Changes to Freebie forum |Points2shop

Created: 2012-05-26 14:03:33
agm1992 UK moderator Points2Helper Total posts: 5360 Status: Online Total Earnings: $2333.85	reply date: 2012-05-26 14:03:33 last edited on: 2012-05-26 14:06:05 Recently we have been having issues with the freebie forum and how low quality freebies are handled. We have decided to make some changes in the way in which freebies are deleted and what is acceptable. - If a freebie is of low quality (ie just a link, no description etc) then a Forum Moderator/Moderator will post a comment or send a PM to tell you to update the topic. If you do not update in 48hrs then the post will be removed. Use the Freebie Post Template as a guide on what is required. - Ebooks, PDF's and other online guides are NOT allowed. - A new topic has been made which will contain links to popular freebies and the date they are added to the list. If you post the freebie again after the date it was added then it will be removed. - You may not repost a freebie until 3 months after it was last posted. (Previously 1 month) We are making these changes so that the forum continues to be a good place to share freebies and to also make sure that the quality of the freebies is kept to a high standard.

marijn10 SE gold New Poster Total posts: 12 Status: Offline Date of Birth: 97-06-01 Total Earnings: $28.79	reply date: 2012-05-26 15:36:37 what is the freebeforum?

blastarama UK platinum Half way there Total posts: 508 Status: Offline Date of Birth: 75-01-19 Total Earnings: $232.61	reply date: 2012-05-26 18:40:13 Hey all Appreciate the update on how low quailty freebies are handled its much needed. The rest of the new updates in my opinion is very bad move and will only complicate things, cause more issues and result in more annoyed members. First off extending the the repost time to 3 months. Before Mods suggested checking back 5 pages that was for a one month limit. So that check now has to be 15 pages for 3 months. If I am going to post 5 freebies per day Ive now got to check 15 pages and try to spot duplicates on 5 freebies. There is a LOT of scope for error. Its also takes a fair amounnt of time. I would love to use the search facility to look for freebie posts that have already been posted. However the search engine is pretty useless. Moderator chevychic255 wrote this in the dicussion forum If you're using the search function from the forum to search freebies you're thinkin' of adding to the free stuff forum, I don't recommend it. It doesn't always catch things so you're going to be posting duplicates if you're using it. So you are extending the repost time giving us the freebie posters more work but dodgy tools to work with Provide us with an acurate search engine so we can search easier (May refer to admin more than mods) There is a new thread with popular freebies on it that we are not allowed to post. Yet another check list go through before we post a thread. I dont actually get the point in this? If you have extended the repost time to three months then freebies shouldent come around often anyway? Seems a bit confused. There are now 4 stickied posts with rules on for posting in the Freebies forum. That information should all be condensed into one guide thread. Presently the information is to fragmented. There were issues with the free stuff forum and the way threads and tickets were removed and it required action. These actions though will only make things worse. You will now get More errors from members More annoyed upset members More work in moderating it all I dont know about others but all I asked for was better explinations about why posts are removed. What I did not ask for was things to be made even more complicated which I feel with these new additions that is what has happened. Personally I think everything needed simplfying not complicating. I am allowed a point of view and I am very disapointed in the new changes to the free stuff forum. Not what was required at all.

