Skimlinks trial on MSE forums

PhiltheBear

robt wrote: »

I think you have missed the point. There is NOTHING wrong with the site making money, and a profit as large as they can manage.

But for a site that loves everything else in life to be financially transparent, they have installed stealth links from content that users have created, and then didn't even bother to tell people. It is double standards.

It's actually worse than that.

There's an interview with Martin Lewis in The Times Magazine of 07/08/10. In it he freely admits (by way of example) that his 'independent' savings article will have affiliate links and non-affiliate links in it. However, when there are more affiliate links than non-affiliate links the MSE site will give it much more publicity, so that he'll make more money.

This is all justified - here, on this website/in the forums - by saying it's the 'expense of the site'. However, again, the interview says "They point you expertly - and, as far as I can see, with total integrity - towards the better deals and away from the worse ones. In doing so they generate vast revenues for the site..." (My italics).

(Most 'financial' affiliate links pay upwards of £20 a time. With 9 million visitors a month a fair number are going to click on links in his 'trusted' articles. It's not going to be a small amount that gets generated. I know this because I have financial affiliate sites of my own).

He also says "the vast majority of links on the site don't pay".

Well, now he's changing that so that links provided by other people will pay. And they'll pay him.

I've always thought that Martin Lewis was an investigative journalist who was a genuine champion of people with money problems. It now seems he's just in it for the money it brings him. It calls into doubt the integrity of everything he writes.

payless

It calls into doubt the integrity of everything he writes.

think that a step too far,

But the line that separates the site from consumer to commercial is getting thinner

I feel the question is - afre affiliate links a form of advertising ?

--- a search on good old wiki says it is

---

That said is it worse than whats out there ??? ... can the original concept / values ever be copied and run viably ?

PhiltheBear

MSE_Archna wrote: »

While the forums were closed to introduce a new ‘Enter’ button on the Competition forum (read about the enter button) we’ve also added an opt-out of Skimlinks. To opt out simply go to your User control panel, edit options and tick the box to opt out. This will mean any links you click through via the forums will not be redirected via Skimlinks.

Been there, done that. It's difficult to find (and I've edited my details on many forums, so I don't think I'm a novice) - but, perhaps that's the point?

PhiltheBear

payless wrote: »

think that a step too far,

Not really. What's to say that he won't write articles that will incorporate specifically high paying links? I doubt that he would - but the door is wide open now.

Sandoval

This all seems to be leaving a very bad taste in a hell of a lot of people's mouths...

Former_MSE_Archna

thelawnet wrote: »

Indeed, and while, as I noted, something like Google ads doesn't affect the editorial content meaningfully, the weekly tips seems to be very much influenced by commercial rather than money-saving concerns.

Looking at this week's email, one of the headings is "Make £100s from old cameras, laptops, straighteners & more", and then there is an extended plug for Weeebuy, a brand-new site with no traffic from any other source than MSE. They've no affiliate program, just a special partnership with MSE, so this has been negotiated specially.

The [STRIKE]extended advertisement[/STRIKE] money-saving guide says 'Weebuy* is usually on its own, for old laptops it says it'll pay up to £100.'. The reality is that you won't get £100 for an 'old laptop', you'll get £100 for a fairly new laptop, worth far more than £100. My four-year-old laptop fetches £300 on ebay - Weeebuy offers me £80.

This isn't money-saving at all, it's a plug for money wasting, throwing money down the toilet, and so many people have done so as a result of this site's link, they've had to shut the site down

I can't check what they're offering for satnavs as the site is down, but the other linked site, cash4gadgets offers just £54 for a TomTom 940, against £106 (p/ex) or £80 (cash) at CeX.

I find this suggestion quite offensive being on the editorial team. I checked out Weeebuy, decided it was worth telling users about first and foremost. It was only after the decision was made that the commercial person looked into whether it was possible to get a link.

As we explain (briefly in the email and in more detail in the article) it has decent prices for many things but not all. We also explain that selling on eBay can get you more as can local pawnbrokers like Cex I'm not sure what is money wasting about recycling an old gadget that is gathering dust in a drawer.

