Please, PLEASE get rid of hyperlinking vendors like WF, JA..

Written by Yssie » November 10th, 2010, 7:52 pm:It's incredibly irritating to read, it screws up your links, and it's WAY too aggressive for what is advertised as a CONSUMER forum.

Yes, there are vendors that are near and dear to many PSers' hearts, and that pay to support and be advertised by the forum. But If I type a post that references WhiteFlash, it will look like I am marketing for WhiteFlash, whether or not that is true. As a consumer who has nothing to gain financially from posting on PS, I do not want to appear to be marketing WF unless I openly state as such - and I'm happy to do that when I want to by typing out their website.

Frankly, from a new-consumer's perspective, I think this feature must be a huge turnoff - for a place advertised as a 'consumer forum' it is all too obvious that certain vendors stand to benefit from "consumer" references more than others - and those consumers lose credibility by appearing to favour certain vendors, and the PS forum loses credibility as being first and foremost about diamond consumers. It is obvious that PS endorses certain companies - there is a list in plain print under the Resources tab, this does not need to be made intrusively explicit.

And if I type a post that references Wells Fargo by acronym, it will look like I am marketing for WhiteFlash - which just ridicules the feature.


If the objective is to make clear to new members what the acronyms most often mean, a list on the homepage that we can link to or a dropdown menu in the tabs on the top of the page or under Resources would be more than sufficient.

Hi Yssie,

The goal of hyperlinking the Featured Pricescope Sponsors on the posts was to acknowledge the sponsorship and support. It was a way to thank them for helping in keeping this site up and continue to improve things. It was also to make it convenient for lurkers to just click on the names and be taken to there site. Many forums have started to pop mini ads for the when users mouse over the keywords, but I dislike it and thought this was less obtrusive.

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that it still feels a little to much.

I will think about what can be done to make it better.

Hi Yssie,

Made a small change and It looks much better.

Thanks for your suggestion.

I do find it annoying too. When I was a newbie I worked out who was who without any difficulties.

But if it has to stay, perhaps a compromise?

The initials don't hyperlink but the written names do?

So WF is just WF but Whiteflash hyperlinks to the .com.

(or vice versa)

ETA: Funny, I would have sworn that your second reply wasn't there when I posted Andrey.

ETA2: It is like spot the difference: the hyperlink is navy! Do I win something?

Thanks for looking into this Andrey, I know I'm not the only one who appreciates the change! I think it's MUCH better now - still obviously a link, but not so distracting that it's difficult to read the sentence.


I also apologise if my first post was overly strident - 'twas frustration talking. I do think the format of PS2.0 is a change for the better

Written by Yssie » November 12th, 2010, 5:04 pm:Thanks for looking into this Andrey, I know I'm not the only one who appreciates the change! I think it's MUCH better now - still obviously a link, but not so distracting that it's difficult to read the sentence.


I also apologise if my first post was overly strident - 'twas frustration talking. I do think the format of PS2.0 is a change for the better

Not a problem at all Yssie. My goals are to make things better and I appreciate everyones opinions.

Sometime It is not easy to see all the issue until you try something.

Glad to here that the change on the Sponsor links is much better.

Have a great weekend.

I'm not clear on what was changed. In the past few days I realized that whenever I typed either the letters "W" and "F" next to each other or whenever I typed out the name of the vendor I was linked to that vendor's website. I wasn't whisked away to the site, mind you, but a sentence I typed was provided with links to a vendor as if I wanted to direct people to that vendor. Since this happened in a thread in which I was writing negative things about the vendor, I certainly didn't want to direct anyone to their website! If these links are going to remain, I may circumvent them by writing in the way I did above. That is going to look stilted and stupid and make Pricescope look ridiculous. But I really don't want to advertize a vendor at whom I am angry and I won't do it voluntarily. If Pricescope has these links in place for certain letter combinations, I'll just have to type around those combinations.

By the way, I usually have very good feelings about the W and F vendor. I was just angry today about an advertizing campaign they ran. The point is, if I get angry, I should have the right not to advertize them!

