viral marketing and spam on a2k, forum help, a2k help

not sure i've seen those or haven't clued into them

The post that triggered the question is missing (although I'll give another look), so that in itself may be an answer.

Not too long ago a seemingly innocuous question was asked by someone mentioned in the profile as working for this same company. We all had our own discussion, but someone tagged it viral marketing and that was probably a correct surmise.

We have a happy sort posting every so often about Safeway's wonderful offers (do we need turkey recipes? goo goo guchi goo) and also seemingly another about Kraft Foods.

I can smell them, just am not sure what is the right procedure, to report or not.

This all annoys me, as I spent years carefully not mentioning my gallery's name - when I had it - and rarely if ever mentioning the city, so as to make it clear I wasn't shilling.

ah, i see what you mean, not sure what to say about those situations

Ah, it's not missing -
here -
http://able2know.org/topic/132341-1

ambiguous, perhaps, but not to me.

This is probably the same happy person that asked that last question) not that I remember what it was), changing names.

Report 'em, also tag 'em as viral marketing so that others don't mistakenly go in and answer or vote up the questions before we can get there (we do take a wait and see attitude if we are unsure). But please report them, thank you.

Thanks, Jes, that was what I was starting to think was the right course..

here's another darling one -
http://able2know.org/topic/131898-1

interesting, the person has posted a response in robert's ice cube thread that seems like any other post

the other one could be interpreted as a form of viral marketing or product placement, get paid for mentions on forums,

Maybe I'll start a diatribe against Kraft Parmesan discussion. Not in revenge, of course, just that I've despised that for a few decades.

(Kidding, probably, but not about the despising.)

I've seen questions asked by members on the day they joined being answered by other members that have joined the same day. They post a helpful commercial link. I'm sure the whole thing is a spam setup. Still, people ask questions, and we're good about posting similar helpful links, and I don't want to discourage this. I know it is spam. I just know it, but I don't report it even though I feel like maybe I should.

Those are often spam (on rare occasions, it's not or we're not certain). Reporting does help us, to draw our attention there and, if we are uncertain, generally the next few posts will determine it for us, one way or the other. Thanks mucho.

I wouldn't mind if all these people both caught on to not doing that viral stuff and also became a2kers.. of course, that would be a job project failure.

the implantation is hard to nail, as a lot of us occasionally mention some real product, but the sell factor can be smelled through the monitor.

most of the design sites i link are selling something, i'm not pushing the product, and i realize people see that, but it's still a grey area, made even more grey when the mention is a name brand product

Well, if you mention a food product, I take it seriously - allowing for different tastes and dining philosophies. If you joined today, mentioned one product, and disappeared, it might be otherwise.

Thanks, Jes. These usually pop up on my night shift tour, and I don't trust my antivirus well enough to be following links from strangers.

No need to follow the links. That's our job.

yeah but some times i want to know about the new kraft ranch dressing recipe

Well, when I'm enthusiastic, ms. burble, I'll give lots of links. You'd think I was selling Marcella Hazan books. (Indeed, there has been some grumpiness among critics against her, but hey, she taught me to boil water, just about.) And I'm now still something of a design site pusher. Back in years past, I kept up an architectural and design news effort for an apparent few readers and a record for myself - any one post of which could be construed as advert, especially all the prefab or tiny home links. (I'm still interested in those).

Well, there is a culture here, deep if not wide, not to promote ourselves in a selling way, well, mostly hardly even bragging except for some wonderful occasions of joy for one or the other person. Since this isn't a sales-a-thon (though we admit some competence), there has been room for people to have real introspection and real comments, in between all the other stuff. And also room for actual joy on great occasions. And real sadness on others.

Yeh, I know, I linked to the great ad from that dutch store not long ago. I might even go there if the wind takes me to amsterdam. But the linking was about the graphics, not to be a store promotion, although I accolade them for their choice of graphic designers. And who they were, I forget already. People who might use them probably had already seen the ad...