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Gearbest Forum

Digital Solitude

Not sure if this is in the right place, but I was flicking through the forum listings today and came across the gearbest hosted forum.

Seems a bit strange that there's a link straight to them after the crap in the Chinese Android Thread last year that got them added to the swear list and made any association and links from users a big no-no.

Any explanation for this?

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Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

Lovely Bloke

Wibbs wrote: »

IB I most certainly get why people are pissed off with this. I really bloody do, but the plain if sad fact is in order for this community to survive it requires paying for. And so long as those commercial interests stay where they're supposed to be then fine. If I won the Euro lotto in the morning(if I ever played) I would genuinely try and buy the place and get rid of all the commercial BS that creeps in, but that's the level of loolah land we'd need to get into IB.

Same question then

What line do you hold? Are there companies or entities that Boards.ie shouldn't take payments from?

Do we let the Iona Institute stick up ads of aborted fetuses at referendum time, if they are willing to fork out for the privilege?

Do we allow Coca Cola to advertise sugary drinks causing obesity, heart diease and cancer, if they have the money to pay the site?

Do we allow a company that treated this community pretty badly to now advertise because they are willing to pay for the lights to stay on?

Do we allow the UK armed forces to recruit on the website and send young Irish people to wars in the middle east, if they have the deep pockets to stump up for an ad?

Where is the moral compass of the people who run this website? What direction does it point?

Because at the moment, it seems to be a pretty low standard for acceptable customers.

Chorus_suck

This post has been deleted.

seamus

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Now, that company comes along with a few shekels and there's an about face.

I think that's where the confusion comes in.

There's no about-face. Shilling is still banned. Neither GearBest nor any other company will be allowed to shill on boards. And if GB are found to be speaking out both sides of their mouth and still shilling, I have zero doubt that their forum will be closed and they'll be told to GTFO and take their money with them.

Realistically in this scenario there were two options;

1. Maintain a ban on all discussion of GB and continue detecting and banning shills
2. Take some money off GB in return for which they are able to promote themselves in a very limited and most importantly, transparent manner.

It's a no-brainer. I don't see any moral issue. It's not like GB killed anyone or broke multiple laws. They've come to understand what they did wrong and now they've been turned into a valuable contributor.

What would continuing down scenario 1. accomplish?

Where would a line be drawn.

Godwin moment - if Stormfront wanted to take out a paid advert, and open a recruitment forum under Politics Cafe, would that be cool, because they'd be paying customers after all.

You're right, it's a Godwin. Because it's not relevant; apples and oranges. Stormfront don't sell anything. Their ban comes from their ideological position, which is unchangeable.

GB's ban came from an dishonest marketing practice, which has now ceased. If Stormfront became a "Love and Puppies" forum dedicated to discussing how great it is to love people and stroke puppies, then I'd see no issue running their ads.

ibFoxer

Wibbs wrote: »

IB I most certainly get why people are pissed off with this. I really bloody do, but the plain if sad fact is in order for this community to survive it requires paying for. And so long as those commercial interests stay where they're supposed to be then fine. If I won the Euro lotto in the morning(if I ever played) I would genuinely try and buy the place and get rid of all the commercial BS that creeps in, but that's the level of loolah land we'd need to get into IB.

I take no issue with Boards needing to monotise to survive- i do have an issue with the u turn on Gearbest as soon as they throw money at Boards.

Gearbest paid for shiling- that is never going to be untrue. This is the kind of company that boards is willing to do business with, and whether or not they have apologized is beside the point- the damage is done, and there are plenty of members who lost access to the site because of Gearbest, but because GB can afford to buy themselves out of jail it's all cool. I'm sorry, but i do not hold with that. Leopards don't change their spots, but apparently they can sure as all hell spend big on rose tinted spectacles for the powers that be.

Penn

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Same question then

What line do you hold? Are there companies or entities that Boards.ie shouldn't take payments from?