chevychic255 US moderator Helper is my middle name Total posts: 7717 Status: Online Total Earnings: $1907.93	reply date: 2012-05-26 20:11:58 blastarama, I have to agree. I don't like the 3 months rule any more than you do. Looking through the last month was just fine, and that's correct the search feature in the forum doesn't work too great when searching for things. It's not easy looking through the threads in the free stuff forum and things can easily be overlooked. If it was easier then maybe I would agree with upping the time, but right now it doesn't make sense to. Also I do understand what you mean having too many guideline sticky's for the Free Stuff forum. I'm sure we can condense it down some to avoid confusion/make it less time-consuming.
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AbbyAW	This post has been deleted.
AbbyAW US (FL) moderator Old Forum User Total posts: 2665 Status: Offline Date of Birth: 91-05-24 Total Earnings: $1974.55	reply date: 2012-05-26 20:53:21 last edited on: 2012-05-26 23:04:59 I have to agree with this change because overall it will result in less clutter and keep the freebies up do date. On one big note, a few of us have realized what alot of members are doing, are going back and simply reposting old freebies in the forums (the ones that exceed the month so they can repost 5x a day just for the tickets everyday). The point of this forum is to actually post freebies you find, and not repost, which has been another reason for the low quality and another reason why old freebies keep coming up again. The 3 months time should not matter this way. If you find freebies they would be recent to whatever current date we are on so more times out of none you should not need to check that far back. If a freebie IS around a long time and is popular, it should keep bumping up in the forums and we will take not of that and add it to the 'popular freebies' page. If they arent popular they will just be pushed back, most members who check the freebies do not look that far into the pages. This is to keep all the freebies posted here current and less duplicated and to stop those abusing posting just for tickets by looking back at old posts to only readd them. Freebies should be bumped up again because they are popular not because someone looks back for it as they are interested not because it is reposted it for a ticket. I understand not everyone is doing is but ALOT more people are than those who arent which is unfair for those who truly look to take the time and post it for us. Having this effective will also have us needing to do less work since the quality is better and reposting is decreased. On the count you are truly not sure and need to search for it, i think it shouldnt be too much of a bother to look back to be certain if you really want to post it for showing this for other members and not because of a ticket. It takes me about 15min to search back 16 pages (about 3 months months time worth) which isnt really that long, I checked to look at about the average time it would take so its not unreasonable to ask to ensure quality posts. But to be honest, it was completely fine with remaining one month and that part didnt need to be changed over everything else. It wont hurt to see how everything works out though, it will be sorted out again if its really not working I think some members are forgetting the ticket given in the freebies forum is a reward for the effort, it is not the goal. ****Stickies have been condensed
❅∞❅∞❅ ❝If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.❞ ❅∞❅∞❅
blastarama UK platinum Half way there Total posts: 508 Status: Offline Date of Birth: 75-01-19 Total Earnings: $232.61	reply date: 2012-05-27 09:48:25 It takes 15 mins really? Ok lets say your right. I have to find my 5 freebies have them all ready and then check 15 pages (would still be nice to have a working search so I dont have to) Oh no two of my freebies have been posted within.3 months. Now Ive got to go back out onto the net find two more freebies and search 15 pages for those. Your 15 mins just doubled at the least. I cant remember 3 months worth of posts, I cant rememember what happened yesterday lol. I want to post freebies and I want to get a ticket its a two way thing. What I didnt want was all this hassle. Members will now look deeper into the depths of the internet to find freebies and move away from the safe and recognised freebie sites who police the threads and ensure quality links. You already have freebies on the forum that are not even freebies they are email phishing sites. They have been up years and no one ever gets the item. At the other big freebie sites I visit these are known and removed the second they are placed. You dont have that expertise or knowledge database here. My prediction is you will get lower quality or even fake freebies that you wont be able to identify. More local area freebies as people try to avoid the more popular national and international ones. Overall the quality will go down, just my opinion.

agm1992 UK moderator Points2Helper Total posts: 5360 Status: Online Total Earnings: $2333.85	reply date: 2012-05-27 10:03:16 No one is saying you have to post 5 freebies a day, and the quality and the availablity of some freebie is less than desired. This freebie for example involves liking a facebook page, printing proof that you liked the page and finally going to some ride in Florida for....wait for it..... a postcard! Seems like an extremely limited freebie that is highly unlikely to benefit anyone on the website. Another freebie (can't remember who posted it) involved visiting a museum in Singapore to get a goody bag. We want people to post QUALITY freebies that benefit alot of members on the website, not alot of members live in singapore AND look for freebies in the forum, nor are alot of members willing to like a facebook page, print proof and trek to a park for a postcard. Most of your freebies are fine and fairly good, but some just look like it was posted for a ticket.

