Anyone else getting these links on the forum?

Telescopi said:
TBH the gaming crowd have always been special - Spie deleted the forum once because he felt they were ungrateful ;)

Different day, same old **** :p
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Self-entitlement from PC games forum? I'm shocked. :o

:p

StriderX said:
For the love of sanity, would people please stop saying the word entitlement, every time it is uttered, it kills society. :(
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:p
 
Neil79 said:
Could always like disable it in my posts then even when it's OFF


Anyhoo going for dinner, take some time out and after enjoy the sun :cool:
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Sounds like a plan, enjoy the sun and life sounds more interesting rather than debating over something so minor. - Might grab a beer too!
 
5UB said:
Sounds like a plan, enjoy the sun and life sounds more interesting rather than debating over something so minor. - Might grab a beer too!
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Agreed!

Maybe this **** summer isn't helping :mad:

I am totaly against this move and very vocal, if i hear noise i'm straight down the council e.t.c i very rarely back down. However i've always respected those that have respected me, just every so often i'll get the pitchfork out if there is something i don't hugely agree with. Nothing to do with toys and pram, i'm just an angry protestor joining the latest march :)
 
Telescopi said:
Not sure I follow what you mean.

Honestly I'd have no problem turning it off for anything but the hw subforums and for all registered members. As several have said it's sole intention is to catch random google searchers who've landed here looking for opinions on some product or other and don't even know what an ocuk is never mind if it sells what they were looking for.

But tbh, petty as it is, Neil's ****ed me off, so I'm not feeling like it. Maybe one of the Germans he hates so much will tell me to more reasonable on Monday :p

Additionally, and this is something I cannot agree with, he and a few others seem to think it's their legal right to tell OcUK as the publisher what it can do with their posts which is frankly not a discussion I want to enter in to nor a precedent I want to set. As they say, your people can speak to my people.
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I'm not sure on the details of the backend but I assume you can check in the code building the page if someone browsing the forum from an external referrer rather than someone whos visited the forums directly, just thinking from a business perspective you could use that to increase the shop exposure further to people who aren't OcUK regulars.

EDIT: As I said I've not actually checked if your already doing that or not.
 
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I don't know much about search engine rankings, but isn't things like tons of links on a website linking back to themselves bad for rankings? Just like those sites that spam keywords?
 
StriderX said:
Is that why he deleted the gardening forum? :eek:
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I kept out of that (my natural instinct when I see a **** storm brewing is to head in the other direction) but I think thundy created it as a joke then deleted it. Seems weird as it's not exactly a whacky idea and was quite popular.

I still agree with Spie's attitude to such things though, splitting up forums too much creates lots of little islands without much posting. The reason GD is so great is you get so many replies so quickly and you'd lose that with lots of smaller special interest forums.

Cuisine for example works quite well, but if I want something specific I'd still post in GD because you just won't get the answer in cuisine.
 
Dist said:
I don't know much about search engine rankings, but isn't things like tons of links on a website linking back to themselves bad for rankings? Just like those sites that spam keywords?
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I don't think Google or search engines add 'importance' ranks for that anyway.

Plus it's not being done for that specific purpose and I haven't checked it but if the code is via the webpage and not generated from the server I think search engines will see it just like we do when it's disabled.
 
Rroff said:
I'm not sure on the details of the backend but I assume you can check in the code building the page if someone browsing the forum from an external referrer rather than someone whos visited the forums directly, just thinking from a business perspective you could use that to increase the shop exposure further to people who aren't OcUK regulars.

EDIT: As I said I've not actually checked if your already doing that or not.
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Ahh I understand now, yeh that's possible I'm sure, I don't understand much of vbulletin's internal gubbins but the plugin exposes the php that parses the posts which can easily be changed.
 
Telescopi said:
Cuisine for example works quite well, but if I want something specific I'd still post in GD because you just won't get the answer in cuisine.
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Telescopi i've had a long discussion with 5UB nearly a falling out!, but we are ok and cool now.

I'm still very much against this move and i have my reasons as he did for the move, yes i could've been more diplomatic but as i said to him i truelly believe going nicey nicey would've not have changed anything. As he himself said it's unlikely to change, it got me angry others don't see why but anything to do with taking over my own words without my consent would anger any normal person if it was a government situation.

