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Please can we stop the spam to win giveaway culture?
As the title suggests it’s really annoying and it becoming more and more common
I will keep this thread short in principle.
Comments
It's a marketing tactic. Any company here that does it does it for a reason (because it's allowed and attracts thousands of extra impressions). Many people won't use companies that do this, many will prefer it since free stuff is free stuff. It's just marketing.
Yes, I allow.
Why annoying?because it is bumping?What if you have won in a giveaway thread?
Nah it's fun imo and who doesn't like free gifts?
A simple click/x to 'hide thread' option would be nice for some of these types of posts - I'd rather not have to go mess around with uBlock rules & CSS every time a new RackNerd or someone else's giveaway thread appears.
It's a method for sellers to stay on the front page, but I find that it just makes you look bad instead and any serious customers will avoid you.
yes
No
maybe
but we wont
don't worry the admins have been working on a fix since last November. It is bound to be released anytime!
You know those idling boxes we bought that make us feel like shit? That is why we do giveaways, nothing better to do but hope someone likes us for something.
The end.
Just pick any random 5 users in one of these 'bump' or 'respond to enter' type threads and review their post history, almost all contribute nothing of value to LowEndTalk.
But nothing will be done about it, because it'd impact the metrics collected for things like user activity, posts, etc. If you all of a sudden stop allowing these type of dumb fucking threads, then a sharp decline in 'activity' can be easily graphed and it would look bad should someone ever want to sell the site.
never 4get https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/192140/humans-only-please
Got any better suggestions for giveaways? I’m fine with anything as long as it’s not the “highest number of comments wins” type.
everyone luvs giveaways!
One forum I know changed a forum category so it doesn't order threads by last post date but by thread creation date. So bumping thread doesn't push new threads down the thread listing page
I think there would have to be more changes to allow it in a more controlled way, for example having a specific marketplace section that allows this kind of marketing and one that is more of a simple section that does not allow for needless giveaways and bumping etc.
That said I have won giveaways before and personally I do see it as a marketing tactic unfortunately it has got to the point that you either do some sort of double resource or giveaway or you thread ends up being lost behind all the others that have it .... but marketing is marketing and I am sure there would be another issue if they removed this as a choice.
I actually think this may be the way forward, still allows people to do the giveaways but also will not keep bumping older threads from users who do not read the date and just spam post for giveaways etc
When I view the frontpage, I purposely skip the 'offers' postings as they are normally just a waste of time. If I am looking for a server, I go elsewhere (ogf) which does not allow bump / marketing.
If a provider wants to do giveaways then let them be posted in a giveaways section (not included on main page) and leave the offers uncluttered.
This forum has less and less 'interest' and is really just a marketing medium which I am not interested in.
I see where you're coming from. Our giveaways are truly meant to help people. We hope the winner is someone who’s always wanted a bare metal but couldn’t afford it before. (If you check our post history, it has been deleted, but we have tried to do a giveaway here before).
Our goal isn’t marketing or self-promotion, it’s about making a difference for someone. I'm open to suggestions, so if anyone has ideas on how we can make it look less like a marketing stunt, I would love to hear them.
People do the giveaways not because they want to give stuff to LET members, its just to keep their thread live and visible towards the top of the forum
I did an experiment once where we did a giveaway of something very low value, I don't recall exactly what it was. Maybe was just a domain registration or cheap hosting package, it wasn't anything of great significance, but still had a bunch of pointless bumps and great front page presence for several days. No need to give out $100s of dollars in giftcards and Steam Decks and stuff. Users will bump a thread for a used Burger King giftcard with a $2.37 balance left on it, and nothing in the rules disallows this.
I think a good compromise for those of us who want to use LET as a forum and community, and for those who just use it searching for cheap services is to allow users to mute topics of no interest to them. Not sure if here is a Vanilla plugin for that, but would be nice to be able to click a thread and 'mute it', so no new responses doesn't make the thread come back to the top of the thread list for me (But maybe you want to participate, so you leave it unmuted).
Anyway, my $0.02
haha, quote your invoice id and we double your bandwith and fresh air on your server - most profitable BS / SPAM
Prizes just need to be better. Some of these prizes seem like things Racknerd was too lazy to return in 30 days and stuck with.
No bumps : buried thread.
Buried thread : no sales
No sales : No provider tag ROI.
Solution? Remove the provider tag fee
To be clear here I’m not saying anything bad about giveaways and every provider deserves to promote the services they provide!
The pointless bumping of threads just becomes annoying!
Solution: Only allow giveaways in the Giveaway+Freebies section (not as an addendum to a sales thread). Allow users to hide the Giveaway+Freebies section from the home page.
I like you
i guess racknerd ?