Do we let the Iona Institute stick up ads of aborted fetuses at referendum time, if they are willing to fork out for the privilege? - Yes, and I say that as someone who hates Iona

Do we allow Coca Cola to advertise sugary drinks causing obesity, heart diease and cancer, if they have the money to pay the site? - Yes. Should we boycott every TV station who runs a Coke ad? Should we boycott every shop that sells Coke?

Do we allow a company that treated this community pretty badly to now advertise because they are willing to pay for the lights to stay on? - Yes, because they've apologised and have promised to follow the rules this time. If they don't, they'll get booted again.

Do we allow the UK armed forces to recruit on the website and send young Irish people to wars in the middle east, if they have the deep pockets to stump up for an ad? - Depends on what you mean by "recruit". A few ads or a sponsored forum, sure. It's people's decision if they want to join up or not

Where is the moral compass of the people who run this website? What direction does it point?

Because at the moment, it seems to be a pretty low standard for acceptable customers.

Whatever any of us want Boards to be or do, requires Boards to have money to do that. "Paying to keep the lights on" is very important because working in the dark is a strain on the eyes.

Boards is a business. Without the business part of the site, there is no site.

Don't like Gearbest or don't like what they did previously on the forum? Don't use them. Don't want to drink Coke because it causes obesity? Don't drink it. Don't want to join the UK armed forces and fight in the middle east? How the f*ck would the UK armed forces having a sponsored forum on Boards make you do so?

K-9

What's the difference between a sponsored sub forum and a talk to one anyway?

Then you've the market place in Accomodation & Property which just seems an ad for products.

ibFoxer

So Penn, if the company has apologized and promised to follow the rules, and the powers that be know that they were directly responsible for the shilling, why can't the members who were banned have the bans lifted if they also apologize and promise to adhere to the rules?

Because money. That's why.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

ibFoxer wrote: »

So Penn, if the company has apologized and promised to follow the rules, and the powers that be know that they were directly responsible for the shilling, why can't the members who were banned have the bans lifted if they also apologize and promise to adhere to the rules?

Because money. That's why.

This. From what I could see, the users involved at the time that were banned were long-time genuine contributors to the site also. Why can't they be given a second chance?

It looks really bad that Boards will accept back a Chinese company which Dav absolutely trashed and clearly despised in his now-deleted sticky post, but will not let back its Irish users who have contributed much more to the site than Gearbest ever have and ever will.

I get what they did was wrong, but I'm with the other posters here, in that they really should be given a second chance... or maybe a brown envelope under the table will do the trick as it clearly has done for Gearbest?

I get that Boards needs money to operate, but this just comes across as really bad form..

Lovely Bloke

because they are evil shills, and now instead of paying the users to shill, Gearbest is paying Boards.ie directly for the privilege.

ibFoxer

I think i forsee a mass exodus of members on the horizon.

moleyv

Gearbest is brilliant, unless you are in a hurry for something, then pay the premium elsewhere.

Timberrrrrrrr

I get that boards needs to raise revenue but honestly, It feels like some days the head honcho''s wake up and think to themselves "what can I do today to make boards less attractive to the average user"

Ghost town indeed.

RasTa

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

As you can see, Gearbest.com has also been removed from the swear filter.

lol

seamus

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrote: »

This. From what I could see, the users involved at the time that were banned were long-time genuine contributors to the site also. Why can't they be given a second chance?

Yeah, seems reasonable. Though there's obviously a trust issue - who else will they happily take money from to shill for?

Perhaps an amnesty where their re-regs won't be hunted down, but they lose any cred or trust that was built up in their old account.

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

because they are evil shills, and now instead of paying the users to shill, Gearbest is paying Boards.ie directly for the privilege.

Advertising and shilling are not the same thing. You do know that of course.

I'd just like to point out that taking money to advertise and taking money to shill are two different activities and differ by what is likely the key objection here - honesty. One activity is honest, the other is not.

That's why it's OK to accept money for advertising and not OK to accept money for shilling.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

From their Trustpilot page;

Dear Trustpilot users,

This is a notification to inform you that our proprietary software has discovered a large number of fake reviews on this domain. Consequently, we have investigated all reviews connected to this domain and have removed several hundreds of reviews from the domain. Manipulation of reviews is a great threat to both consumers and businesses. We will continue to fight attempts to manipulate reviews to safeguard the integrity of Trustpilot, and we will share information about such severe and coordinated attempts with our users.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

Penn

ibFoxer wrote: »

So Penn, if the company has apologized and promised to follow the rules, and the powers that be know that they were directly responsible for the shilling, why can't the members who were banned have the bans lifted if they also apologize and promise to adhere to the rules?

Because money. That's why.

Personally I'd have no issue with their bans being lifted. Then again, if they were long-time genuine contributors as CYE said, turning to shilling reduces my sympathy for their cause.

dunworth1

K-9 wrote: »

What's the difference between a sponsored sub forum and a talk to one anyway?

how much your willing to pay apparently

Wibbs

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrote: »

This. From what I could see, the users involved at the time that were banned were long-time genuine contributors to the site also. Why can't they be given a second chance?

Actually this I would look into myself. If long term Boardsies were banned for good it would seem more than hypocritical to be grand with the company that encouraged them in the first place.

frag420

We should set up a crowdfunder page for those banned members to get back in?

What's the going rate for each banned user?

K-9

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrote: »

From their Trustpilot page;

Dear Trustpilot users,

This is a notification to inform you that our proprietary software has discovered a large number of fake reviews on this domain. Consequently, we have investigated all reviews connected to this domain and have removed several hundreds of reviews from the domain. Manipulation of reviews is a great threat to both consumers and businesses. We will continue to fight attempts to manipulate reviews to safeguard the integrity of Trustpilot, and we will share information about such severe and coordinated attempts with our users.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

That's a problem. If they've a bad rep for manipulating reviews and such, giving them a dedicated sub forum may not be the wisest move. Guilt by association and all that.

Long term users should know better, it's an abuse of trust as people will put more weight in a review from them than a noob.

But still if the company is now legit despite paying for posters to shill the site then...

You could argue they didn't pay anybody to shill boards specifically but it's a weak argument to be fair.

JaMarcusHustle

My issue is that GearBest were banned, and it was very much painted as a decision to protect the users of Bargain Alerts from a dishonest company that was against the community purpose of Bargain Alerts.

Offering them their very own subforum in Bargain Alerts contradicts everything that was said before.

@Niamh - did GearBest specify where they wanted their subforum, or did Boards suggest it? That's the one question I'd like to see answered.

The Backwards Man

I'm only a small time businessman, but in my world there's two things much more important than money to running a successful operation, integrity and good faith. When you make a decision you stand by it, even it means missing out on a few euro, because in the long term any damage to either of the above is much more costly.

RossieMan

What has this descended to? Mods attacking posters for having an opinion? We all know boards is a business, I think some of us just thought boards was a little above the likes of dealing with such shady, awful companies, no matter what money they receive. I don't understand what gearbest have to offer the forum, other than their money. They have no customer service skills, they can't speak English, they make excuses, they have dodgy products.

You don't need to be an expert researcher to find this out, look at any forum, anywhere.

A lot of us here actively promote against gearbest, which I'll continue to do as I and many others have shocking experiences with them.

I'm just against them being in BA. I think what Niamh has posted is a cop out to be honest, put them in android devices then. Gearbest do not sell bargains.

Edit: another issue. Just because gearbest have supposedly stopped shilling here, given the massive evidence of tampering with reviews, products etc, how did boards come to this decision? The proof doesn't lie with GB having changed one bit.

LuckyLloyd

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

You really have to ask if the monetisation of Boards.ie is really worth it, is it a failed experiment?

If principled people's heads are going to be turned like this, even if we don't personally agree with those principles, or have had run-ins with the higher-ups, I assume we are all here posting because we do generally have a grá for Boards.ie, so we are all at least looking at the same hymn book, if not the same page.