I don't wish to fall out with you or ocuk or it's members however my reasons are my own, it just felt like someone saying sod you, you mean nothing to us. Do i class myself as important?, well what i do for ocuk isn't a 5min job that database didn't take 2secs to do nor at the time did the skyrim mod database. I do it because i enjoy this place and the members, i want to bring people here, to have fun and get together.

Yes it was just one word, but it was done without my knowing yet it could get worse with more words becoming adverts...I could disable it, but others joining would just see my posts as spam links. Nobody asked me and the attitude tough your just gonna take it well kinda hit home and i wanted to leave. Why stay when i've done so much had so many friends when i'm treated as just a pleb.

Anyway have a good sunday my final say
 
Housey said:
I'm annoyed at Neil that he has sun and I don't, TURN IT ON OCUK YOU BENDERS, WHERE IS MY SUN!!!!!!
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I've got rain and thunder and I've got to do an outdoors job in a bit,
I wouldn't mind if it was windy, I bought a kite but there has been no wind all week :(

*first world problems*
 
Telescopi said:
Go on then, what regulations?
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Most obvious ones that spring to mind:

By default authors of posts own the copyright on their own creations as per automatic right of the creator of the work, unless forum posting terms and conditions stipulate implied handover of publication and copyrights at the point of posting. The terms and conditions of OCUK Forums state:
"All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Overclockers UK Forums, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message"
meaning that the forum owners effectively forfeit their right to content at the point of publishing, so technically the creator of the post is still both the copyright owner and legally responsible for their content. Which means you will need to seek posters permission to employ their copyrighted content into any commercial campaign you want to run.

Additionally Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications 2002/Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 might require you to run this campaign via opt in, not opt out. You will probably have a wiggle out there, as it doesn't specifically name "internet forums" and I can't be asked to read through all the new additions to see if terms were expended enough beyond electronic mail etc.

I think common sense has to prevail here. Considering how many manufacturer reps and support staff you have visiting and posting on this forum, do you think it's ok to make their posts, retrospectively, look like they are advertising other brands at mercy of whatever your campaign is pointing to at the time?

Telescopi said:
But tbh, petty as it is, Neil's ****ed me off, so I'm not feeling like it.
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You disapprove of Neil's method then you join him on the same perch? Be the bigger man, show some flexibility, talk to us Scopi?

Additionally, and this is something I cannot agree with, he and a few others seem to think it's their legal right to tell OcUK as the publisher what it can do with their posts which is frankly not a discussion I want to enter in to nor a precedent I want to set. As they say, your people can speak to my people.
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There is a reason why all keyword advertising, all the way from pesky intelliTXT times to todays stuff ultimately failed. One doesn't have to enter this area at all. There are so many alternative options that do not involve altering private views/posts etc. You could, just one random example, employ automatic poster script adding customized posts with proper links and pictures to products on every page of every thread in technical forums and no one would bat an eyelid. No complications, no legal questions, not affected by anti-spam browser plugins, no browser compatibility issues etc.
 
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v0n said:
Most obvious ones that spring to mind:
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The creator has the copyright, no question, but you seem to be assuming all rights then sit with the creator and none with the publisher. By posting you are implicitly giving OcUK limited rights as the publisher and I rather suspect advertising is accepted as one of those rights.

I've not read all of pecr and don't intend to on a Sunday but I've not seen any discussion of it previously which would cover this.

You could, just one random example, employ automatic poster script adding customized posts with proper links and pictures to products on every page of every thread in technical forums and no one would bat an eyelid.
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I hate those generated 2nd posts adverts, they may resolve a certain ideological opposition but they are in no way less obtrusive.
 
orderoftheflame said:
OcUK pay for the forums and want to advertise on them, the don't need your concent or permission. They've given people the option to disable it if they want to, and people are threatening and demanding it removed or a compromise? :confused: People are just arguing for arguments sake here as usual.
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They do pay for them, but I suspect that the forums pay for themselves and more from all the 'spec me' threads in the hardware sections. Ads like this make the forum look lower quality. If I end up on a forum or website with advertising like this I generally leave. I can't see why possible new customers is more important than caring about your loyal members. Turning it off completely for members would be step in the right direction.

Maybe we will have a banner advert after the first post and some kind of javascript splash page selling us the new graphics cards, but it's fine because we can disable it in options?
 
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