It’s not on this site but I spend a lot of time on this PLC site where there are frequently questions about products from Red Lion Controls. The posters either have or are looking to use Red Lion’s products (among many others). It’s not uncommon at all to see a response such as this from their product manager. The company president and several techs are always around helping people. IMO, that is the way to shill your product on a message board. They aren’t constantly pimping their products but they’re offering advice and supporting their customers. Personally, I wouldn’t mind at all if someone supported their product in that manner over here.
This does happen here from time to time, but it’s not that common, and it’s normally very easy to spot. For one thing, these people usually post the same thing to a bunch of different sites, and often you’ll find a link to their amazing product.
Very few of these people last more than one post here. Dopers know their stuff and they’re quick to hit the report button on spam. You don’t have to be suspicious of a run of the mill thread in IMHO or Cafe Society.
Ummm. . .sure they are easy to spot, but you are assuming that the heavy handed obvious attempts are all that is out there. A company with a decent advertising budget and a handful of interns who can devote 8 hours a day to surfing though?
I just find it absurdly ironic and perhaps a bit funny, in retrospect, to shill fruitcake as a workout powerbar.
CLAX SNAX TO THE MAX… It’s got Electrolytes!
If I “shill”, I really am doing it earnestly and without compensation.
… as I sit munching away at my lifetime supply of claxton fruitcake.
See, this makes me nervous, because I don’t have a big posting history (maybe 500ish or so) but I DO love a good product thread. I’m always interested in what works better than what I’ve currently got, and I always look to dopers rather than regular online ratings because I know a lot of people here take their shit SERIOUSLY.
Just a few weeks ago, I started a thread about microfiber towels. One poster told me before he bought a full set of shower towels, he bought hand towels of each brand he’d researched, and he’d , washed, dried, and used them multiple times before choosing one brand that he liked. You just don’t GET that kind of dedication anywhere else.
Oh well. Time to sip an icy cold diet Dr. Pepper.
I think it’s a bit funny that people are suspecting shills. While the biggest shill on this board is right in front of you, it’s Cecil with his google ads partnership, and various other product hawking. This entire board is one big shill for something or other if you don’t pay to post.
I don’t need Viagra, but some of you boys might, which is why I mention it often.
There’s a huge difference between advertising and being a shills. Advertising is up-front and honest about the fact that it is done on the behalf of whatever company is being advertised. A paid shill lies, either directly or by omission, to create the impression that they are giving the honest opinion of an unbiased third-party about the product. It’s the deception that makes the big difference.
Advertising, whether it’s Cecil doing it or someone paying to advertise on this board, helps pay to keep the board running. Shills come in, praise their product…and don’t contribute to the upkeep of the board.
I believe it was last week that I caught a WoW leveller/gold spammer. He apparently was going to make a new thread in each forum, and I managed to ban him before he was able to make more than three. Since I was bored, I went to the website he was spamming…and contacted their customer service. I told them who was spamming us, his email, and his IP. I also told them that this message board is monitored pretty much around the clock, so that even if it gets spammed in the middle of the night, someone will notice, and more than likely we will remove the spam within about 10 minutes of first post. I also told the customer service person that we offer low, low prices on our advertising. Hey, they MIGHT buy some. I doubt it, but they might. I just wanted to impress upon them that we do monitor the boards at all times and our posters are vigilant about notifying us, just in case they think they should hit us again.
For a while, I suspected that half of the members here were shills for Bacon Salt.
I used to live with a guy that was into the whole amsoil thing, I always liked the idea of the reusable foam air filters… remove the foam, wash it, reoil it and reinstall it. I was in Virginia Beach at the time, and believe me, I went through air filters like candy with the salty sandy crap being sucked into my poor car at the time.
Yanno what’s good with a snack you’ve flavored with Bacon Salt? Dr Pepper.
Have you tried the new Dr. Pepper with bacon yet?
The next logical step would be Dr. Pepper Salt.
May I recommend the fine snax from these people? The Fertnel Company.
http://www.fertnel.com/
Bacon salt with those fine Meat Nickels and an icy cold Dr Pepper! At 10 and 2–the pause that refreshes!*
Years ago on (decades, now 
) a usenet tv group (unmoderated ngs were the height of evilosity) I was SHOUTED at and bitterly accused of being a network shill b/c I didn’t mind the bug at the corner of the screen. At the time I had a 13 inch tv screen. It made it easier for me to tell what channel I was flipping to.
It still does. (Slightly larger tv, though.)
BrassyPhrase, network shill for decades.
I still loves me some of that Dr Pepper though!
*I’ve been to the museum in Waco!
That loud whooshing sound is getting annoying.
What’s the Dr. Pepper thing about?
Might have something to do with this post.
Really? When I saw that I assumed it was continuing a meme of some sort.
No meme, that I’m aware of. I just love Dr Pepper and have mentioned as such several times. Including the two soft drink polls I started a while back.
Back in my day, we had to make our OWN Dr. Pepper Salt. We’d open up a bottle of DP, take a swig, and pour some salted redskin peanuts into the bottle. ::sucking gums:: Kids these days!
And we actually did this. Some people used a cola of some sort (usually Royal Crown), but most of the kids that I knew used Dr. Pepper.