To quote one FW's rules "Self-promotion and referral links are not allowed. If you would like to advertise on FatWallet, please contact advertise@fatwallet.com".

Another quote, "Do not post promotional information for a commercial website which you are an affiliate, employee, owner or otherwise receive financial benefit from".

I really don't know why FW is bending the rules for this poster. When other referral programs are posted or when posts benefit someone they are IMMEDIATELLY DELETED altogether. Either referral programs are allowed or they are not, unless FW is going to bend the rules for everyone. Also thought "Advertisements" were not allowed either.

I used to be in favor of banning referral links too, but now complaints about those things are silly IMO, FW is itself posting advertising, collecting referral $ through cashback, and even transforming the words we type into links (anyone else sick of the word Gap being linkified & capitalized every time they type it?) so they have pretty much surrendered the high ground on that issue. If they would've let you keep them, you should've. The only "Gap" between what you had & what FW is doing, IMO, is that you were splitting the spoils with the person you were trying to get to click your links, and were taking referral $s that the clicker would not have been able to get anyway. In FW case, in many cases where a clicker uses their links, they could have gotten a cut of the cash FW gets if they had clicked a link at Ebates or netflip -- or even FW's own cash back mall. Note that if you are already a cash back mall participant, and click a link in a FW thread to buy something, there is no technical reason that FW could not give you a cut of their referral profit just as if you had gone through the cashback mall. They simply have chosen to implement it so that you have to explicitly show through your actions that you expect to get a cut of the referral, before they will give it to you.

ilovenoelle said:Whats the big deal? It hasn't hurt anybody so why don't we just leave it alone.I don't know why we don't. That's a very good question.If the mods thought there was a problem they would have already deleted the post.They did.

Well, removed the referral links anyway.

Thank you for the reply Tim. I hadn't thought of the "CS nightmare." I also hadn't realized that you do credit from forum links. But if some merchants don't let you use affiliate links within forums, why then the auto-genned links? I guessed I just assumed that you at least were profitting from them. They're kind of ... distracting, IMO they make it a little harder to pick out the links I really want (i.e. those created by the OP straight to the deal), those kind of links don't stand out as much anymore. Not a big deal, mind you, but if you're not benefitting from them, and (most) readers aren't, I wonder if anyone really is? Just a thought.

stateofmind, I think your Daddy ought to take you out behind the woodshed and beat your butt into a bloody mess!!!!
markber has taken the time to publish an excellent thread that beneifts the entire FW community. Anyone that knows about referrals would still gladly give him any credit for finding such good deals.

I vote that markber be allowed to publish the direct links to those sites. It would benefit ALL of us; and yes, markber as well. He deserves it.

stateofmind has 11 posts in total. Looks like he came to FW just to stir up trouble!!!