[Dan7 (OP)]

<EDITED TO REMOVE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WHICH AIMED TO MISLEAD VISITORS INTO CHANCING A TRIP TO HIS WEBSITE>

A friend told me about a multi-vitamin called "Next Generation" available at MY WEBSITE. SINCE I started IT a month or so ago, my BANK BALANCE has absolutely zoomed. Just wanted to share this.[8D]

John Kuhnemund

[thedoc]

SHAMELESS SPAM ALERT !!!

A friend told me to look out for shameless self-promotion disguised as a genuine reply. If you aim to subvert people into visiting your website, what does that say about the integrity and quality of the likely service they will receive, and the claims you make for the products your peddle there ?

[neilep]

HERE HERE.....my word it was BLATANT !!...I was going to do the honourable thing but thedoc turned a hard sell into poetry !!..well..poetic justice anyway []

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'

[cherry]

I always wonder if anyone ever stops and thinks if maybe some people advertising something is actually trying to make a living because they arent able to any other way

What would be wrong if that is what they are doing? Everyone needs to make a living somehow

What if they are handicapped? What if they really need money for food and other neccessities of life?

Why is spam such a dirty word?  Could it be because so many have abused the internet with bad advertisements?

Shouldnt we all use common sense when buying anything online?  Shouldnt we all make up our own minds on everything?

I feel sick when i see all advertisers online treated the same unfair way, being called spammers

Just because someone promotes a product does not mean it is spam and doesnt mean the product is no good

Some people are just trying to make a living, give them a chance, i could see if they were actually spamming

To me spamming is when they make a nuisance of themselves with repeated duplicate advertisments not just one post in a forum for gods sake let people live

Reason for my post is because i happen to know 2 people that make a living online and have this problem all the time being called spammers

They barely get by, They are handicapped and not far from being homeless or else going on welfare when they could make a nice living online if only people would drop the spam screams

Maybe better that people go on welfare right?  Let them raise our taxes even more rather than allow people to make money themselves

Sorry for the long post but i think people should open their eyes a bit to this terrible problem

I agree that spam is annoying, But i also believe that there is legitimate advertising that should not be labeled spam

Thanks for reading!  

[another_someone]

The problem with Spam is not that one may get one legitimate item of advertising a month, it is that it so easily overwhelms both the Internet itself, and the end user, who finds it difficult to plough through all the advertising to get to the information they want.

Ofcourse, it is possible to argue that one should allow that one piece of appropriate advertising to get through, but who is to decide which one of the millions of items is appropriate?  Appropriate for whom – what is appropriate for one person, will not be appropriate to another.

Besides which, while we may all be gratefully using this forum free of charge, there are people who are spending their money and time to provide us this service.  Is it not their right to decide what should and should not be here, and if they don't want advertising, at the end of the day, its their choice.  Very different if you set up your own web site, and pay all the costs, then you can decide what goes on it, and if you want to include advertising on it (as many people do), then it is your prerogative.

The people who run this site have a clear vision of what they want from it, and they (quite reasonably) consider any advertising to be noise that clutters up the site and gets in the way of the information content that they actually want to promote on this site.

There is legitimate advertising.  It is advertising in places where advertising is allowed, and designed into the purpose of the envirionment.

[Solvay_1927]

My view is simple.

If you're advertising a product/service that you make money from, you should pay to advertise. (Why should you freeload off the time and money put in by others to provide us with a free discussion forum, benefitting from it financially, when you've not otherwise contributed anything to that forum?)

If you're sharing opinions & theories, offering free help and info, promoting a charitable service or support group, say, then I don't have a problem with getting free exposure.

But even when advertising such a "worthy cause", I'd show more sympathy for such an advertiser if they contribute something (not necessarily money, but just interesting & useful postings would do) than if they only join a forum once to post their advertisement / web-link.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Personally, I dont want spam to degrade this harmonic backwater into yet another nonsensical free for all advertising strip. Wer get enough of that on the TV.

Maybe advertisers should set up their own Internet and charge people for logging on to see what products are available, you could call it AdderWeb to make all of the snake oil sales people feel at home. There is no doubt you will have lots and lots of people posting adverts selling everything imaginable, and I would welcome this innovation with open arms.

Up The Nimby's

Andrew

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"

[neilep]

Sorry Cherry,

I disagree.Though I do feel for the people you know.

But you wouldn't allow people to walk into your business premises and sell to your clients on your property would you ? especially when you are trying to engage your clients in conversation.

I know this is the internet but it amounts to the same thing and believe me, you have no idea how many times this site gets hit by people selling their wares. In your case you say it might just be your friend making one post....unfortunately , there are a lot of single people out there making one posts and it does mount up, sometimes it's multiple posts in every forum on this site.

It wouldn't be too difficult for these people to be courteous about it either, something along the lines of "Sorry for the intrusion but would you mind considering this product I have for sale" or "I respectfully request your considertion " etc etc...rather than in most cases it's just a blatant cold sale and 99.99% of the time it's not even relevant to the people they are targeting.

If they are to use our space then it should be with a view to offering something back too, this site costs money and should not be abused as a backbone for others to make money too !!

I rememeber when I owned a couple of hi fi stores. Almost daily we would get people coming in to try to sell us their goods, getting in the way of us dealing with our customers...and then they would try to sell to our customers on our own shop floor !! which I was paying rent and rates on...and it leaves a bitter taste in some customers who walked out before we had a chance to talk to them because they could see they were going to be targeted next !!....I used to change it around and see if these(peddlers) people wanted to buy a hi fi...of course they never did......

The bottom line is, this is a discussion forum where people come to interact, it's not a site to advertise in, to allow advertising would denigrate the premise of it's function.

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[Grecian]

Originally posted by neilep

HERE HERE.....my word it was BLATANT !!...I was going to do the honourable thing but thedoc turned a hard sell into poetry !!..well..poetic justice anyway []

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'


I agree, well said Neil and thedoc.   Helen

[ukmicky]

To thedoc. I didn't see it,  How could you.. I feel like i missed out. In future think of me, After all i am the important one here.[]

However, dan and cherry

The first law of ukmicky states: you cant get something for nothing.[]

if you wish to recieve something you need to give something.

Michael                 HAPPY NEW YEAR                    

[cherry]

Just for the record, i sure dont condone this kind of behavior, I just dont feel its the big deal i see so many making about it

Just my opinion, of course i dont run a forum where this kind of thing happens, so maybe if i did i would make a big deal of it too, who knows

Just posting on forums tho, i cant see why it bugs people so, But then again i dont spend much time in them either

To each his own