blastarama UK platinum Half way there Total posts: 508 Status: Offline Date of Birth: 75-01-19 Total Earnings: $232.61	reply date: 2012-05-27 10:19:09 We want to post quality freebies but we dont want to get our posts and tickets removed if we happen to make a mistake and repost a freebie within one month or now three months. So therefore local freebies like the one you quoted above are safer for us the freebie posters. This is exactly what I am saying. Make it easier so we can post quality with worrying about having tickets removed. There must be an alternative to removeing tickets? How about delaying the reward of tickets until the next lottery draw? At the end of the period all the threads are looked at to see if they deserve a ticket. Where freebies have been double posted merge the threads and only the oldest post gets the ticket award or none of the posts if its been posted within three months. Penalising members should be kept for abuse mis use of shout box pm's abusing offers etc. Not for people who think they just did a good turn posting a freebie but have made an honest mistake. That gets peoples backs up. 100% honest I didnt see a problem with clutter in the Free stuff forum. Some of the popular posts in your popular freebies forum I had never even seen. Cheers for the heads up on Aegis wing lol

chevychic255 US moderator Helper is my middle name Total posts: 7717 Status: Online Total Earnings: $1907.93	reply date: 2012-05-27 23:56:35 Surely you're not truly interested in those freebies yourself, blastarama? If you're not, nobody else is going to be either. What we're looking for is freebies members will enjoy, not just so members can make threads with forms to fill out for useless pieces of paper. Keep in mind what we see going on in the threads is evaluated and helps us better form rules to keep it with good quality freebies. If we keep seeing stuff like this going on, we'll have no choice but to come up with new rules to put in place. Don't ruin the Free Stuff forum just because you were not happy with getting a few Xbox game threads marked for spam. Please better think the freebies you post and ask yourself if you would actually be interested in what you're posting. As for the popular freebies thread, I'd say this was mainly put in place because we keep seeing some freebies posted continuously, and this helps cut down duplicates.
`·.,¸ ,.·*

agm1992
UK moderator
Points2Helper
Total posts: 5360
Status: Online
Total Earnings: $2333.85

reply date: 2012-05-26 14:03:33 last edited on: 2012-05-26 14:06:05

Recently we have been having issues with the freebie forum and how low quality freebies are handled. We have decided to make some changes in the way in which freebies are deleted and what is acceptable.

- If a freebie is of low quality (ie just a link, no description etc) then a Forum Moderator/Moderator will post a comment or send a PM to tell you to update the topic. If you do not update in 48hrs then the post will be removed. Use the Freebie Post Template as a guide on what is required.

- Ebooks, PDF's and other online guides are NOT allowed.

- A new topic has been made which will contain links to popular freebies and the date they are added to the list. If you post the freebie again after the date it was added then it will be removed.

- You may not repost a freebie until 3 months after it was last posted. (Previously 1 month)

We are making these changes so that the forum continues to be a good place to share freebies and to also make sure that the quality of the freebies is kept to a high standard.

marijn10
SE gold
New Poster
Total posts: 12
Status: Offline
Date of Birth: 97-06-01
Total Earnings: $28.79

reply date: 2012-05-26 15:36:37

what is the freebeforum?

blastarama
UK platinum
Half way there
Total posts: 508
Status: Offline
Date of Birth: 75-01-19
Total Earnings: $232.61

reply date: 2012-05-26 18:40:13

Hey all

Appreciate the update on how low quailty freebies are handled its much needed.
The rest of the new updates in my opinion is very bad move and will only complicate things, cause more issues and result in more annoyed members.

First off extending the the repost time to 3 months. Before Mods suggested checking back 5 pages that was for a one month limit. So that check now has to be 15 pages for 3 months. If I am going to post 5 freebies per day Ive now got to check 15 pages and try to spot duplicates on 5 freebies. There is a LOT of scope for error. Its also takes a fair amounnt of time. I would love to use the search facility to look for freebie posts that have already been posted. However the search engine is pretty useless.

