- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I am sorry, but I am strongly against this practice.
Very emphatically so!
In a public post others can weigh in and tell their experiences. All experiences are subjective. Some people make great money with programs others don’t.
If you, as a senior and experienced person, intervene privately and warn novices off programs that you have not done well with fior whatever reason, you are doing potential great damage to a program and an affiliate who may be able to make good money with them.
Just because you and/or some others do not make money with some place, does not mean others won’t.
I would like to strongly warn novices off placing too much credence to any one person’s experience, especially when told privately. It doesn’t prove anything.
There are some first class programs I don’t make a penny with. It means nothing at all.
If you can’t say it publicly, please don’t say it at all. Flaming in private without proof that all other affiliates agree with you is just as bad – as a matter of fact it could be construed as criminal, as in character assasination, slander and libel.
Please do not do this. Your opinion is not necessarily everyone’s reality.
well Dom that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it.
Personally as I have posted; I want to know. I value the experience of seasoned vets in this business and very much would appreciate their input.
However I also happen to know that Lou would not appreciate my entering a certain programs thread everytime I saw someone post to tell them that I think the program stinks.
That said; I as stated PERSONALLY would appreciate anyone’s feedback and that I PERSONALLY (as stated) WANT to know this sort of thing.
as far as it being criminal; that’s BS. everyone is entitled to their own opinion. as long as its stated that way; and not in a manor where I say that I have PROOF of anything; then I am entitled to that opinion and entitled to say it to whoever I want.
and again I point out that this is the reason I made this thread; because I want people to know that I DO want to know these things; and don’t want them to hold back in my case.
This really is a sore spot for me Dom because I have made the mistake of falling into these pitfalls far too many times when later after I got to talking to people; found out that the program should never have been even considered; but I didn’t know any better.
And though you don’t know it from personal experience; because I’ve never wrote you about such a subject; you can bet I don’t just write somebody and say; “hey this program stinks; take my word for it”.
I send a copy of my stats; and I merely state that they should “be careful with this program because…” and then I offer my stats or something similar as to the reason for saying it in the first place.
Shit Dom not only could I; but there are many webmasters in here who could offer up stats that are appalling about a program; and I could do it every time somebody makes a post about that program; but I don’t out of respect to Lou.
That in no way lowers my contempt for the program in question.
and I’ll go toe to toe with any one of them any time I get the chance.
Steve, I can offer up dismal stats from one month or another for just about every program out there.
I can offer up consistently dismal stats for programs that the professor is making more than a living with. Krystall can offer up superb stats for a program the professor can’t make peanuts with. It is all subjective and depends on you, your type of site, your type of traffic, whether you attract novices or seasoned players (obviously you can’t sell a five year old casino to a player who played it five years ago through another aff), whether you have one time or repeat visitors and many many other factors.
To assume that your personal experience with any given program would be identical to that of any novice affiliate is not only wrong, it is harmful to that affiliate. S/he will not have the same experience you do. As a matter of fact, that is one thing I learned the hard way a few years ago – that the programs my seniors did well with were not the ones I could do well with as a beginner, since most of the established players had already signed through these very senior affiliates and I would get diddly for sending them back to that program. The senior would get the benefit of my foolishness.
This happens to be a topic I feel strongly about – appropriate support of novices. And I have some strong opinions about it – and these are one of the reasons I sometimes don’t think kindly of another aff message board out there. And I know the porfessor shares that purpose – the appropriate support of novices. He too feels strongly about this.
Emailing them with subjective experiences to warn them off programs one personally has a beef with is not appropriate support. It may well deprive them of a decent source of income. I am very opposed to this.
The CAP community is made up of a lot of personalities. A free association where members exchange information, ideas, and some pretty good jokes!
BB1 has been one of the the most outspoken members , about casino programs, and has received a certain amount of teasing because of it.
I think his idea is a wonderful compromise.
Have you thought this through, my friend?
Do you really support sending personal, subjective experiences one person may have had with a program to novices in pms?
