Should people be allowed to promote their sites and products on TTI?

[Mop]

What rules should be applied to promoting products and web sites on TTI?

Should it be allowed at all?

If it's allowed, what limits should be imposed? Time limits?

Should a specific forum be designated for marketing?

 

[Einstein]

I don't think it should be a free lunch ticket. If someone wants to promote their product, I feel they should be willing to pay an advertising fee.

Also I think the content of what is advertised should be related to what this site is about. Namely time travel.

And yes, a specific forum for this is a good idea.

Also the threat of nuclear annihilation for abusers, would be a good idea too. Perhaps set up a hotlink to Obama's football for use by moderators only. Will probably need the services of a hacker for that. I'm sure there will be plenty of volunteers.

 

[Mop]

I feel there are legitimate reasons for posting links and other time travel related materials on the site. But too much of it would certainly overwhelm the site and be unseemly. It needs to be policed.

I have no desire to build a payment system and it wouldn't be used, anyway.

My thoughts are:

- A specific forum: Promoted Materials
- A cap: You cannot promote the same item or collection of items more than once in a 6 month period
- An out/flexibility: TTI reserves the right to strike posts at it's discretion.

 

[Skarpz]

I think promoting a book or a movie relating to time travel or what is on this forum should be fine in its own section. If it is anything else it should have a fee. No caps or shirts to be promoted those should be fee based. If it does not belong to any topic here then it should be spam.

 

[Mop]

I've added "Promotional Postings" to the Time Travel section. We'll see how this works. If it's successful and not abused, I'll add it to the other sections.

 

[KerrTexas]

I believe that as long as the material is within the scope of Time Travel, then yeah, we should allow them to post.

I don't necessarily think that mugs, T-Shirts and the like should be allowed to be promoted.

However, it seems to me that published authors writing on the subject of Time Travel should be allowed to post.

Being a fan of time travel am always on the lookout for new books to read regarding Time Travel. Having the authors themselves posting here makes looking for new books to read all the easier.

There are numerous brilliant Sci-Fi authors out there. It seems to me that it would be awesome to have published Sci-Fi authors posting on TTI and we should encourage the authors that do promote their books on the TTI site to participate in the Time Travel discussions.

 

[Darby]

What rules should be applied to promoting products and web sites on TTI?

Should it be allowed at all?

If it's allowed, what limits should be imposed? Time limits?

Should a specific forum be designated for marketing?

MOP,

This is not a democracy. You're paying the bills, it is your site and you make the rules regarding TOS. What the "democracy" might want has no bearing on your ability to pay the bills and keep the site running.

This is your call, not ours.

That being said:

Open the forum up to free advertising and you get thanked by getting the shit spammed out of the site. We've already seen it. That does affect me because it opens my system up to malware attack that slips in through this site.

If it was my site and I was paying the bills: let them all pay. If they want to run a business then they need to run a business. As a business they know that advertising isn't free and you are not in charge of the welfare state. Why should you pay their expenses when you will derive no benefit from it?

Make'em pay - all of them. It allows you to pay the bills and reduces the chance of spam and malware slipping through.

 

[201ajgrant]

Perhaps just a small amount of pushing their products should be allowed. If a mod or admin seems to find it occurring too much, then banning/deleting should be the norm. I think that - on the whole - we posters can police such postings anyway ... usually by turning troll on them I guess.

 

[PaulaJedi]

Products and free information are two different things. I see nothing wrong with sigs, personally.

 

[titorite]

I would say:

Keep this all as simple as you can mop.

You have done great over the years keeping this place here, simple, uncluttered, and unencumbered.

Simplicity is sexy.