Former_MSE_Archna

Please can we clarify this again:

1. This is a trial.

Nothing has been introduced yet. This is software used on many sites, eg, the telegraph, mirror, netmums and more.

Unlike other sites, we've trialled skimlinks asked users for feedback, which we read and have already acted on many suggestions.

This includes:

• Adding an opt-out.
• Removing it from specific boards where it may cause users problems, eg, competitions, GIOL, freebies.

We've looked at glitches that have been raised and tried to fix them.

None of this means we're going ahead – or going ahead in current form. We're trialling it, and again we'd like to ask you to focus on practical solutions.

2. Communicating this.

We put what we considered was a big announcement in the right hand side of every page on the forum - in a bright colours.

The feedback told us that wasn't enough, you thought we should have it at the top of each board too, which we did. We then put it in the weekly email.

Complaining we did that late misses the point we did it, because it was requested. We have given this far more prominence than most forum changes.

We're not trying to hide this – we're trying to trial it. I think people forget that this is a thread where we ask your opinions. We could have turned this software on, as most sites do, without any mention and let people just discover it. But we wouldn't do that.

As we've said since the beginning, if we do go ahead in full, we will communicate the launch of it to the best of our ability. The current opt-out is simply there for testing and we've requested people do that – we're not informing people hardcore yet, as we want to check it all works first.

We're also seeing if it's possible to let all users know initially at registration about the opt-out. MSE Ian is currently looking at the technicality of this.

3. Profiting from user content?

We hope this doesn't come as a shock to some people - but this forum isn't something free that is thrown onto the web for you to post.

We understand people expect 'free' to be how the web works, but please remember:

A. The server and bandwidth costs alone are huge amounts of money.
B. The forum has its own full time developer and is supported by the rest of the development team who also work on optimising the forum servers.
C. The forum has a professional paid abuse team.
D. The site's lawyer spends 90%+ of their time dealing with issues due to forums posts.
E. The site's editorial team often come into the forum and try and help people with their problems.
F. All the other ancillary costs associated with having a staff of people.

The forum is not a free publically funded place, it needs to be paid for. Currently all of the cost is met by the main site.

The amount generated from skimlinks will only cover a fraction of the forum’s current costs, yet that’s not the aim, what we want to do is use most of what’s generated for new resources in the forum.

If we go ahead, we hope to substantially bulk up the forum team therefore increasing the speed that abuse is dealt with, plus a much more expanded team who can look at improving the forums and respond to users' requests faster.

We've also pencilled in a fixed percentage of what's generated (c. 20%) will go straight to the site charity fund, as it is user content that's generating this.

As for "they take content from the forum and use it", a very small amount of the content on the main site comes from the forum – the vast majority is from the team of journalists and editorial staff. Yet sometimes we do spot things on the forum, then do detailed research to check it's correct, to add certainty and help people save money. It's quite hard to believe some of you think that's a bad thing.

It's also worth noting we're not the only site who uses the forums' content – you'll often see it popping up daily in national newspapers, on other websites and more –
both sourced and unsourced. This is an open forum, anyone can read it – and many do. We have no monopoly on using it for information nor any special privilege. The difference is MoneySavingExpert is the one who has to pay the bills for it.

4. Will it go ahead?

That decision hasn't been taken yet. The trial will end on the 6 Sept, when Skimlinks will be taken off the site. We will then evaluate and weigh up the issues before making a decision. Though, of course, the resources we're putting into it are a good indication we're looking at it seriously.

Our key consideration is balancing the extra resources that it would allow spending on the forum against any impact on users MoneySaving. So we would ask specifically if you see any specific practical issues that impact users MoneySaving during the trial you let us know.

We are aware of a vocal minority who are worried about this, yet many thousands of users have read this post but few have felt it necessary to comment. Ultimately if we do go ahead, users will have a choice. They will be able to use the site with skimlinks, opt out of skimlinks (and we will communicate that option as best we can), or they can choose not to use the site.

