Bitcoin Forum

Part of what I like to do on this forum is to report spam and off-topic posts, but I have not been reporting topics that contains referral link.

Does referral link violate one of the forum rules?



I noticed that if some people bring legit site on this forum with their referral link, some people do point to number 4 of the Bitcointalk forum rules.

But what the referral link is only on the OP's topic and not elsewhere? I mean if not spamming with it.

It's allowed to put referral link on OP if the topic isn't a spam and if it contains a some good information like a long detail thread. BTCGOSU topic can be an example in that case.
There's a statement from theymos on this if I can remember correctly, I can't find it right now.

Sometimes these rules are bit confusing although from what Little mouse said, if the link doesn't contain anything meaningful then such ref link and the post can be likely be reported as spam. For instance ref link like airdrops that we know doesn't have any meaningful content can be found violating the rules as they said No. 4.

For this, if is not obviously that such person interest is to promote their ref link on the Op or thread. Let say, there are some other meaningful information op is trying to convey and we know that the efforts of his or her post is not channeled and centered on their ref link then we can say such topic or post isn't a spam neither are they promoting ref link  otherwise may come from a trusted member imo.
I think mprep and other admin are in a good position to answer this questions since they are the people who implemented those law.

I have reported many topics containing referral links and if I remember correctly, they all were deleted by moderators.
The general rule is that posting referral links is forbidden. In very rare cases, a topic containing referral link may be tolerated and it all depends on moderators decisions.

I think the old topic created by 1miau should be helpful.
Bitcointalk and reflinks: don't produce refspam, please (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5172343)

It's fine, however if you think the thread doesn't add anything or not useful, you can report the thread and let's see what the moderator will do with your report. Most of the time, your report would stay in unhandled since it's soft-bad. Even your report marked in bad by the moderator, remember we don't need to worry about it.

Yep, this was his post.

OP also used the same rule in his post, the one was used by your mentioned topic's OP. Means to say 1miau used the same rule to explain that Referrals came into spam category. And here in this topic OP asked about that rules. So, it indicates that, referral links are spams, and i recently like today, one of the topic in which i had posted. Was deleted due to the same referral link.

The op of that post somehow input the referral code into the post but when we see it in the text editor it only shows there. It did'nt showed otherwise. The post was deleted. Now the query is, useful referrals links are also spam or not?

My view here is no, because i have seen many service providers using other platform's to teach someone something and in the link section to the same platform they add their own referral link. At least these are not in the rules of Local boards. Because in local boards people are sharing referral links of airdrops etc.

It's not true. You don't have to say what you don't know. I will not speak for all local boards, I will speak for the Russian local board. The Russian local board has rules for referral links. There is even a whole thread to discuss this issue.

And the moderators of the Russian board xandry and Xal0lex strictly follow it. Thanks to them referral links are practically nonexistent. In the thread about forum rules there is an extensive explanation about referral links and there is even a local rule, according to which only "official (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=994018.0) representatives of services, including ambassadors (you must be able to prove it at the request of a moderator)" are allowed to post referral links.

Correct since it’s not spamming. I believe it’s acceptable to post referral code here that is part of your service offered in the forum.

The rules of spamming referral link was introduced when ponzi scheme is very popular on Bitcoin that makes many user spam referral code on random thread that is not related to the topic. But posting a referral code for your own service in the service ANN will probably accepted by theymos.

Afaik, referral rule is tolerable if you're the exclusive referrer, it could be because you're an authorized (provable) representative or you personally don't benefit from the referral. It doesn't always have to be posted in the OP.
In the past I came across some referral invites issued by only one user being allowed because the company/service runs an event, regular users of the service can't generate the refcode associated with the event.

If the user is spamming the referral links being the exclusive referrer will not make the situation more tolerable. The manner of approach of the user is the most important factor when considering if a referral constitutes a spam.

Those likely got posted in their signatures or slipped into posts inconspicuously.

- Jay -

That's natural where spamming the referral link won't make the situation tolerable from the rules and will most likely get deleted by mods. From the word spamming means that no matter how it brings meaningful content but when it is spammed then it will get deleted all of it or only one remain like it will served as the main thread for the site that a forum member is promoting. Many people doesn't like spam and no matter what it is as long as someone is spamming then that post will be deleted.

I don't know, but all posts i report regarding referral code/links got approved and posts got deleted. I just don't report those gambling ANN threads with their referral links and of course signature campaigns as well.

It doesn't really matter. Referral links are forbidden in posts and threads. There are only a few exceptions of this rule and it's been mentioned in previous posts.

If you report posts that contain referral links they will be handled pretty fast.

You can use referral links in your signature.

I was tired and unable to read that useful long posts that you provided its link. I do not think that I should go through the post after seeing the plain clarification from one of the forum staff that confirmed that what you posted is absolutely correct.

This clarifies it to me distinctly. I think I will start to have more posts that I would be reporting starting from now.

To avoid spamming and irrelevant posts, I will lock this thread.