PavlovsCat Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 5 minutes ago, Wookiee said: Direct promotion of your own company in the text is a breach of the forum rules and amounts to free advertising. Make reference to a product in the body of a post, but no link is acceptable. Placing a link to your website, but no specific product in your signature is acceptable. These rules are what we all agreed to when creating our profile. Even the users name is pushing the rules to a certain extent. The forum has always been excellent and you've always been fair and reasonable (I truly mean that for all you cynics!) and I'm definitely not interested in arguing for the sake of argument, but that rule would mean that every developer that makes a product announcement here and every YouTuber influencer promoting their reviews (which is their business venture that gets them free products, sometimes payments from developers of the reviewed products and revenue from Google) -- would violate that policy (quoted here): "Direct promotion of your own company in the text is a breach of the forum rules and amounts to free advertising." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookiee Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 @PavlovsCat any company has been reminded of the rules at some point. If there's peeps not following the rules then you need to remind them so all players are playing fair, or report them as this was. All this user needs to do is; 1. Put a link to his website in his signature. 2. Only reference a product no direct link. Case sorted,. iIt should be noted I rarely visit the deals forum, my furry pockets are not deep enough to do so. This was brought to my attention by a report ticket. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antler Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 50 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said: every YouTuber influencer promoting their reviews (which is their business venture that gets them free products, sometimes payments from developers of the reviewed products and revenue from Google) -- would violate that policy (quoted here): "Direct promotion of your own company in the text is a breach of the forum rules and amounts to free advertising." It's not exactly the same thing though. YouTube reviewers aren't putting a link to their channel home page and saying 'watch my videos - you'll get a discount from any of my affiliate links'. By watching the videos you get to see the product's UI, maybe hear some presets, and hear about some good points of the product. It may be rose tinted and ignore any bad points, but the video is about the product - not the reviewer: it's not a direct advertisement of themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 15 minutes ago, Wookiee said: @PavlovsCat any company has been reminded of the rules at some point. If there's peeps not following the rules then you need to remind them so all players are playing fair, or report them as this was. All this user needs to do is; 1. Put a link to his website in his signature. 2. Only reference a product no direct link. Case sorted,. iIt should be noted I rarely visit the deals forum, my furry pockets are not deep enough to do so. This was brought to my attention by a report ticket. Thanks for clarifying things. I think that's reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antler Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 1 hour ago, Wookiee said: Direct promotion of your own company in the text is a breach of the forum rules and amounts to free advertising. Make reference to a product in the body of a post, but no link is acceptable. Placing a link to your website, but no specific product in your signature is acceptable. These rules are what we all agreed to when creating our profile. Even the users name is pushing the rules to a certain extent. Thanks for a reminder/explanation Wookiee 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 (edited) 8 minutes ago, antler said: It's not exactly the same thing though. YouTube reviewers aren't putting a link to their channel home page and saying 'watch my videos - you'll get a discount from any of my affiliate links'. By watching the videos you get to see the product's UI, maybe hear some presets, and hear about some good points of the product. It may be rose tinted and ignore any bad points, but the video is about the product - not the reviewer: it's not a direct advertisement of themselves. An influencer is literally an independent business person, an entrepreneur and many successful ones form corporations for their influencing. An influencer profits from someone watching videos (YouTube/Google gives them ad money) and they also profit when someone clicks their link to purchase the "reviewed" product. Consider that heavy hitter influencers in this business are getting paid thousands for "reviewing" products and they promote their business by linking to it in forums like this one. Granted, most of the ones posting here aren't the heavy hitters demanding ten thousand plus to "review" products, but they're still posting links to promote products. They are promoters of brands and they make revenue from when you watch their videos and buy the products they review. That is the reason they do reviews and post here -- it is literally free promotion. Edited October 26, 2022 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Temp Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 9 hours ago, Wookiee said: @PavlovsCat any company has been reminded of the rules at some point. If there's peeps not following the rules then you need to remind them so all players are playing fair, or report them as this was. All this user needs to do is; 1. Put a link to his website in his signature. 