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I think affiliate links should be banned or restricted from this instance (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I noticed this Wealthsimple Community pop up in my "active" list today.

Clicked in and noticed its empty, but the sidebar contains a sneaky affiliate link for the moderator of that community.

Same thing with the Wealthsimple Trade Community.

I think this sort of activity should be banned from here tbh, definitely at the mod level.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think we should leave this one to the mods. Links to commercial sites and services will happen. Hell, I link to my company's website in my own bio. What I do agree with is links with the affiliate tracking and commission.

Because URLs can be edited by the poster, by mods, and admins, this one will be hard to enforce. You could have bots modifying old links months after they've been posted. Etc.

So the best solution is a mod tool that detects the most common form of affiliate links (eg: amazon) and strips the affiliate portion from the link. This wouldn't catch everything. And if we get popular, we'll still get the t-shirt spam type problems that we moderators on reddit have faced for years. But it would be a good start.

So, who is working on the mod tools? ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I am okay leaving it to mods. But I think in this particular case if the mods themselves are posting affiliate links with no indication they are getting money for each use, that seems like misaligned incentives.

There were some subreddits that would have stickied posts or something that allowed affiliate links, but that aggregates it all into one place and also lays it out clearly for whoever visits.

My main concern is not that someone is making money, we all gotta eat, its just when people aren't aware they are potentially being manipulated for someones benefit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I agree. Transparency is key :)