Forums: pay for posts

[Mark0]

Just saw a new user registering on my forum today.
Checked the profile's website, and it point here:

Forum Posters

The purpose of forumposters.org is to match forum owners with quality forum posters who want to be paid for posting on forums. Paid forum posting is useful for creating and maintaining a quality forum that attracts users who you want to stay and contribute to your forum as well. Without hiring at least a few forum posters, it can be difficult host a forum that is of any repute and value to advertisers. Forumposters.org does not charge forum posters or forum owners for the service that it provides. Forumposters.org is a free website for matching forum posters with forum owners.

Never heard about something like this before, but... it seemed inevitable. 

Bye!

[mouser]

We've discussed this practice here:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2341.0

While i can certainly sympathize with how hard it is for companies to get attention sometimes, even for the best products, needless to say this is absolutlely unacceptable here and i think it's a horrible idea, and it will not be tolerated on this forum.

I would advise everyone to stay away from any company that pays people to post about their stuff.

[Mark0]

Yeah, it's a bit sad to see how "economics" get into forums / community.
Under cover agents / posters from company was an "old" topic (I think I saw that a lot on forums about video cards... Nvidia & ATI really have done some guerrilla marketing there).
This one seems a bit different, forum hoster that pay posters to drive attention / traffic, but it's also a bit... don't know, disturbing? It force one to always think about the reasons behind posts.

Bye!

[nudone]

how about paying someone to not post?

i'll accept 1 dollar for every time i don't make a post - too high? okay, 1 cent.

just start paying and i'll start not posting... feel free to pay in a lump some to keep me not posting for a whole year.

[Mark0]

[mouser]

ah i see what you mean mark0, from the about page:

The purpose of forumposters.org is to match forum owners with quality forum posters who want to be paid for posting on forums. Paid forum posting is useful for creating and maintaining a quality forum that attracts users who you want to stay and contribute to your forum as well. Without hiring at least a few forum posters, it can be difficult host a forum that is of any repute and value to advertisers. Forumposters.org does not charge forum posters or forum owners for the service that it provides. Forumposters.org is a free website for matching forum posters with forum owners.

This is interesting but from reading the forum it still troubles me.

I suppose this could be acceptable if
1. You made clear up front to everyone that the people posting were being paid
2. You were paying them to add content of value to the forum or help others, answer questions, etc.

It seems very shady though, and i wouldn't go near such a forum with a 10 foot pole.  It sure looks like the people using their service won't be telling their readers that the posters are paid which is not cool, to put it mildly.

[Mark0]

Sorry mouser, I think my poor English is to blame! I posted exactly because I was concerned by this kind of shady / pay for things. Also, I noted that this user registered on my forum just after reading a post of mine on the "your forum" section of SMF community. It posted a comment there, and then registered on the forum. I think this could be a systematic thing.

Bye!

[app103]

I understood this to be something entirely different.

This isn't companies hiring people to go post on other people's forums and talk about their products.

This is forum owners hiring people to post on their own forums to have some activity going on. To prevent a dead forum with nobody talking. To get posts that people will respond to and discuss things.

This isn't a service a forum like this one would use. We don't have a lack of members willing to make quality posts here.

But there are forums that are dead and the owners desperate for something going on to get people motivated to join in and discuss things...with the hopes that the forum will take off and they can replace their professional posters with real ones, eventually. That's who this service is for.

And people that want to make money for making quality posts....something we do here for free.

This is more of a 'pay for content' thing.

Personally, I couldn't do this...not as a forum owner or a poster.

It's stops being fun when it becomes work...and very few forums can hold my attention long enough to get more than 10 posts out of me.

And if I had a forum that was that dead (and I do have a few) I would close it before I ever wasted money hiring a few people to talk to me...or to each other.

[mouser]

yep you have it right app.

this is almost certainly ONLY used by people whose motivation is to generate content to generate advertising money.

people who want an active useful community wouldn't use such a service.  people who have researched what topics bring the best ad money and search engine optimization tricks would use this to bring in traffic to get high paying ad clicks.  it's kind of sad what advertising is doing to the web..

having said that, i can imagine some cases where a forum might benefit from having some knowledgable people who were paid to help out around the forum.  you could imagine tech help forums like that.  i have nothing against sites that make money paying people whose job it is to help out around the forum.  but one would have to be very up front about that if you wanted to do that, and it really could put a sour mood across the forum and make the entire thing into a mercenary operation - who is going to want to be the sucker helping people and not getting paid for their posts.. just seems shady and seedy and not conducive to a good forum.  but then again if your goal is to just build stuff that google will send people to so that you get clicks on your ads, you really dont care do you..

[Lashiec]

So, mouser, how much are you going to pay me for posting about DonationCoder in other forums?

Or to post in DonationCoder. As long as you pay me good money I'll do it

[mouser]

all i can say is, if people were getting paid for posts, carol haynes and I would be rich and retired and living in maui sipping margaritas on the beach:

[app103]

whoa! I am in the top 10? 

[mouser]

it might be worth reminding people that here we expect members to donate to each other when they appreciate someone's useful posts.

you can donate as little as 1 penny to someone, and there is no transaction cost, so please be generous with your donation credits and if you see someone posting stuff you like or helping you or helping others, or making you laugh, etc., send them a few credits to say thanks. 

[JavaJones]

I'm surprised I'm in the top 10. Eek.

- Oshyan