2. Only reference a product no direct link. Case sorted,. iIt should be noted I rarely visit the deals forum, my furry pockets are not deep enough to do so. This was brought to my attention by a report ticket. OK no worries, so nobody should be using any links in their posts? Or any links to their own websites in their posts? Also, I'd like to be able to update my signature and just start posting again, but rather than giving me a warning you just completely banned me indefinitely. I couldn't even send you a message: Penalty Given 0 points which will never expire. Restricted from posting - Indefinitely Could you unban my original account and I'll just not post direct links to MSD in future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 Thank you for unbanning. I won't post any links from now on so...can you clarify though: 1. Can other people link to my website? 2. Can I link to other people's websites? 3. Can nobody link to their own website? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookiee Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 2 hours ago, Music Software Deals Temp said: OK no worries, so nobody should be using any links in their posts? Or any links to their own websites in their posts? Also, I'd like to be able to update my signature and just start posting again, but rather than giving me a warning you just completely banned me indefinitely. I couldn't even send you a message: Penalty Given 0 points which will never expire. Restricted from posting - Indefinitely Could you unban my original account and I'll just not post direct links to MSD in future? No Companies should be placing Links to their websites in the text portion of posts. It is OK for a user to share a link to a deal they have found It is a breach of the forum rules to sell anything within the forums. However we show a little leniency in the Deals forum to companies who only place a link to their website Index page in their signatures. Technically you are again in breach of the forum rules by having a second profile. I will remove the restriction on the understanding that you do not place direct links in the body of your text, you only have a link to the index page of your website in your signature. Any one here should be able to browser to your current deal, they are after all using a computer and a browser to get here. If any company is breaking these rules then report them, it is not fair to you, it is not fair to Bandlab who are providing free advertising, it could lead to Bandlab being prosecuted for copyright violations. The deals forum is provided for Users to share links to Deals they have found, it is not really for companies to gain free advertising. Your Warnings have been reevoked, no points were awarded, there is no record of the warning being issued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 1 minute ago, Wookiee said: No Companies should be placing Links to their websites in the text portion of posts. It is OK for a user to share a link to a deal they have found It is a breach of the forum rules to sell anything within the forums. However we show a little leniency in the Deals forum to companies who only place a link to their website Index page in their signatures. Technically you are again in breach of the forum rules by having a second profile. I will remove the restriction on the understanding that you do not place direct links in the body of your text, you only have a link to the index page of your website in your signature. Any one here should be able to browser to your current deal, they are after all using a computer and a browser to get here. If any company is breaking these rules then report them, it is not fair to you, it is not fair to Bandlab who are providing free advertising, it could lead to Bandlab being prosecuted for copyright violations. The deals forum is provided for Users to share links to Deals they have found, it is not really for companies to gain free advertising. Your Warnings have been reevoked, no points were awarded, there is no record of the warning being issued. OK sorry I'm still a little confused. "Companies should be placing Links to their websites in the text portion of posts. " So no company should be posting a link to their own website here (other than in their signature) and anyone can post a link to another website if they don't own it because it links to a deal. Is that right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookiee Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 2 minutes ago, Music Software Deals said: OK sorry I'm still a little confused. "Companies should be placing Links to their websites in the text portion of posts. " So no company should be posting a link to their own website here (other than in their signature) and anyone can post a link to another website if they don't own it because it links to a deal. Is that right? See the PM just sent. But to clarify for other's; No commercial enterprise should be placing direct links to specific product in the text body of their posts. They should only have a link to the Index page of their Website, i.e. the very first page you hit when visiting a website They can make reference to a product or a deal but must not provide direct link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 (edited) 7 hours ago, Wookiee said: See the PM just sent. But to clarify for other's; No commercial enterprise should be placing direct links to specific product in the text body of