I think not. I think it is harmful to the novice, who may end up having a completely different clientele.
The appropriate place for such things is the private section, where other seniors can contribute. If we all have the same experience, it always makes it to the public section, where novices are alerted to the problems.
To me, that seems to be the appropriate sequence of action.
I get emails from novices all the time asking private advice. I give it to them. If I see someone doing something self-destructive with their site(s), I will sometimes volunteer advice to them
CAP members should be encouraged to privately send their experiences to anybody, novice or experienced person. Under no circumstances should anyone feel that they are doing anything even slightly wrong to keep their opinions private rather than public.
Presumably all of the members here are adults. They can choose to ignore or follow any advice they receive. Who any of us communicate with privately is our own business. I appreciate all the advice I’ve received from everyone here privately. And I can assure you that I’ve been selective about which advice I’ve followed.
And as far as being a novice goes, I’m STILL a novice, and plan to be one for the rest of my career. That’s how I keep learning.
Dom
rather than post publicly and flame the program which makes Lou uncomfortable; I wrote them privately and that was when it occurred to me that I bet a lot of other people are in the same frame of mind.they don’t say anything because they’ve already taken their turn thru the gauntlet and they have little to gain by sticking their heads up and saying something.
But they have a lot to lose. Fearing rath from not only you; but more importantly Lou.
that said however; I want to know!
thus the reason I made this post
you said it yourself, some places make money for some but not for all. That to me smells like selective shaving. Most people who have bad experience aren’t going to say something as long as they know there are those that have had luck.
I want to know both sides.
Quote:To assume that your personal experience with any given program would be identical to that of any novice affiliate is not only wrong, it is harmful to that affiliate.What? Have you lost the ability of cognative thinking?
As you guys know I too always answer private questions with my honest opinion, I am not talking about that.
I am talking about this:
I recently read a post by someone to a program which I feel strongly is basically worthless. However rather than flame them I withheld the urge; but I did instead PM the webmaster in question and told him just what I thought of the program.
That is what I disagree with. I don’t think one should contact people who are obviously happily doing business with a CAP approved program and privately unload one’s personal grudge there.
Private is private and there is no way to do anything about it anyway, nor should there be.
But I want to make the clear statement that not all programs perform the same for all, CAP doesn’t approve s#!tty programs and if someone is asking a question in a program’s forum they should be allowed to do so unfettered.
That is my opinion, and it has nothing to do with answering questions in private, which all of you know I do on a daily basis.
Ok guys this is an interesting discussion and so far its stayed on the high grounds.
Heres my two cents:
1.) CAP was created for us as affiliates to share information about the programs we work with and the industry in general. This includes both Good things (what works, site reviews, link exchanges, SEO techniques, Jokes and life experiences) and Bad things (who we believe may be shaving us, which PPCs are totally full of crap and whos wildly underperforming all the other casinos we promote). CAP is all about the EXCHANGE of information and ideas and as long as I am here it will continue to have that as its prime focus.
2.) We have no problem with controversial discussions as long as they remain business oriented and professional.
3) If you have legitimate issues with a program and data to support the claim you are encouraged to bring it foward to work towards a resolution. That’s the KEY POINT we want to focus on problem RESOLUTION and not make it a place where we just batter people for no reason other then revenge or to do damage to an individual or business.
4) In private areas we are more liberal in our discussions and I generally won’t intercede unless we get so carried away it’s no longer moving forward in a beneficial way for the participants or community.
Now with all that being said I will let you guys continue to discuss this if you wish. Just don’t get rumpled feathers or make it a personality issue. It’s an adult business discussion.
Personally I have no problem with you discussing things privately. If you have a problem with a program or want to report an issue without going public I think PMing others or emailing them with your concerns is fine and I do it myself.
I understand Dom’s concern and I agree that we shouldnt tar and feather a program, even in private, without reasonable cause. (With reasonable cause I say let em have it
)I also agree with her that its prudent to take everything you do hear with a grain of salt as some programs do perform better for one individual then another.
