Out of curiosity, what do people think about the use of affiliate links in this forum?

I've been noticing that they are turning up more and more, and as some people have mentioned they do lead to questions about the intent of the person posting them. While I'm not convinced that anybody has been talking up DreamHost in order to get referral payments, I definitely prefer to see people giving their honest opinions without even the false impression that there is astroturfing going on. A lot of these links aren't very clearly labeled as affiliate links, if at all.

Aside from that, if a person has found the DreamHost forum on their own, if they sign up via a referral link in the forum they weren't really "referred" to DreamHost by that link anyhow, as they already knew about us by that point. Odds are also pretty good that they were even already referred (truly referred) by someone else, and that the referral cookie is being overwritten.

So, I'm thinking of proposing a new rule banning the use of referral links of any kind, either for DH or other services (web hosting or otherwise).

Anyone else have thoughts about this? I've noticed (and received, privately) more than a few grumblings about this lately, but I'm sure there are those who have unexpressed opinions one way or the other...

- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin