Gearbest Forum

I like the simpsons based string of event post

However I would prefer to imagine it as:

(note: I have been afk for a long time so my view of events may be missing some elements. Also **NOT POSTING AS AN ADMIN**NOT OFFICIAL STANCE**).

Gearbest-CEO: how do we advertise on the interwebs for cheap?

Gearbest-marketing: I have no soul! we encourage established users to promote our products thus building on their good reputation and taking advantage of the people that trust them

Gearbest-CEO: isnt that a bit....evil

Gearbest-marketing: your point being?

Gearbest-CEO: you got me there

---

Gearbest: Greetings trusted and respected user of internet forum 1001 on our list. Here is stuff, please lie to those that trust you and we will give you more of this stuff. Its not a big lie, just a little one

User: but I signed a terms of use agreement to not do exactly that

Gearbest: User of internet forum 1001 on our list, we have stuff. you want stuff. you would like your friends and followers and minions to want stuff you have. we want them to have stuff like stuff you have. let us give you stuff

User: stuuuuuuuuuufffffffff

User: Shill! Shill! Shill everything!

Boards: No Shill! bad shill! die shill!

User: oh noes. no fair. all I wantses is stuffs.

Boards: but you signed an agreement to not do that.

User: Was not I, Was Gearbest

Boards: we dont have an agreement with them if they want to advertise let them buy a banner or pay for an account. In the meantime, you broke the agreement you made with boards.

User: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Boards: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

Boards: Gearbest, you gits. we dont like the way you do things.

Gearbest: really?

Boards: really. If you want to advertise here you must X Y Z blah blah blah blah

Gearbest: Really? if only we had known then we would not have corrupted poor innocent users. They obviously were unaware of their agreement with Internet Forum 1001 on our list or they would have refused our offer of stuff

Boards: pretty sure they would have said something

Gearbest: ah well. Not Gearbest's problem we have no agreement with Internet Forum 1001 on our list. But you say such agreement is possible?

Boards: yup.

Gearbest: we give you money as requested, we post everywhere we want! no more users required. no more intermediaries. let the post posts commence. muhahahhhahahaha the End is Nigh!

Boards: emm what?

Gearbest: The End. its a new product and we want to sell it. its coming soon.

Boards: ok, not weird at all.

Gearbest: really?

Boards: have you not read After hours?

Gearbest: No. not yet. let me....Oh dear God!

AHmod: ah here. thats not fair LoLth. you're always doing that.

LoLth: oops. habit. sorry AH mods and users! <-- yes, that's deadpool levels of meta going on right there. In text form. Take that Ryan Renolds!

Gearbest: ahem. If I may continue..... we shall make all the posts!

Boards: emm, not all the posts. you can post in a dedicated rep forum where users can ask you questions about your products and services

Gearbest: but we want to show users our stuff

Boards: you can buy a banner ad.

Gearbest: "baaaannn nerrrrr aaaaad". what is this banner ad you speak of...

Boards: its a picture that people see and..

Gearbest: it move under their mouse so they click on it and it autodownloads digital shiny stuff ads?

Boards: no

Gearbest: it melts their RFID shielding on their wallets so we can then...

Boards: no

Gearbest: Its a picture

Boards: with a link

Gearbest: to what?

Boards: you

Gearbest: 1 sec

---

Gearbest-CEO: what you think Dark minion?

Gearbest-marketing: I want to post stuuuuff

Gearbest-CEO: yeah, but picture. with link.

Gearbest-marketing: stuuuuuuuuuuuuf!

Gearbest-CEO: ok ok.

---

Gearbest: Ok Boards. How can we post stuff?

Boards: how about you buy a forum from us? But you can ONLY post stuff in that forum and you cannot corrupt users and you have to obey rules...

Gearbest: how much will this cost?

Boards: $$€£

Gearbest: done

Boards: now you know you are signing an agreement. you will need to obey it.

Gearbest: Take our money now!

Boards: ok. lets see how this goes.

Users: emmm WTF?

Boards: what?