Moderator chevychic255 wrote this in the dicussion forum

If you're using the search function from the forum to search freebies you're thinkin' of adding to the free stuff forum, I don't recommend it. It doesn't always catch things so you're going to be posting duplicates if you're using it.

So you are extending the repost time giving us the freebie posters more work but dodgy tools to work with

Provide us with an acurate search engine so we can search easier (May refer to admin more than mods)

There is a new thread with popular freebies on it that we are not allowed to post. Yet another check list go through before we post a thread. I dont actually get the point in this? If you have extended the repost time to three months then freebies shouldent come around often anyway? Seems a bit confused. There are now 4 stickied posts with rules on for posting in the Freebies forum. That information should all be condensed into one guide thread. Presently the information is to fragmented.

There were issues with the free stuff forum and the way threads and tickets were removed and it required action. These actions though will only make things worse. You will now get

More errors from members
More annoyed upset members
More work in moderating it all

I dont know about others but all I asked for was better explinations about why posts are removed. What I did not ask for was things to be made even more complicated which I feel with these new additions that is what has happened. Personally I think everything needed simplfying not complicating.

I am allowed a point of view and I am very disapointed in the new changes to the free stuff forum. Not what was required at all.

chevychic255
US moderator
Helper is my middle name
Total posts: 7717
Status: Online
Total Earnings: $1907.93

reply date: 2012-05-26 20:11:58

blastarama, I have to agree. I don't like the 3 months rule any more than you do. Looking through the last month was just fine, and that's correct the search feature in the forum doesn't work too great when searching for things. It's not easy looking through the threads in the free stuff forum and things can easily be overlooked. If it was easier then maybe I would agree with upping the time, but right now it doesn't make sense to. Also I do understand what you mean having too many guideline sticky's for the Free Stuff forum. I'm sure we can condense it down some to avoid confusion/make it less time-consuming.

AbbyAW

This post has been deleted.

AbbyAW
US (FL) moderator
Old Forum User
Total posts: 2665
Status: Offline
Date of Birth: 91-05-24
Total Earnings: $1974.55

reply date: 2012-05-26 20:53:21 last edited on: 2012-05-26 23:04:59

I have to agree with this change because overall it will result in less clutter and keep the freebies up do date. On one big note, a few of us have realized what alot of members are doing, are going back and simply reposting old freebies in the forums (the ones that exceed the month so they can repost 5x a day just for the tickets everyday). The point of this forum is to actually post freebies you find, and not repost, which has been another reason for the low quality and another reason why old freebies keep coming up again. The 3 months time should not matter this way. If you find freebies they would be recent to whatever current date we are on so more times out of none you should not need to check that far back. If a freebie IS around a long time and is popular, it should keep bumping up in the forums and we will take not of that and add it to the 'popular freebies' page. If they arent popular they will just be pushed back, most members who check the freebies do not look that far into the pages.

This is to keep all the freebies posted here current and less duplicated and to stop those abusing posting just for tickets by looking back at old posts to only readd them. Freebies should be bumped up again because they are popular not because someone looks back for it as they are interested not because it is reposted it for a ticket. I understand not everyone is doing is but ALOT more people are than those who arent which is unfair for those who truly look to take the time and post it for us. Having this effective will also have us needing to do less work since the quality is better and reposting is decreased.

On the count you are truly not sure and need to search for it, i think it shouldnt be too much of a bother to look back to be certain if you really want to post it for showing this for other members and not because of a ticket. It takes me about 15min to search back 16 pages (about 3 months months time worth) which isnt really that long, I checked to look at about the average time it would take so its not unreasonable to ask to ensure quality posts. But to be honest, it was completely fine with remaining one month and that part didnt need to be changed over everything else. It wont hurt to see how everything works out though, it will be sorted out again if its really not working
I think some members are forgetting the ticket given in the freebies forum is a reward for the effort, it is not the goal.

