Poll : Splitting The Network Forum Sections Into Two

[Qui Gon Jinn]

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If the above changes are adopted then perhaps promotions posted in general will simply be deleted with perhaps a reminder going from a moderator. Then in time posters of promotional nature will hopefully be more familiar.

Affiliate Lounge ones tend to be moved / redirected at the moment.

[Tyson Pearcey]

All sounds interesting Paul and a very reasonable point considering how much gets posted in here on a daily basis. I’m sure half the info we post as networks gets over looked as white noise and you can clearly see that by the number of views each thread gets. As per when the forum first started out it was a perfect format as the number of networks affiliates and programmes wasn’t even close to as high as it is in 2007/2008.

If we were to move down this route I'd just like it clearly worked out exactly what is defined Discussion and Promo (as I'll use the Snowman’s examples bellow)

So there would need to be a process and agreement to classify the difference between a Discussion and what is a Promotion (or what ever the agreed sections are to be called). Example: we'd need to the work out where specific grips (not that there are ever an on here) about certain programs/promos need to be placed. My initial thought being that certain messages may get missed out if this does get fragmented into sub sections. Could it lead to people being endlessly confused about where to find what information? I’m sure one of us at buy.at would be interested in taking part if it gets to that level of acceptance with aff’s.

Then again it could be a very easy process and I'm over complicating it. I'll wait and see how this thread unravels.

Cheers
Tyson

[loquax]

One alternative idea maybe would be to add a prefix to a post so that it's defined as Promotion, Competition, Discussion etc etc?

On Loquax we did this with some forums - so say it's a network forum, a drop down box appears next to the "title" (when you make your thread post) and users can then select the relevant option for the nature of the post - this then appends itself to the title.

What's then possible is for those threads to be searched (e.g. show all "Discussion" for today or all "Promotions for Buy.at this week") (and fixed links can be put together to make it easier)

e.g

*Discount* So and so has 10% discount code
*Discussion* Why doesn't this link track
*Promotion* New offers at Blah Blah Blah
*New Merchant* So and so has launched..

It involves a little bit of tweaking of the vBulletin code (easy), and for people to remember to add the prefix, but it may help keep all "network" things together in one forum but searchable in indivdiual groups, ideal if splitting off forums into subforums is seen as escalating the size of the forums and confusing matters on where to post?

Jason

[philhancox]

Surely a lot of us are members of several networks, and that the promotions/incentives etc serve as a mini-promotion to join that network/promotion, so therefore would it be so bad just to have one general Promotions, Competitions section i.e. not one for every network?
This would
a) leave the network sections for network specific discussion
b) keep the forum smaller and tider than the examples above
c) stop duplicate posting for those merchants that are on more than one network
Does that make sense?

[gadget]

I like the Loquax idea of having a drop-down menu to group the message type. Personally, I'm not on hear for the promotions, in fact I never read them - I get more than enough e-mails about that stuff ( don't open them either! ).

Matthew - what's your take on this?

[Catt]

Yes, definitely a good idea. I haven't visited in a long time and I am sure that the number of promotions displayed has increased dramatically in the last 6 months.

[Matthew Wood]

Matthew - what's your take on this?

I'm keeping an eye on this thread, I guess we have a few options. a few other suggestions not yet discussed.

Having no promotions listed within the individual network forums and creating three forums:

-Promotions
-Vouchers
-Incentives

or

Creating an off forum solution that allows promotions to be entered into a central database by networks, merchants, affiliates and agencies and keep promotion information off the network forums?

We could use this information to send you alerts on new codes or promotions, or RSS the information to you?

Just a few ideas.

I'm not sure if splitting the forums up would create an unmanageable list of forums to navigate?