Lemmy.ca's Main Community

3044 readers

39 users here now

Welcome to the lemmy.ca/c/main community!

All new users on lemmy.ca are automatically subscribed to this community, so this is the place to read announcements, make suggestions, and chat about the goings-on of lemmy.ca.

For support requests specific to lemmy.ca, you can use [email protected].

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

128

I think affiliate links should be banned or restricted from this instance (self.main)

submitted 2 years ago by SymbolicLink to c/main

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I noticed this Wealthsimple Community pop up in my "active" list today.

Clicked in and noticed its empty, but the sidebar contains a sneaky affiliate link for the moderator of that community.

Same thing with the Wealthsimple Trade Community.

I think this sort of activity should be banned from here tbh, definitely at the mod level.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] troyunrau 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think we should leave this one to the mods. Links to commercial sites and services will happen. Hell, I link to my company's website in my own bio. What I do agree with is links with the affiliate tracking and commission.

Because URLs can be edited by the poster, by mods, and admins, this one will be hard to enforce. You could have bots modifying old links months after they've been posted. Etc.

So the best solution is a mod tool that detects the most common form of affiliate links (eg: amazon) and strips the affiliate portion from the link. This wouldn't catch everything. And if we get popular, we'll still get the t-shirt spam type problems that we moderators on reddit have faced for years. But it would be a good start.

So, who is working on the mod tools? ;)

[–] SymbolicLink 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah I am okay leaving it to mods. But I think in this particular case if the mods themselves are posting affiliate links with no indication they are getting money for each use, that seems like misaligned incentives.

There were some subreddits that would have stickied posts or something that allowed affiliate links, but that aggregates it all into one place and also lays it out clearly for whoever visits.

My main concern is not that someone is making money, we all gotta eat, its just when people aren't aware they are potentially being manipulated for someones benefit.

[–] troyunrau 3 points 2 years ago

I agree. Transparency is key :)