****Stickies have been condensed

blastarama
UK platinum
Half way there
Total posts: 508
Status: Offline
Date of Birth: 75-01-19
Total Earnings: $232.61

reply date: 2012-05-27 09:48:25

It takes 15 mins really? Ok lets say your right. I have to find my 5 freebies have them all ready and then check 15 pages (would still be nice to have a working search so I dont have to) Oh no two of my freebies have been posted within.3 months. Now Ive got to go back out onto the net find two more freebies and search 15 pages for those. Your 15 mins just doubled at the least. I cant remember 3 months worth of posts, I cant rememember what happened yesterday lol.

I want to post freebies and I want to get a ticket its a two way thing. What I didnt want was all this hassle. Members will now look deeper into the depths of the internet to find freebies and move away from the safe and recognised freebie sites who police the threads and ensure quality links. You already have freebies on the forum that are not even freebies they are email phishing sites. They have been up years and no one ever gets the item. At the other big freebie sites I visit these are known and removed the second they are placed. You dont have that expertise or knowledge database here. My prediction is you will get lower quality or even fake freebies that you wont be able to identify. More local area freebies as people try to avoid the more popular national and international ones. Overall the quality will go down, just my opinion.

agm1992
UK moderator
Points2Helper
Total posts: 5360
Status: Online
Total Earnings: $2333.85

reply date: 2012-05-27 10:03:16

No one is saying you have to post 5 freebies a day, and the quality and the availablity of some freebie is less than desired.

This freebie for example involves liking a facebook page, printing proof that you liked the page and finally going to some ride in Florida for....wait for it..... a postcard! Seems like an extremely limited freebie that is highly unlikely to benefit anyone on the website.

Another freebie (can't remember who posted it) involved visiting a museum in Singapore to get a goody bag.

We want people to post QUALITY freebies that benefit alot of members on the website, not alot of members live in singapore AND look for freebies in the forum, nor are alot of members willing to like a facebook page, print proof and trek to a park for a postcard.

Most of your freebies are fine and fairly good, but some just look like it was posted for a ticket.

blastarama
UK platinum
Half way there
Total posts: 508
Status: Offline
Date of Birth: 75-01-19
Total Earnings: $232.61

reply date: 2012-05-27 10:19:09

We want to post quality freebies but we dont want to get our posts and tickets removed if we happen to make a mistake and repost a freebie within one month or now three months. So therefore local freebies like the one you quoted above are safer for us the freebie posters. This is exactly what I am saying. Make it easier so we can post quality with worrying about having tickets removed.

There must be an alternative to removeing tickets? How about delaying the reward of tickets until the next lottery draw? At the end of the period all the threads are looked at to see if they deserve a ticket. Where freebies have been double posted merge the threads and only the oldest post gets the ticket award or none of the posts if its been posted within three months. Penalising members should be kept for abuse mis use of shout box pm's abusing offers etc. Not for people who think they just did a good turn posting a freebie but have made an honest mistake. That gets peoples backs up.

100% honest I didnt see a problem with clutter in the Free stuff forum. Some of the popular posts in your popular freebies forum I had never even seen. Cheers for the heads up on Aegis wing lol

chevychic255
US moderator
Helper is my middle name
Total posts: 7717
Status: Online
Total Earnings: $1907.93

reply date: 2012-05-27 23:56:35

Surely you're not truly interested in those freebies yourself, blastarama? If you're not, nobody else is going to be either. What we're looking for is freebies members will enjoy, not just so members can make threads with forms to fill out for useless pieces of paper. Keep in mind what we see going on in the threads is evaluated and helps us better form rules to keep it with good quality freebies. If we keep seeing stuff like this going on, we'll have no choice but to come up with new rules to put in place. Don't ruin the Free Stuff forum just because you were not happy with getting a few Xbox game threads marked for spam. Please better think the freebies you post and ask yourself if you would actually be interested in what you're posting.

As for the popular freebies thread, I'd say this was mainly put in place because we keep seeing some freebies posted continuously, and this helps cut down duplicates.