A lot of readers of this site will be active on reddit’s /r/churning subreddit. Earlier today they announced that they would be:
effective immediately, the mods are going to be indefinitely retiring the referral threads. All the mods have full time jobs and can not devote more energy to this issue. We may look at figuring out the issue with RLB while the threads are down, but that is only a possibility, and a small one at that.
I can definitely emphasis with the mod team. Dealing with referral links is a constant pain, people are constantly trying to skirt the rules and abuse the system. Keeping things fair is extremely difficult and people seem incapable of following even the most basic rules. The upside for us is that at least we’ve got money coming in from advertisements, whereas the mod team are all volunteers.
Our New Policy
One of the things we want to do on this site is foster a community of readers helping each other as it’s simply not possible for us to answer every single reader question or find every deal. We rely on the contributions of readers heavily and one nice way to give back is by allowing referral threads. That being said moderating/dealing with referral threads has gotten significantly harder as this site grows. We’ve been experimenting with something recently and it’s worked well enough that we will be using it going forward.
- When appropriate we will post a referral link post. This will usually be done when there is a reason, for example a sign up bonus increasing.
- The referral link post will be open for 24-48 hours for comments. This should allow most active readers to post their links, most of the spam and abuse seems to happen much later than this.
- Readers will be allowed to post one link. No posting multiple links, no using different identities. The full link must be posted rather than a shortened link.
- After the comments are closed, we will moderate all the comments. We will remove any duplicates/people skirting the rules.
How You Can Help
- Be mindful of the referral links you use. You can now see a readers comment history by clicking the ‘i’ icon next to their name. Before using somebodies link make sure you have a look at their comment history and see if they post useful information. If you see somebody post a useful comment, write down that name and search for them next time you want to use a referral link. This is the single most important thing you can do.
- If you see something, say something. Did you notice somebody not following the rules? Posting multiple links? Let us know so we can fix it. Snitching is ok sometimes.
- Follow the rules. I can’t count the number of times people just don’t follow simple rules. It doesn’t take long to read the referral posts, the rules are subject to change so give it a quick read before posting your links.
View Comments (56)
I didn't understand the reason of turning off the comments on the referral Threads. In my case, I applied for Amex SPG Luxury card on 8/25. Received the card today hence I got my referral url today after activating the online account of the card, but I see that the comments on the SPG Luxury card referral thread has been turned off. Not fair to me. :-(
No warnings, no excuses i say
If people break the rules ban them
Going to comment that there are not very many comments on what should be a fairly important issue to the followers here concerning referrals which Doc allows here on the community. I have left probably one referral and never received a credit for that, I figured because it was at the bottom of the page? With this change more folks might want to familiarize themselves with changes planned on this topic. From what I've seen when points or other rewards are at stake there is huge interest, so there should be a lot of interest here in this post.
Wouldn’t it be better just to leave this be? some people spoil the thread so now nobody can attempt to post a referral? Sound like mods are just pissed with community and are making some big statement. It’s Reddit, a sub at that. They should get off their soapbox. It’s not a site whose owners wish to maintain order for sake of its readership. So if someone skirts the rules they skirt the rules. Let the whole thread go nuts in the sub and those people can cut each others throats over 5k points. They’ll all lose and they’ll waste their time doing it. Anyone complaining needs to understand it’s because lots of people are both lazy and greedy. Nothing can be done about that.
Hey DoC... another thing to consider is trying to think of a way to remove the ability for peeps to “reply” to the first comment, thus ensuring their link is highest up the list when default sorted. Thing is, simply removing the reply feature would limit others from letting you know when you’re referral is used and thus pulling your own link once you’ve reached your referral points match.
Any other ideas to address this minor issue with referral link sorting?
yeah that's not possible unfortunately. I wish people wouldn't care about who has the first link so much though. I really want readers to be taking time to select what link to use rather than just rewarding whoever posted quickest.
Great work this site has done :)
It amazes me how badly some people behave. :(
I think the moderators on reddit are just being ridiculous. The "problems" that they outline with regards to the referral threads are hardly dealbreakers, so, it's entirely unclear why they've decided to unilaterally just remove all the threads. Same with their earlier policy that bots weren't allowed to post the links — who cares?! What's wrong with that?!
OTOH, I do find it ridiculous how many people are apparently trying to contact the mods with some of these non-issues. Let's just hope that the same folks would now be asking them to re-instate the threads, and then maybe they'll reconsider.
> Same with their earlier policy that bots weren’t allowed to post the links — who cares?! What’s wrong with that?!
There's lots wrong with that. Why should moderators have to deal with people automatically posting referral links? That's absurd. Moderators don't get paid and dealing with referrals is a lot of work for very little reward, so why bother?
Will referrals here continue to require the use of Twitter? Because, with all due respect... fuck twitter.
Thanks!
That's been my biggest sticking point--not that I get that many opportunities for making referrals anyway--because I just don't want to get a Twitter account if I can help it.
Thank you for allowing us to post referral links. I've posted a few times and I really appreciate those that used my link for the Disney Visa referral deal a few months back. Thank you!