their posts. They should only have a link to the Index page of their Website, i.e. the very first page you hit when visiting a website They can make reference to a product or a deal but must not provide direct link. Thanks. So for example these posts would all be breaching the forum rules? Edited October 27, 2022 by Music Software Deals Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookiee Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 Correct they are, but unless they are reported, as your post was, the mods may not be aware, or those that visit the deals forum choose to ignore it. For reason explained below I rarely visit the deals forum other than when someone raises a ticket for it. Personally after 55 plus years of making music, 35 years of using computers to do so I have accumulated a fair collection of hardware synths. I have also been quite selective in the companies I have chosen to buy software and software synths from, which means most are still in business, keeping their plugins up to date. Whilst my softsynth collection may be quite modest at a mere 168 three of them are modular synths. I also do not find the need for lots of additional plugin FX as most of the synths have them built in or can be used as FX. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 OK thanks, I won't post any links to MSD so. I guess someone doesn't like me creating the platform if they went and reported me! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fret_man Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 5 hours ago, Music Software Deals said: OK thanks, I won't post any links to MSD so. I guess someone doesn't like me creating the platform if they went and reported me! You can still put a ink to your website in your signature. Please do that! It will help us all. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 3 minutes ago, fret_man said: You can still put a ink to your website in your signature. Please do that! It will help us all. Yes it would ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Music Software Deals Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 1 minute ago, InstrEd said: Yes it would ? Done! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Loops Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 We've been posting our deals for years. I don't appreciate you highlighting our post like this!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mibby Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, New Loops said: We've been posting our deals for years. I don't appreciate you highlighting our post like this!! That's the point, it was unfair to treat MSD differently than you guys who ARE actually selling things. (In fact, it could be argued he's just providing a FREE service for all of us.) Frankly, I don't understand why someone would take issue with his site. After all, this is the Deals forum (the best one around!) and I appreciate that all of you guys have a place like this with an audience who is interested in your products. I say, l let the deals fly! ☮️ PS. THANK YOU @Wookiee for all of your thankless work AND especially Bandlab for making this site available to all of us past and present and even "non" users. Edited October 27, 2022 by mibby 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted October 27, 2022 Share Posted October 27, 2022 (edited) 7 hours ago, mibby said: That's the point, it was unfair to treat MSD differently than you guys who ARE actually selling things. (In fact, it could be argued he's just providing a FREE service for all of us.) Frankly, I don't understand why someone would take issue with his site. After all, this is the Deals forum (the best one around!) and I appreciate that all of you guys have a place like this with an audience who is interested in your products. I say, l let the deals fly! ☮️ PS. THANK YOU @Wookiee for all of your thankless work AND especially Bandlab for making this site available to all of us past and present and even "non" users. I'm in the Audio Plugin Deals group on Facebook, and that guy posts here and his posts are no different than those of Music Software Deals. The links deep link to specific pages. I find the deep links useful, as do a lot of people. My guess would be that a guy who has a competitor site to Music Software Deals that had made some very egoistical, hostile posts claiming that he had the first deals site for plugins and the Music Software Deals site was ripping him off is the complainer (I've been managing digital marketing since 1995 and one of the early members of KVR, VI Control, Cakewalk, V-Drums and other music related forums and I certainly don't think the guy is right, but anyways...). He made some nasty, bitter and egotistical posts he later deleted. My guess is that someone that egotistical and petty later came back to try to sabotage his competitor. But both Music Software Deals and Audio Plugin Deals guy are reasonable in their posting, I've never seen them post anything in the realm of spam. And there are literally thousands of threads posted by similar folks in the forum. Now Wookie has always been great, very friendly and very fair. That's honest praise. But I think this decision needs to be reconsidered. I think that Music Software Deals deep links add value and save users time. The only change I'd add is that the forum should require anyone posting affiliate links to disclose that they are affiliate links and to disclose relationships with developers and resellers. Edited October 28, 2022 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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