At the time, Dav posted this in the prison forum

but the company itself has money, so you know, they are no longer vile and despicable I suppose.

Unless you have some dollars you are willing to spend.

I really think that with all the ads, sponsored content, the endless autoplay video ads, the size and sensitivity of the ads on the touch site - this is a step too far. This feels dirty.

A doomed experiment more like. Reddit doesn't make any money, Reddit! As others smarter than me have often said - boards used as a loss leading platform of sorts integrated with a wider stable of specific services / businesses makes sense. It as a profitable entity in its own right doesn't. 2008 - 2016 was a long time to make a horserace of it. The Internet has been trending away from discussion boards during that period too. Hard to see how you can turn it around at this stage, but it may feel to the strategy owners that it's too late to change course now...

Penn

RossieMan wrote: »

We all know boards is a business, I think some of us just thought boards was a little above the likes of dealing with such shady, awful companies, no matter what money they receive.

But there's an important distinction to be made; they haven't paid to be allowed to do the likes of which they did before, they've paid to do things in accordance with Boards rules, which given what did happen before, was likely explained thoroughly to them in advance of a deal being made.

They're not paying to be allowed to shill, they're paying to be allowed to advertise.

zarquon

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

because they are evil shills, and now instead of paying the users to shill, Gearbest is paying Boards.ie directly for the privilege.

That's the nail on the head. The offense from the likes of Dav was the members i.e. the people actually contributing content to this site, the people who are responsible for it's ability to draw in advertisers - these people were profiting instead of Dav & Co. and thus the outrage was overwhelming. Suddenly the same company pay Dav and Co. directly i.e. boards.ie become the shills instead and then all is forgiven and the outrage is brushed under a carpet.

Members of boards are regularly treated as a major inconvenience but if we were to all up and leave the site would die a very quick death. The attitude is akin to the small time attitude often experienced in retail or other branches of customer service where some people act higher than everest and treat customers with the greatest of disdain, forgetting that their custom is the reason they have a job in the first place

The poker lads did a great job of setting up their own forum. If some others had the initiative, i believe that s thriving Irish equivalent of HUKD, a new forum for soccer discussion and a general one to draw AH type discussion and then boards.ie becomes an irrelevance.

This site is only surviving currently due to lack of competition. Reddit and Facebook offer some good alternatives for me, particularly private speciality groups on facebook which i find myself using more than boards.ie now.

hightower1

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Same question then

What line do you hold? Are there companies or entities that Boards.ie shouldn't take payments from?

Do we let the Iona Institute stick up ads of aborted fetuses at referendum time, if they are willing to fork out for the privilege?

Do we allow Coca Cola to advertise sugary drinks causing obesity, heart diease and cancer, if they have the money to pay the site?

Do we allow a company that treated this community pretty badly to now advertise because they are willing to pay for the lights to stay on?

Do we allow the UK armed forces to recruit on the website and send young Irish people to wars in the middle east, if they have the deep pockets to stump up for an ad?

Where is the moral compass of the people who run this website? What direction does it point?

Because at the moment, it seems to be a pretty low standard for acceptable customers.

This post needs a serious dose of perspective.

You're comparing a company who engaged in grey area promotion of itself on a privately run forum to issues such as .... abortion, heart disease, cancer and war.

Wow. It's a forum and a business, if the GB issue is comparably THAT important too a user's moral compass I'd feel pretty sorry for them.

Lovely Bloke

Not comparing, asking where the line is.

After all, Shilling was called

Vile and Despicable

but now the company that engaged in it is welcomed with open arms.

hightower1

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Not comparing, asking where the line is.

After all, Shilling was called

but now the company that engaged in it is welcomed with open arms.

Common sense would say the line is between encouraging rule breaking behaviour (such as GB did) and actually breaking rules yourself (such as the users who performed shilling).

You can encourage people to break rules all you wish however it doesn't make you responsible for their actions.