The one in Russian? I reported it too with identical results. The Mods are hot.
Hmm…
I’ve recommended, on separate occasions, a book (written by a Doper) and some music (not written by a Doper), only to have the people in question appear to discuss the items in question.
In the latter case, the guy caught the recommendation on a Google search of his name, and signed up to say thanks and provide a link to his official site. Is that shilling (him posting a link, not my initial recommendation), or is that legitimate provision of information (since the initial mention wasn’t a shill and I have no connection or financial interest to the items for sale)?
Sure, it’s different, but it’s also kinda the same - shilling and spamming comprise a number of quite broad and overlapping categories, often perpetrated by the same community of folks.
There are message boards and communities that exist for the sole purpose of contracting their freelance members to post favourable reviews, casually recommend products, mention specific blogs, post links (explicitly as part of the conversation, or just in their sig), ask innocent-sounding leading questions, or respond to them with helpful, scripted answers…
- I know this because I kept getting invited to join such communities by folks on Metacafe, back when you could earn serious money in their (now defunct) Producer Rewards scheme, if you could generate the right volume of traffic.
It’s funny; two of the best purchases I’ve ever made have been a [del]Sirius[/del] satellite radio and a [del]Keurig[/del] single-cup coffee maker. I’ve extolled the virtues of both in various posts.
I guess the fact that I’m a Charter Member with 5000+ posts shields me from accusations of shilling.
I have used brand names to describe how to do something because experience taught me that the generic stuff didn’t work for the specific purpose.
That’s different from always talking up the name brand I sales rep for.
And. of course, spammers are Denebian Slime Devils.
Speaking as a Cafe Society mod – I’m totally okay with your activities here. Dopers love books, movies, music, games, etc., and we rely on each other for recommendations on all of the above. Like most of you, I wouldn’t be able to count the number of great books, movies, albums, etc. I’ve discovered through SDMB recommendations. (It’s definitely the most common “note” on items on my Amazon wishlist.)
As far as the latter was concerned – I’d have to see the specific post, but I wouldn’t automatically ban the person, lock the thread, or break the link.
I’ve seen this several times. In each case a Mod has advised them in the thread of the rules about advertising.
I haven’t seen any here so much, but I did enjoy seeing their pathetic antics on another board:
The setup: I got a snail mail pitch that was almost 6 pages long, single spaced, typed about the wonders of this product or group, or something. It was that vague. It talked about how great the product was and how wonderful it was for me to be chosen to join int the group. The thing was laughable, with continuity errors such as the pitchman writing the letter not being able to remember what his first name was.
Curious, I took some of the info on the letter and googled and found a scambuster site with a loooong thread on the letter. I read some of it, wondering why it was so long.
At first the thread was just a ‘hey I got this -whose scam is it’. Turns out it was Kevin Trudeu’s handywork and this was point out after a few ‘i got it too’ responses and some other clues. The thread died for several months.
Then the shills came in and ressurected it, talking about how great the whole program was and that they should all join in! The hammering by the regulars came in pretty fast and hard - I suspect they get used to shills around a scambuster place. Soon another shill came in and the posts were either poor deflections or bad ‘hey, shill #2, ain’t this thing great?!!’. The hammering went on for pages so I skipped much of it.
What I was amused by was how bad these shills were - they could never give anything like a straight answer. They couldn’t even describe what the product or service involved. I would pity them except for the fact that they are scummy scamming shill artists.
In this thread I recommend some songs in post #33; the artist pops in at #46 with a link (which is inadvertently broken anyway).
Just trying to follow the rules…
I don’t know if you’ve ever really considered the advantages of owning a fine set of encyclopedias…
To me, there’s a difference between starting a thread saying “Product X is the greatest! You should all try it! Here’s a link”
and a thread started by another poster complaining or complimenting a product or service and the corporation, in whatever form, responding. I honestly don’t see a problem with the second. Someone starts a discussion and the company wishes to participate in either defending it or listening to the complaint and making it better.
My gf is in advertising. Message boards are the “new thing” that they have been exploring the past few years. She has described meetings where they actually “build” a persona that will mention a product. Compared to what she tells me about, the product shills being discussed here are extremely simple/crude.
Now, I think I’ll sit back and enjoy an icy cold Dr Pepper. On second thought, after all the holiday calories, make that a diet Dr Pepper!
There was a recent thread about ginger beer in Cafe Society, and some UK dopers recommended a UK brand. A US poster bemoaned the lack of availablity in his area and, via the wonders of Google Alerts, someone from the company turned up and gave details of US distribution providing links (note that the links were broken by the poster, so not even trying for SEO link spam). I can’t really see anything wrong with this.
Delicious Fentimans, mmmm. Waves at Fentimans marketing person
send me some send me some send me some send me some send me some
I’ve been tempted to know what Doper’s think of the company I work for (most of you have seen our stores) but I haven’t for two reasons: 1)I don’t want to break the advertising rule, and B)I’m a little scared to find out.
So I drink my Dr Pepper in silence.
Make all the Dr Pepper jokes you want – I personally drink nothing else. takes long, refreshing gulp
Yeah, I saw that at the time and let it go, it just didn’t seem like a big deal to me.
Past a point of time investment, it becomes pretty difficult to discern between a shill and a genuine fan. Fortunately, most people simply don’t spend the time to build up a persona like that on a general interest message board. An interest-specific board (like a video game forum)? Maybe – it’s easier to slip under the radar, too. But the risks of being caught and exposed are also significant.
Most shills are very obvious. I do some moderation work at another community where you have to get approved before posts are public, and most shills go straight to posting in every thread about their company, saying how great it is, with no posts on anything else. Or, they’ll keep linking to the same Blogger blog in lots of different threads, with “This guy has a really interesting perspective!” type comments in every one.
There are a lot of sites out there so sophisticated shills are pretty uncommon – it requires time and effort to build up post counts, and for a site of this size, I imagine the payoff is pretty poor.
REPORTED!
Oh wait…
What company is it? I’ll be gentle.
That’s fine. But it’s irritating when Joe Q CEO shows up and says, "hey, I’m just a concerned citizen who thinks you *should *use Tucks Medicated Pads[sup]TM[/sup]. "
If you’re going to shill, like the Gamefly guy did, at least be honest about it. Take your proper lumps by proxy if you’re trying to sell shit on behalf of your company.