Please can you keep this thread on topic, reporting problems or glitches with Skimlinks. Otherwise we will have to separate off topic comments into another thread.

JimmyTheWig

PhiltheBear wrote: »

However, when there are more affiliate links than non-affiliate links the MSE site will give it much more publicity, so that he'll make more money.

I've often wondered whether this is the case. I've often looked to see if there was any evidence of it happening.
But have never found any.

Can you give examples of things that should have been in the weekly email but haven't due to lack of affiliate links?
Can you give examples of things that shouldn't have been in the weekly email but have only made it due to their affiliate links? (Other than the one example already given of Weebuy.)

robt_2

MSE_Archna wrote: »

Complaining we did that late misses the point we did it, because it was requested. We have given this far more prominence than most forum changes.

That is rubbish in my opinion - it still has less prominence than when you announce scheduled downtime, like you did earlier this week.

We're not trying to hide this – we're trying to trial it. I think people forget that this is a thread where we ask your opinions. We could have turned this software on, as most sites do, without any mention and let people just discover it. But we wouldn't do that.

Because you know there would be a huge backlash - lets be honest, that is the only reason.

We're also seeing if it's possible to let all users know initially at registration about the opt-out. MSE Ian is currently looking at the technicality of this.

There is nothing technical about it. Just mention it in the welcome email that new users receive, or mention it in the terms and conditions that people agree to when joining. Both are 30 second jobs. If it goes ahead after the trial, I hope the money it generates won't be spent on trying to fix problems that don't exist.

Besides which, guidelines say it should be an opt-in, not opt-out.

If we go ahead, we hope to substantially bulk up the forum team therefore increasing the speed that abuse is dealt with, plus a much more expanded team who can look at improving the forums and respond to users' requests faster.

Totally contradicts what the post by MSE Dan says. Who is correct?

He says: "possibly allowing a staff member to solely concentrate on the forum".

Are you talking it up the benefits to get people on side, or is Dan (who is running the trial, yet went on holiday during it) wrong?

Edit: A possibly contradictory thought - I think that guests who are not registered should have Sinlinks enabled, they contribute nothing (ie content) to the site, and as you quite rightly say, the site is by no means free to run.

Totality

To respond to MSE Archna's detailed post:

1. This is a trial.

Nothing has been introduced yet. This is software used on many sites, eg, the telegraph, mirror, netmums and more.

But it has been introduced, and was done so without warning.

Unlike other sites, we've trialled skimlinks asked users for feedback, which we read and have already acted on many suggestions.

This includes:

• Adding an opt-out.
• Removing it from specific boards where it may cause users problems, eg, competitions, GIOL, freebies.

But it should be opt IN.

We put what we considered was a big announcement in the right hand side of every page on the forum - in a bright colours.


The feedback told us that wasn't enough, you thought we should have it at the top of each board too, which we did. We then put it in the weekly email.

Complaining we did that late misses the point we did it, because it was requested. We have given this far more prominence than most forum changes.

We're not trying to hide this – we're trying to trial it. I think people forget that this is a thread where we ask your opinions. We could have turned this software on, as most sites do, without any mention and let people just discover it. But we wouldn't do that.

For me, you didn't do enough to make people aware. Even if this what you consider a trial, people should have been made fully aware BEFORE it was rolled out.

When I visit these forums, I'm not doing so to look out for messages, warnings etc. Sending a mass message to forum members - in advance - would have taken seconds.

3. Profiting from user content?


We hope this doesn't come as a shock to some people - but this forum isn't something free that is thrown onto the web for you to post.

That's the general principle of forums on the web though. Nice to see members are appreciated and without content and discussion on here, this site would be nothing.

A. The server and bandwidth costs alone are huge amounts of money.

But those costs have not increased all of a sudden.

Ultimately if we do go ahead, users will have a choice. They will be able to use the site with skimlinks, opt out of skimlinks (and we will communicate that option as best we can), or they can choose not to use the site.

Again, this should be opt in and it's clear the reason MSE don't want this is because those not logged/registered will have no choice but to use skimlinks.