Grrrrrrr!
I stop watching for a bit and come to see this.
Lou, we will speak in London. I hardly think that the community wants to see you leave.
The message board is your baby, and mine too.
The concept we started is as valid today as it was almost a decade ago. CAP has served many, many affiliates as contact point for meeting each other and the affiliate programs.
I wouldn’t volunteer for something for years on end if I didn’t see it as a worthwhile endeavor.
We have intervened over the years and we got dozens of payment issues solved, we stood strong together when programs breached contracts, and that happened quite a few times over the last few years. We got all of these terms reversed, every single one.
Perhaps a lot of affiliates are not even aware what an inpact this made on the industry, and how many dodgy programs have fallen by the wayside because the CAP community has stood strong together.
In a totally unregulated industry, affiliates don’t have a leg to stand on. We have no rights, we cannot sue, we have no one looking out for us.
All that changed a lot since we at CAP members banded together. Together we have stood strong and established basic guidelines for programs and enjoyed an environment that is as ethical as an unregulated industry can be.
So many new affiliates come into this industry thinking they have the same rights as they do in thier off-line jobs. We do not. We have no rights. Without forming a community that stands together and enforces some basic rules, we would get screwed to hell and back.
I have always loved this line of work, and I have loved the community of enterprising, inventive, outspoken and smart individuals this business seems to attract.
I have always sought to create and preserve a decent, fair and professional environment for us all to work in, and it has become my mission. No, it’s not all altruistic at all, it ensures that I can work in an industry I can respect and trust, just like everyone of you. I don’t mind going the extra mile to achieve this.
CAP, to me, is not a business, I am strictly volunteering. To me, it is a community of affiliates and affiliate programs trying to make working in this industry free of fraud and theft and find a secure working environment in this lawless niche.
Affiliates made the message board what it is today, and affiliates can break it. It’s all about affiliates, and if anyone thinks that is not so, they are sadly mistaken.
I don’t know much about PAP and what transpired there, it sure looks like some people who have no feeling for message boards engaged in some heavy handed tactics to control activity – that doesn’t work and shouldn’t work in a free community. Gaming affiliates are much too individualistic and smart to stand for such tactics. Big mistakes were made there, but not by me or Lou or the community. And they won’t happen under my watch.
I’ll also say there has been an issue with transparency of CAP’s parent company’s activities, I guess this is for legal reasons.
The parent company provides the platform for us to communicate and solve issues, they are paid for that service and I don’t think that is wrong. They have provided many useful services above and beyond a mere messageboard, and I think we all appreciate that. Without them working with us, we would not have had the influence or organization to achieve the many improvements to affiliate life we did achieve over the years.
But the parent company is not the community, we are. If they created some issues, it is not our fault nor should it impact our business, interactions or the community we have built here.
Since I am not involved in the poker community I don’t know for sure, but from what I hear, the payment issues from card spike are resolved. Whether the parent company of CAP consults programs or not is between that company and the programs. I don’t see it as an affiliate issue, I see it as an operator issue and they will have to figure that out for themselves.
I suggest we concentrate on affiliate issues, make sure that card spike affiliates are really all paid and continue to watch out for each other.
I am saddened by all of this, and I very much hope this can be resolved asap and we can get back to the business of affiliate marketing and keeping things fair for ourselves. :hattip: