[denied] Disallow advertising/ linking to sites and services you don't own.

I'm not sure if this rule was updated, but at some point in time, there was not as much advertising on Sythe and as I remember it the rule was written in a way where it could be problematic if you even linked to your own gold shop (of course, it was still allowed, it was just written differently.)

Whereas:

• Staff appear to agree/set a precedent that if you encourage/recommend/facilitate someone to trade with another member that you accept liability.
• It's difficult to enforce this, and it appears it is not equally enforced for everyone, and not realistic to expect someone to actually accept full liability.
• There are already anti-advertising rules when it comes to solicitations.

Then:

• Members should not be allowed to advertise another member's services/website in their usertitle or signature.

I understand that a user title and signature is meant to be the user's personal space and they get to decide what to put in it, but this has gone too far and basically morphed into unsolicited advertising. User titles were originally never used to advertise, they were just a quick comment/statement and I don't even believe you could hyperlink them. Signatures still have size limits, so to say that "well you can just disable it" is a pretty weak counter-argument.

I am not saying people shouldn't be allowed to link, or to promote their own services. That's less "advertising" like and more self-promotion. But when people are specifically getting paid by others to promote someone else's services that's literally advertising. And I don't see ANYONE disclosing these ads properly. You literally can't tell if someone works for that person or if they got paid to say it at this point. And this also breaks multiple consumer laws in multiple countries. So if this isn't approved or looked into, then at least consider requiring advertising disclosure at the very least.

This will by the way have other benefits, if advertisers can't buy ads all over the sites, then they're more likely to buy an official advertisement from @Sythe and if there's not advertisement littered in every signature then it's less likely in the future for more ad blocks to break the site, and it's more likely people would be willing to disable their adblock since they're not constantly seeing ads on every single reply (without having to completely hide everyone's signatures, which can actually be useful when they advertise their contact information on there.)


TLDR:
Advertisements shouldn't be in user titles and signatures, unless it's just promoting your own service. It's for the greater good of the community.

 

Even if it's not a rule, personally i'd be embarassed to rent out my signature or user title for 25$/month like some people do. That aside ; I don't see how an endorsement can possibly get stronger than having it basically merged in your name.

I would agree with your post, however, it's a free market BUT as andy mentioned

• Fully endorsing someone in this manner in order to convince someone else to trade with them means that the endorser accepts liability should things go south.

• However, things get complicated when someone is actively endorsing a user in this way. Fully endorsing someone in this manner in order to convince someone else to trade with them means that the endorser accepts liability should things go south.

So basically, if someone get's scammed, the user advertising should accept full liability.

According to the rules, and decisions made that should be, but i'm fully certain nobody would be help accountable.

It's especially baffling to me that a user who was recently banned for hacking someone (blackhat) is being conciously advertised by a moderator. To add the advertisement is his direct website which he can collect sensitive information. Not mentioning names, and not attempting to slander the user, just setting an example.

 

This doesn't have anything to do with staff members. If I wanted to dive into this going that route the suggestion would be a lot different. This is just something that can universally be applied to all members and be fair/logical.

And while it's a beneficial side-effect of the suggestion that @Sythe would make more money off advertisements, I like the fact that it addresses a lot of other issues. It just doesn't make sense for anyone to scroll through Sythe, imagine a guest, and be bombarded with 3 ads per reply. it makes Sythe look like those shady sites that are just there for ad revenue, and creates liability issues for the person putting the advertisement there for no reason. It can confuse people, especially new users, hurts competition/equal exposure for people on threads and funnels a lot of the traffic out of Sythe and into third party websites very quickly without the added benefit of Sythe at least receiving advertising revenue.

 

I don't see Sythe wanting to intentionally, basically remove the majority of the incentive of the current moderators to remain moderators. He pays them nothing, puts in barely any work anymore (not intending to come off as disrespectful), and makes a stable passive income off the website. Why he would want to potentially risk messing it up?

Currently as it stands turning into ex staff / remaining an inactive mod nets you money regardless, if adds are removed, and mods want to quit sythe at a certain point, based on a majorities historical past, it wouldn't be insane to assume that they could exit scam, tarnishing the websites image in turn.

It also gives less of an incentive for people to become moderator (Personally i'd argue this as a good thing) since the people who would want to be a moderator would be for non financial gains, as an aspect of the monetary incentive will be gone.

 

Support.
- Users don't know that trusted users are getting paid to advertise a service they don't own
- Users are most likely use said services because it's being advertised by a trusted user
- Most of the time the party advertising has no connection to said service and is not involved at all
- People are visiting these advertisements via trusted source but have no knowledge the advertiser does not own nor back the services with their own reputation.
- I believe it would be fair for the party advertising services to cover any scams or loss if whoever they are advertising for does scam.

 

no support for disallowing advertising services you don't own. However I would support a rule which said that by advertising a service you are 'hard vouching' for them and accept liability in any cases of scam. these would still leave passive income options open for trusted users willing to rent their sythe and discord spaces, but it would also force them to make more informed decisions about their advertisement rentals and only advertise services they trust and beleive in.

The only downside I see to this is it makes it hard for newcomers to create a space for themselves on the site because nobody would be willing to rent them advertisement space; that said most newcomers are evaders or scammers anyways

 

those are all very valid objections tbh and it would be super hard to keep track of.

Personally when I do when I rent out advertisement space is I either have the person i'm renting from create a unique discord link to my server, or give them a discount code to give to referred users, I use this for keeping track of how well the advertisement works, but you could use it to determine if a space renter is liable in a specific instance.

You could have a tiered system where the actual service provider is liable for damages first, and if they don't resolve it ie just take the ban or DNT instead, then the advertiser who links to that customer is second in line to be liable.

 

No support, we should be free to put what we want in our UTs / signatures, paid or not. It's essentially the same in real-life if you own a fleet of trucks, someone pays you to advertise their product / service on the side of those trucks, the client paying you turns out to be fraudulent and gets sued (and you as the advertising facilitator via the trucks are now eligible to be sued also) See where this is going? This wouldn't work in real-life and would become difficult here.

Hell I would take a monthly payment to advertise something in my signature (provide the user seemed fairly genuine), can always use a little extra cash.

Perhaps an update could be made to the rule so that if someone is being paid to advertise for someone else, they MUST include a disclaimer that it is a paid advertisement. This would fit easily into a signature but unsure how it would fit inside a UT.

 

They can still advertise their own services, like @video does to some degree in his user title. They could still advertise the place they work at/for and I'm sure they could still spawn miniranks and use their position for other ways of making money as they do.

It would be really really sad if the majority of incentive for moderators is like $100 a month.

Well if you want to compare it to real life it'd be closest to social media influencers shouting out people. And they're supposed to disclose it and most do disclose it since it's required by law in most first world places.

So we should at least require disclosure then, so I agree with you there. For usertitles if it's a concern about it fitting they could just put [AD]

 

Good suggestion but I think more ways giving rise to multi-class Sythe litigation in such an instance is just an unnecessary strain on resources and unnecessarily complicates something so simple.

My $0.02:

I support this suggestion but would modify it slightly. Due to the aforementioned issues, imagine a new Sythe user seeing other Sythe users with website adverts next to their names:

(1) Various of these advertisements are not even factually correct,
(a) Cheapest Gold on the market!
How are 20 of you the cheapest gold on the market? Saying "Best Seller" that's ok as it's subjective. The term "Cheapest" is a calculable claim and is necessarily false for everyone but 1 person (or those of equivalent value to that one person) at any given time. Prices change every day, impossible or highly unlikely claim.

(b) Most trusted seller! Again, the term "most" is presumably calculable. Who says you're more trustworthy than anyone else? What's your metric of calculation and proof?

(a) and (b) are under the realm of essentially false advertising without adequate proof when making objective claims. "Most trusted, based on TrustPilot comparisons to other sellers" seems more objectively correct.

Either way imagine a new Sythe user seeing this:

(2) Moderator/Admin advertising "Go to XXXX.com for the OSRS Gold!"
Okay so a moderator/admin (someone with power/repute) is telling me to go to this site.

Mind you, this would be the same Moderators/Admins responsible for settling disputes, and because the size of the sites they usually advertise, have a high likelihood of being involved in the outcome of a decision involving the parties they're advertising for.

In any other context (of justice) it would be considered bribery or at the very least conflict of interest.

With that being said, I also place value the rights of private individuals to make private contracts for anything they please - So my suggestion would be to bar any Sythe staff from advertising any specific seller/user.

Seems to be a tailspin towards nepotism and monopoly to me, but hey what do I know.

Nice topic of discussion, seems interesting. Have a good one guys!

Best,
VGP

 

Not sure, I didn't intend to imply it happens frequently or even has happened in the past (I would be the wrong person to ask in terms of Sythe history).

However, in a "judicial system" where if one wanted to report a big site for any reason and that report is solely handled by people paid by those big sites and/or the staff/site receives large revenues from donations or implicit usage of the Sythe by big sites, it would be a prima facie case for conflict of interest.

Furthermore, Sythe disputes (in terms of evidence) aren't even publicized so god knows what happens behind the scenes. Why it is not public is beyond me, "personal information" is not anything new to evidence required in a civil or criminal proceeding - there's something called a "redacted document".

You can omit any personal or compromising details and only include substantive proof as it pertains to the decision of the present case. "X IP address was used to verify person A" okay, I guess you could just omit the IP address and state that we have this IP log 192.125.1232 (state it like) (192.123.XXX) matches (192.123.XXX) so we know it's them.

A person said XYZ through discord/sythe/etc. and we have verified it's them (screenshot with redacted personal info but shows what they said).

This is definitely a tangent, so sorry about that. But as it pertains to your question I have no idea.

 

I would distinguish between the importance of having a variety of competitors versus the cumulative impact of the competitors relative to the rest of the community. I agree that multiple different sites/persons are advertised by staff.

Those people also happen to be the biggest donators/users/ad-buyers/etc. of Sythe. Public endorsement by staff of their highest revenue generation clients doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

This is tantamount to China telling us that their products are the best quality in the world. Of course, when you buy a Chinese product the Chinese government gets revenue in the form of tax. Then when you have a dispute with a Chinese product supplier, the Chinese government gets to decide the outcome of the decision because that's the "fair process".

(This is why church and state was separated in the United States and why the government is not allowed to endorse any privately owned profit-seeking entity formally).

So is the case in any legal proceeding within the United States. I highly doubt Apple, Facebook, Google, or any other company big or small wants any of their internal information publicized especially if they're actually at fault and especially if their alleged transgression is of a nasty nature (usually the case when someone's actually scamming someone badly). But, any evidence you submit to a public court is subject to public records and can be accessed by anyone.

Let me also add that some, and usually the most impactful, scams on this site would be considered a felony:

"Grand theft includes theft of property with a value of more than $950." (Granted this is from the State of California, but practically all states have similar statutes).

Theft of more than $950 is a felony (criminal law).

In a criminal proceeding (Actually a fun documentary called "how to fix a drug scandal" on Netflix) even if evidence from a case is of private nature due to ongoing investigation, after the investigation, the State is required to allow anyone to view the evidence (obviously non-lawyers have no interest in this, but you may request the prosecuting body to produce the evidence, say a document, that they have in their custody, and they must provide it).

In the present case, the Prosecutors were in cahoots with the defendants and tried to conceal it (mind you, prosecutors have HUGE power). They almost got out of it too, until a defense lawyer went into the judicial building physically and was permitted to view the documents, took pictures, and eventually took down corrupt prosecutors who almost got away with it that shook the judicial system of the entire State of Massachusetts from the local PDs to the Attorney General of the State.

Why? Because in a "fair" and democratic system of justice, the interests of the public in transparency of the system they're trusting to do things correctly outweighs almost any private entity's claim of privity. This is well established. Very few cases meet this extremely high threshold (if any cases on this site were litigated in a real court literally 0% of them would qualify for privity of evidence from the public).

Back to what a redacted document is. You can literally white out any identifying information and keep substantive materials pertinent to the dispute. What someone claims or says or the amount they sent, etc. is not personal or identifying information. Your Discord account that you advertise on Sythe is not personal or identifying information you can't afford to leak. Your RuneScape account can have name, character, and stats redacted. Your IP can be redacted in part such that it does not reveal the entirety of address. Videos can be screenshotted to the pertinent sections and redacted as simple as an image (literally takes 30 seconds as long as you know what personal information you want to redact).

Real life is also a free market. The US operates on a system of negative rights. Meaning you can do whatever you want unless it's prohibited. Other systems only allow you to things that they mandate, usually we find this is post-monarchist and totalitarian systems.

It can be compared to real life pretty well. People are allowed the freedom to trade how they want. If you want Sythe's help to resolve a dispute, you must allow for objective non-identifying evidence to be publicly available for other members to see why the outcome of the case was reached.

"We found that this person scammed the other person" is not evidence for why the outcome was reached. That's providing a conclusion. Essentially saying, no matter what you'll never know why it was decided the way it was - then the results (DNTs/TWCs/Bans) are publicized.

So - if I want to know exactly what evidence (perhaps weak or damning) was used to reach this conclusion, I am at a loss and must entrust that other individuals (admittedly trying their best but not legally trained and also due to the aforementioned perhaps entailing nepotism/favoritism - all the more reason to show public evidence - may be a factor), decided the case "fairly".

Why is there inconsistent rulings? Because the evidence is not there so the standard of evidence for a ruling is not standard and there is no case for a defendant or plaintiff to refer to in making their claim as to how to should be decided based on the evidence at hand.

Connecting these two together, if it "simply a forum where people are allowed to trade", then there should be no "dispute resolution" function. In a "simple forum where people are allowed to trade", disputes are your problem and based on your decisions/risk.

Once you actively take a step to offer a judicial process, one would assume, or at least I would expect, active efforts to make that system transparent and as trustworthy as possible.

Yes, but on eBay or a similar forum that has their own dispute process I have the option of contesting it and I can take both the buyer/seller or eBay to court and the results of that court I can appeal to a higher court, so on so forth.

Also their dispute process is automated (objective, and based on tracking #).

This was super fun to respond to (I apologize if it sounded argumentative, it is the nature of the thread and myself personally haha), but I thoroughly enjoyed thinking about your comment and my responses.

Best,
VGP

 

I believe we're all speaking about endorsement in general, irrespective of standing.

 

My ad blocker is blocking your signature, it's clearly what caused issues with ad blocks, they had to make their rules less strict than just blocking the div the top banners were in because there's ads riddled in every signature.

Like wow, thank god you had to use THREE of the same banners to get your point across. You just win.

And by the way, I'd rather have like one ad spot under every post than people's signatures be advertisements because at least then it's consistent, consistently sized, and it'd just be one, not three of them in a row.

People also have regular signatures too. It was initially used to just have a little bit of space to say something instead of constantly reposting it on every reply. You can use all the excuses you're using right now to continue promoting your failing business.

Ah yes that's why it's required by law to label things as advertisements, because it's always so obvious.