This is likely to be rambling, it's nothing even remotely formal. This is the start of something formal. Some of you will be familiar with the way I work and will recognize this as a part of the process.

If you've been in the business long enough, you'll probably be pretty familiar with promotion. We're always promoting ourselves and even other bands. We're promoting venues, gear, songs, shows, etc...

And, this site is about music.

It's gonna end up having people who want to promote something. It's going to happen, assuming people keep being active.

I'm all for allowing active users to use things like affiliate links in their product reviews. Damned right, I am. You took the time to review the product and recommend it. Why shouldn't you be allowed to use an affiliate link and maybe make a dollar or two if someone buys the product you recommended?

I have no problem with that. None.

Want to promote your new CD? Absolutely. Hell, let me (or probably even @COF) know and we'll maybe figure out a way to make it an announcement. We're happy that you've just cut a new album and done the work to produce it. Damned right, we will help you profit - if we can. I know damned well how hard it is to make a living in this industry.

But, there has to be a reasonable limit. It's just not cool to (eventually) have people join who just want to promote their goods/services and not give back to the community. Like I said, active users should be able to go ahead and promote their shit. Fuck, make a banner and I'll throw it up somewhere for a while. I want you to succeed. I want very much for you to succeed.

Shit, contact me if you want cheap hosting and help making a site. I'll even hook you up there. Seriously, if you want to get started with your own blog/site about music - let me know! I have ZERO problems helping you out. (You will have to pay for your own hosting, but I can hook you up with solid hosting at dirt cheap prices. I've got plenty and almost always use 'reseller' accounts.)

I (we, I'm pretty sure) want you to succeed. We all want each other to succeed. We all want you to be able to enjoy your musicianship and get your music out there.

We want you to make a few bucks. If you want to use an affiliate link in a product that you legitimately own and reviewed, of course you can. That's quite okay. That's not even remotely a problem.

But, this sort of thinking is subject to abuse. "You said it's okay that we use affiliate links!" That's an easy excuse for someone to use when it's true - but they've done nothing to help the community out. I don't want people here just to advertise their band, or things like that. I want people here to be members of the community and then advertise their band, if that's what they want to do.

So, we're gonna need some formal rules.

We're going to have to draw a line in the sand.

That line can be, "on a case by case basis and decided by the admins or moderators of those particular boards." However, that's not very standardized and won't work very long if we actually get busy. Not to mention that some of us may get busy elsewhere and not really have time to investigate.

Sure, there's a report post feature - and one of us admins (or the board moderator) will see the reports. Still, that only gives us a place to start.

I'd like to know what the community wants - before it becomes a problem.

And no, no... Saying, "No promotions!" isn't going to work here. That's not an option. We're musicians. Promoting is what we do - and making money from it is why we do it (usually). Yes, it's okay if someone writes a review and uses an affiliate link. Of course it's okay - so long as they're active participants.

Give me some feedback. Let me know what you think. Let me know what sort of hard and fast rules should be put in place to make this work.

Thanks.

Link?

(Feel free to link to sites. Hell, feel free to use affiliate links, if you want. I have ZERO problem with that. I also have ZERO problem with people promoting their own goods and services.)

Come to think of it, I should write a sticky post about promotions and affiliate links. They are fine here, so long as the user is an active participant and the goal is sharing information. Hell, you can even promote your albums and shit here. Yeah, I should formalize this and put it in writing.

I'll add it to my to-do list, though I won't be touching that list until probably January.

"I cut my deck to the Queen of Spades but the cards were all the same."

LOL I approved your post on Friday night, but didn't have time to get back here.

I see you registered!

And, I have no idea why the text is formatted that way after the code tag. Not a clue. Ain't even gonna worry about it right now!

There's a new version of SMF coming down the pipes sometime soonish and they'll be fixing the theme implementations. I also suck at CSS and HTML. I'm much happier buried in code.

By the way, @MrHarryReems... Why doesn't your site have a security certificate?

LOL PM me with what you're currently paying to host that site and what your needs/specs are. We'll see if we can make some sort of arrangement. I'm not allowed to run a free webhosting company, but I don't have to charge much!

Almost all of my domains are on their own reseller accounts. I like to keep things distinct. I've got shittons of hosting. Like, I've got a lot of it. I've got full cPanel and WHM (which you'd not need that) and whatnot. It's just push a button and you've got a LetsEncrypt certificate installed.

@COF No, they're randomly set to appear. They'll eventually appear, so long as they're loaded in there. I *think* I've seen all of them at least once.

They should appear in a random order unless someone's changed the settings. If the settings are changed, it wasn't me! ;-)

LOL I made you the mod of the reviews section! Do a good job and you'll figure it out as you go along.

What link formatting are you having issues with? You can just paste the URL and, on a good day, it'll even get the title for you - that kind of depends on how quickly the other site responds. It's time limited, so slow sites just post the URL but fast enough sites will post the actual title.

Music For Us! | Celebrating the connections. (that should do it just fine).