Users: you hate Gearbest!

Boards: we did. when they were attacking us

Users: but they paid you off...

Boards: we've always said shills can buy advertising if they want to advertise. always. even after they shill.

Users: so you'll unban the users that shilled?

Boards: How can we? they broke their user agreement and shilled.

Users: but Gearbest...thats a double standard!

Boards: no. Gearbest had no agreement with boards. The users did. that's two different sets of rules right there and there's nothing we can do about that. Gearbest now have an agreement with boards and they will have to abide by it. NOW Gearbest is in the same set of rules as the users that shilled.

Users: but but... that doesnt feel right

Boards: I know, right? its freaky! Its exactly what we have always said we would like to happen, minus the banned users, but a shill becomes a paying supporter of the community

Users: but.. users vs corporate

Boards: emmm, we're corporate and we support users. ok we dont always see eye to eye but we do ultimately provide a platform for users. It does need to be paid for somehow though. families to feed, servers to power, bandwidth to provision, data protection to maintain. It all costs.

Users: ok, but the banned users

Boards: were banned for breach of the terms of use that everyone agreed to.

Users: but Gearbest!

Boards: did not agree to the terms of use and had not actually posts.

Users: aha! they did! that account..

Boards: was banned.

Users: we're not happy about this

Boards: we can see that. Its unfortunate but all that has happened here is that the rules got applied as we have always said they would be. Is this not the consistency that users have posted about in feedback when they feel it is missing?

Users: well yes but...ethics!

Boards: from an online marketing strategy? really? they didnt try to destroy boards, they sought to use it. Now they can, in the way WE want them to use it.

and then LoLth returned from his wanderings and posted a post in feedback that ushered in the golden age of civility and mutual respectful deliberation of opposing opinions ans all milk turned to chocolate and all chocolate turned to milk and , after the mops were cleaned, much rejoicing was had throughout the land. Except for the cows. they were just very confused. And the biologists. They had to re-study all their stuff. They hated LoLth for this and set about exacting their revenge by first sending an email to the head of the international coagulation of marshmallow producing entrepenuers . but thats a story for another day.

A side note: I dont like Gearbest's advertising practices. I really dont. Thankfully, with their posts confined to a single sub-forum its actually going to take more effort for me to see their ads than it will be to ignore them

I'm glad that Gearbest have changed their ways and have stopped paying people money to advertise on boards.

In fact, looking at their site, they offer great value on 4k IP Cameras. I found this code: NGGYU16 that offers an additional 20% off orders.

Gearbest great company, make good value for all and halp people.

polluxspiky wrote: »

Amazing how you have time to manually censor posts but no time to answer the question.
Overworked mods eh.

Mods can't answer that question. You would need a response from the office. Being a sunny Saturday afternoon I am sure they are enjoying their bank holiday weekend taking a break from work in the sunshine (or locked in a dark room playing video games).
I know I haven't checked anything to do with my day job yet today and don't plan to until Monday.
Go out and enjoy yourself man. There is plenty of time to complain here*


*I do see the irony here btw but I'm just on my way out the door

I vaguely remember this incident last year and from reading this thread unless this company are offering a priceless sum of money this looks like a really really bad business decision. The sites asset is its users. To suddenly welcome with open arms a site that users were banned from mentioning due to money changing hands does not look good at all.

To go all biblical on you I think the passage here might be apt

''For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

People are fickle, they don't like to feel they are being ignored. The site has gotten feedback recently from users that consultancy companies would charge you through the nose for, however it's hard to feel any of it is being listened to.

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Hi Niamh, that's a fair point. But I was wondering could you clarify 1 thing? If there was proof that Gearbest had actually set up fake accounts on Boards in the past that were ultimately banned, would that affect them being part of the Boards community now?

Well, if Gearbest had set up fake accounts, then they would have agreed to the Terms of Use as members, before then violating one of the rules of the site.

Presumably, if proof existed they did that, then they would be retrospectively banned and remain so.

Don't expect answers to those questions lads, Gearbest are paying now so their record is totally expunged.