Have fun guys I am going out with Mrs Professor for the evening. Stay out of trouble.
CAP doesn’t approve s#!tty programs
all CAP can be expected to do is to be sure to NOT approve programs that are proven to not pay; or are proven to be cheats.
As long as there is selective shaving; CAP cannot and should not be held accountable for policing approved programs from this practice.
Hell there’s no way it could.
So that leaves CAP with the little choice but to do the right and honorable thing; which it does. It approves programs that have not been proven to be cheats.
Thats all that can be expected. CAP’s job is NOT to be the police of the OG niche.
I think it is commendable that CAP does as much as it does; and I point out that I recently visited the powerbet site which proudly displays the “approved by the gpwa” logo on its aff site.
I think the comparison speaks for itself.
Lou has done all that should be expected, and more; to weed out the worst of the worst. You can’t expect this site to do any more for the very reasons you mentioned. With nearly all programs; there are at least a few people who do well with them.
That deserves the benefit of doubt.
So I’m not saying CAP lists shitty programs. Quite the opposite. It shouldn’t be expected to held responsible for the ethics of the programs it approves; but rather should be expected to NOT list programs known to be suspect.
IMHO.
*************
sorry, I posted this as Prof was posting. he covers most of what I said.
********
Note- powerbet may be a quality aff program at this point in time; I cannot say; but I do know at one time they were very suspect.
The appropriate place for such things is the private section, where other seniors can contribute. If we all have the same experience, it always makes it to the public section, where novices are alerted to the problems.
That’s also my point Dom.
Often its old news that the seasoned vets already know; and have discussed to full extent the situation.
Therefore when a newbie comes along; if they don’t have any reason to prod them to investigate further; they’ll likely fall into the same trap as many of us had already survived.
if somebody lists or drops a program on my say alone, i’m very flattered; but that’s not going to be the case very often is it?
But if I contact them it may prod them into doing a search about the program and then, they will see exactly what you said: what all the other seasoned players had to say about that program.
But few seasoned vets are going to bother to chime in every time because its old news; and area where they have no desire to visit again.
think about it.
Often its old news that the seasoned vets already know; and have discussed to full extent the situation
Often the old news are changed. Nothing is set in stone. You saw me being very unhappy with Referback a couple of years ago – I praise them today.
You saw me defend Focal for a long time, then I became disenchanted. Now I am picking them back up because I figured out why performance had fallen off so much. My visitor profile had changed – with the changes I implemented to counter the PPC mess, I ended up with over 50% repeat visitors and I can’t have the same casinos in the same spots all the time anymore. I shuffled things around and – voila – things are working again.
I am always ready to review and reconsider – programs change, nothing in this business is ever static (which is one reason I like it I think. Even the mess with the ppc’s – it made us have to rethink and regroup and it keeps things fresh and interesting. But I digress).
I see no reason we cannot share that sort of thing in public where everyone can see it. We discussed Casino Rewards in public and it wasn’t all friendly. We discussed Casino Pays and it wasn’t all friendly. These are just the recent ones.
If the problem with the program is so old that no one new has heard about it, it is time to reevaluate.
Your comment about powerbet are a perfect example – I too seem to remember bad things about them – but we are not sure anymore, are we? They may have new owners or they may have changed the entire affiliate structure or whatnot – they need to be reviewed.
Giving private advice is done every day of the week here – by me too, and it is good and commendable. I just disagree with snatching novices who are doing open and apparently good business with a CAP program from that forum and telling them old, non reevaluated and very subjective things about that program. People should be able to do business unfettered. If it is not fit to be mentioned publicly, it probably needs to be reevaluated and needs additional input.
CAP’s job is NOT to be the police of the OG niche
Of course not. Nor is it that of any individual. But CAP has a lot of experience and is pretty well able to tell the wheat from the chaff. And, communally and openly discussed, CAP members can keep these evaluations current and fresh.
