[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I thought there was already a "deal" rule that the price couldn't be a permanent thing -- it had to be some kind of time-dependent deal. So the flood of constantly 2.99 books scenario is already prohibited (and presumably dealt with without our seeing it) by moderation.

Actually no, we've currently got no formal rules about what manner of "deals" may be posted in the Deals forum proper (besides no self-promo). There are rules in the monthly threads in the individual reader forums, but there's nothing stopping someone from posting, say, Subterranean Press sf/fantasy novellas regularly priced at $4.99 as a bargain (which, for sf/f fans they are, compared to the $35 SP charges for the limited-edtion hardcover versions of the same titles, and DRM-free, too) right here in the main.

Or, for that matter, considering this popular educational Kindle title a steal considering you'd save a full $1,558 off the print edition price (not to mention the added-value entertainment from reading the reviews!)

Not to mention it can sometimes be pretty hard to tell what's a time-limited promotional price and what may be merely be a permanent markdown for some titles, given the way Amazon likes to calculate the "Your Savings" percentage from the highest print-equivalent cost rather than whatever the regular digital list price may be.

Anyway, I think we've only got two mods handling stuff which pops up in this forum and they've likely got their hands full changing the thread titles to include more stores and sorting out the self-promo and off-topic stuff.

If the mod team as a whole wants to set some ground rules in place to make their jobs easier in the future by requiring bargain posters to declare any possible financial benefit they might get from their links to stave off possible complaints and just plain deleting any repeat offenders who end up not following the posting guidelines, I've no objection.

Originally Posted by koland

Sadly, there are enough hucksters out there to attract these folk -- they charge them money for "webmalls" and to sign them up as affiliates in places (assuming they actually do so - would you give your SS and bank info to a place selling you a website?). Over on some affiliate forums, you see them show up daily, having spent anywhere from a few hundreds to thousands of dollars (all of which is, of course, wasted).

Most eventually accept that the average affiliate at Amazon earns in the 10's of dollars/month and to get a sustained >$100/month account can take a very long time (about the same is true at Adsense, which works well for some sites and not well at all for others). Very, very few sites make enough to consider it a 'day job', especially not for any length of time.

Most spammy schemes seem to be pyramids anyway, relying on newbie suckers to provide the actual payoff rather than any actual purchases from real customers. The real problem is that people keep falling for it, so if we happen to be unlucky enough to wind up getting one of those over on MR, while they'll probably eventually learn better, in the meantime they'll probably be very annoying and then once they get sick of it, someone else will show up to take their place and the cycle begins anew...

Originally Posted by koland

It's not a big deal, really, to not post aff tags. Although what I've seen in other forums that changed their formats (or actively discouraged other's tags) is that, over time, the communities shrank and eventually only authors self-promoting (or cross promoting) started to dominate (usually, until they too were banned).

I do think the mega threads will get to be a problem (it's one reason I start a new one for Kindle in that forum, each month, and was asked to do one for the nook, although it's thread never got nearly as long).

MR posters are generally pretty nice about reposting at least the free books whenever they find them. The bargain-hunters may have to look a bit harder, but we'll probably still have the freebies and coupons available, even if they're not immediately posted practically the moment they're out, the way we're lucky enough to get now.

I agree that the megathreads are likely going to end up an issue with duplication and having to follow extra threads just to see what's available (and clutter, if a bunch of people end up starting them up for fun and maybe-profit).

Again, I think that individual threads/posts as usual with a simple disclaimer before the links begin (because aside from the sigs turned off consideration, some of the bargain posts can end up being pretty long if there's a bunch at once) should be enough to declare a poster's possible financial interest, for those MR-goers who sensitive to such.

I hope the mod team will be able to resolve people's assorted concerns in a way that's reasonably fair and convenient for everyone who's expressed them.