Reddit gold doesn't provide any direct financial benefits to the recipients; rather just a slightly enhanced feature set.
Any time referral codes can be translated into actual money it always brings out the worst in spamming and general sleaziness. People stop caring about growing a community or sharing meaningful content but will just chase referral codes and anything they can do to build their pyramid.
Going to jump in for a second here. I'm a little lost in regards to why it would promote spam and general sleaziness?
There is no reason why these referral codes would be posted on snapzu as anyone on the site is essentially already a member, and if someone does post their tribe invite link(s) they would be down voted right away... those posts will never see the light of day. As for the spam, I'm not sure I understand your concern. What spam? The rev-share incentives don't focus on content created, so there would be no ads and thus no reason to spam anything. Its clearly stated that this is only in reference to sharing a tribe related invite link so that chiefs can build up their own tribes and at the same time earn a few bucks. Maybe I'm missing something here, but this seems like a solid approach to rewarding tribe chiefs for growing their communities and at the same time snapzu as a whole. Honestly, at this point the only thing that this place needs is more members and more specialized tribes.
I think my post to nickcobb outlines most of my concerns. I just wanted to touch on that if they really want to increase membership then maybe it's time to drop the invite only status.
If a referred member then purchases credits, the incoming funds will be shared 50/50 between Snapzu and the tribe chief.
This the specific part that concerns me. I remember there used to be a subreddit called Best of Amazon or something similar to that where the premise was that people posted the best products available on Amazon (either top quality or very unique). The idea was pretty cool except that they let people use their Amazon referral codes so inevitably people just spammed it all day long in the hopes that someone would click through their referral code and they'd get the Amazon commission. It was eventually shut down by the admins because of the sleazy behaviour it promoted.
I see a similar situation being unveiled with a huge influx of tribes with low-quality content just so people can push referrals into the popular tribes. I'd hate to see this entire place become AdviceAnimals since 90% of it is good quality content as it stands. Also, I think it would hurt the reputation of Snapzu since it would encourage people to push their referral links out all over the web and it could almost be seen as a gate to content like adfly.
I personally think money destroys communities since the pure motivations drop away and some people just start chasing dollars. I hope I'm wrong but I'm disappointed the admins are taking the risk.
I'm still not entirely sure how the amazon example you mentioned fits into the way this rev-shared invite referral program would work. You said redditors created subreddits only to spam their referral code linked goods to earn a small profit from each item sold as in comparison to getting new people to join their tribe and at the same time snapzu. These new people have no reason to spam, they are not affiliated with the person that invited them through their tribe referral code, and even if they were related, it is them that would need to spend their hard earned cash for that chief to earn anything. I just don't see the correlation between these rev-share invite links and spamming.
This is how I image the program to work:
- I start a new tribe called /t/callofduty because I have a passion for the game
- This new tribe expands the range of communities and content on the site but needs members to make it work (pretty much the same concept as reddit here)
- Because I am a part of a number of call of duty communities I want to be able to easily share my Call of Duty tribe with others
- The ability to bulk invite hundreds of new people to my tribe by sharing a tribe referral link is important as I only have a limited number of personal invites
- People join using my tribe referral link and use snapzu like any other person would
- I am happy because my tribe is growing and I also made some credits on the side which I can use in a number of ways, one being to "cash out"
The only thing I can see happening is if people abuse their tribe referral links and spam other communities in a manner that exploits the concept. I am sure however that a few rules in regards to that can be established to prevent people from being bone heads.
The only thing I can see happening is if people abuse their tribe referral links and spam other communities in a manner that exploits the concept. I am sure however that a few rules in regards to that can be established to prevent people from being bone heads.
This is how I think 90% of referral codes will be used. I hope I'm wrong.
and I also made some credits on the side which I can use in a number of ways
The way I understood the explanation is that this wouldn't necessarily be true. The only reason you would make some credits on the side is if those people you invited also purchased 'Snapzu Gold.' You wouldn't get credits just from them joining. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Right, in addition to growing my tribe with like-minded peeps I am also earning credits on the side... BUT of course this would only happen if one of the users you referred to your tribe (and snapzu as a platform) would purchase snapzu credits. If they don't purchase credits themselves, then I wouldn't earn anything.
Reddit gold doesn't provide any direct financial benefits to the recipients; rather just a slightly enhanced feature set.
Any time referral codes can be translated into actual money it always brings out the worst in spamming and general sleaziness. People stop caring about growing a community or sharing meaningful content but will just chase referral codes and anything they can do to build their pyramid.
Going to jump in for a second here. I'm a little lost in regards to why it would promote spam and general sleaziness?
There is no reason why these referral codes would be posted on snapzu as anyone on the site is essentially already a member, and if someone does post their tribe invite link(s) they would be down voted right away... those posts will never see the light of day. As for the spam, I'm not sure I understand your concern. What spam? The rev-share incentives don't focus on content created, so there would be no ads and thus no reason to spam anything. Its clearly stated that this is only in reference to sharing a tribe related invite link so that chiefs can build up their own tribes and at the same time earn a few bucks. Maybe I'm missing something here, but this seems like a solid approach to rewarding tribe chiefs for growing their communities and at the same time snapzu as a whole. Honestly, at this point the only thing that this place needs is more members and more specialized tribes.
I think my post to nickcobb outlines most of my concerns. I just wanted to touch on that if they really want to increase membership then maybe it's time to drop the invite only status.
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I'm sure there will be guidelines, rules, and examples in place. The last thing we want is to spam and piss off other internet communities.