointed to the "no Ipod threads" rule having been mistakenly left off from the rules in Martin's posts at the top of the board. This was rectified the next day with this post.

This makes perfectly clear Martin's stance on Ipod and similar referral schemes which is shared by many MSE user's who feel very "precious" of the helpful nature of MSE and its many forum users and hence the reaction from users, rightly or wrongly, when they perceive someone to be posting for personal gain.

2ax

I have not made a long study of iPod schemes, but there appear to be 3 main types

1. sign up 6 friends direct for marketing opportunities - ie junk mailing lists

2. buy a series of items for £15 to £20 that you could actually get free anyway - like SIM cards and mobile unlocking

3. pyramid schemes - persuade n people to each sign up n people who each sign up n ... to n iterations, where n = 5, 6 , or 7. Thus the total number of people required to get you an iPod is either 3125 or 46656 or 823543; it's pretty likely that not everybody will participate.

It is reasonably easy to see that none of these schemes is of much benefit to anybody except the marketing people behind them.