Member
Rule change is structural. Community antibodies are unreliable and burn out the people with enough knowledge to spot manipulation. I've moderated academic forums. Disclosure rules with automatic signature parsing for known affiliate parameters reduced incidents 80%. Remaining 20% were sophisticated enough to use custom redirect domains that required human review.
Both/and, not either/or.
What about referral credit? "Use my link, we both get $20" -- that's affiliate but feels different because user benefits. Still needs disclosure?
Member
I run a bakery website. I come here to learn which host won't break my shop. I don't know what ASN means or how to curl. If someone nice helps me and their link turns out to be affiliate, I feel tricked even if product is good. Disclosure matters for people like me who can't do technical audit.
Yes. "We both get $20" is still compensation. The benefit to referrer doesn't cancel the need for transparency. What if there's better deal without referral? What if referrer pushes inferior product because only that one has credit program?
Disclose everything. Let reader decide if bias matters.
Mods pinned disclosure guidelines after last wave of VPN spam. Same standard should apply to hosting. Enforcement is spotty though.
If it's not 99.999% I don't want to know, and if it's not 100% disclosed I don't want to click.
Did we ever establish what happened to the original three accounts? Banned? Link-removed? Still active with new links?
Member OP
Banned after report. But pattern indicates they already created replacement batch. I find four new account, all praising Contabo in "help me choose" threads, all signatures with shortener. Different shortener services, same posting style.
This is whack-a-mole. Mods doing their job but affiliate incentive pays for persistence.
