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Originally Posted by anamardoll
I agree that a sticky on scrubbing links would be VERY useful. But if I am reading Koland correctly, it would seem it would not be that easy.
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In which case, the mods also need both a clear "how to handle possible affiliate links from unfamiliar posters" policy to respond with, and an "if you're not sure whether you're posting an affiliate, please follow these steps" guideline for said posters.
Personally, I'd propose a standard formula cut-and-paste text like:
Quote:
Thank you for sharing your deal.
Unfortunately, the link you have given seems to be an affiliate link, which is against MobileRead policy regarding commercial use of our forums.
I have deleted the URL from your post in accordance with MobileRead policy.
If you are able to find a version of the link without the affiliate information or another poster is able to supply one, please feel free to re-post the clean URL in a new post below in this same thread.
If you are uncertain as to what an affiliate link is or how to remove the affiliate information, please see INFO POST HERE.
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And then the mods could just leave the text of the deal intact, sans link, which should hopefully still have enough info that other people can find the deal without it.
That would give inexperienced deal-sharers the benefit of the doubt, and if it turns out that later the poster came back to re-edit in the same affiliate link, then the mods now know to ban them for attempted stealth link-spam.
Of course, this should be accompanied by a similar standard disclaimer formula to protect well-meaning posters. Something along the lines of:
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What To Do If You're Not Sure If You Might Be Posting An Affiliate Link
1) Indicate at the top of the post whichever website originally led you to the deal and state that you got this link from there and don't know if it contains an affiliate. Ask your fellow MR posters to look at it and if they can, post a clean version of the URL in response to your thread, which you will edit back into the OP should it be necessary.
2) Provide as much detail about what the deal is, the author/title/publisher/price etc., the shopping/other site where it can be found, as you can so that in case your original link needs to be deleted, your fellow MR members can still find the deal on their own with a little Googling.
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Having a clear set of guidelines which addresses both sides of the new link-posting/link-deletion equation and What To Do Next would be very useful to both the mods who have to look after this forum, and the deal-sharers looking into it, I should think.