Deb/AGBF

Written by AGBF » November 12th, 2010, 11:38 pm:I'm not clear on what was changed. In the past few days I realized that whenever I typed either the letters "W" and "F" next to each other or whenever I typed out the name of the vendor I was linked to that vendor's website. I wasn't whisked away to the site, mind you, but a sentence I typed was provided with links to a vendor as if I wanted to direct people to that vendor. Since this happened in a thread in which I was writing negative things about the vendor, I certainly didn't want to direct anyone to their website! If these links are going to remain, I may circumvent them by writing in the way I did above. That is going to look stilted and stupid and make Pricescope look ridiculous. But I really don't want to advertize a vendor at whom I am angry and I won't do it voluntarily. If Pricescope has these links in place for certain letter combinations, I'll just have to type around those combinations.

By the way, I usually have very good feelings about the W and F vendor. I was just angry today about an advertizing campaign they ran. The point is, if I get angry, I should have the right not to advertize them!

Deb/AGBF

Hi AGBF,

That is a good point and I didn't see it that way.

What do you all think about a linking the full name and not the acronym? Such as only linking Good Old Gold, but not gog?

Another thing I am considering is to have it for lurkers only.

Please let me know what you think?

Written by PS Admin » November 13th, 2010, 1:54 pm:Another thing I am considering is to have it for lurkers only.

Please let me know what you think?

That solves one of the issues: regulars being irritated by reading text w/ the hyperlinks.

It doesn't solve the other issue of looking like a shill site - it is, afterall, those lurkers (who are seeing the hyperlinked text) whose opinions are to be molded by what they see. If they like what they see they'll sign up and start asking questions regardless, but if more of them think we're shilling when they first find the forum as lurkers and lose incentive to sign up and find out more (and enjoy the hyperlink-free readability), those are people PS might have otherwise enjoyed contributions from, and people who might otherwise have patronised PS sponsors.

As I understand from your earlier posts and those in the Hangout threads, the objective is to highlight the vendors that sponsor PS. So why not put a static "PS sponsors" list at the side of the page - maybe on the right side of the screen, like the gallery images used to be in PS1?
This achieves the goals of
-having an obvious list in thankyou to the sponsors, and making it clear to newbies to consider purchasing from
-keeping all text readable and professional in appearance
-keeping regulars happy that they aren't appearing to shill/market, willingly or not
The list could be just text or could have images, small ads for each company that rotate... there are a ton of ways to make something like this visually both visually appealing and explicit. It would be different from the ads at the top of the page in that it would always have ads/info/links to each sponsor, rather than displaying them one at a time..

Written by Yssie » November 13th, 2010, 8:26 pm:

Written by PS Admin » November 13th, 2010, 1:54 pm:Another thing I am considering is to have it for lurkers only.

Please let me know what you think?

That solves one of the issues: regulars being irritated by reading text w/ the hyperlinks.

It doesn't solve the other issue of looking like a shill site - it is, afterall, those lurkers (who are seeing the hyperlinked text) whose opinions are to be molded by what they see. If they like what they see they'll sign up and start asking questions regardless, but if more of them think we're shilling when they first find the forum as lurkers and lose incentive to sign up and find out more (and enjoy the hyperlink-free readability), those are people PS might have otherwise enjoyed contributions from, and people who might otherwise have patronised PS sponsors.

As I understand from your earlier posts and those in the Hangout threads, the objective is to highlight the vendors that sponsor PS. So why not put a static "PS sponsors" list at the side of the page - maybe on the right side of the screen, like the gallery images used to be in PS1?
This achieves the goals of
-having an obvious list in thankyou to the sponsors, and making it clear to newbies to consider purchasing from
-keeping all text readable and professional in appearance
-keeping regulars happy that they aren't appearing to shill/market, willingly or not
The list could be just text or could have images, small ads for each company that rotate... there are a ton of ways to make something like this visually both visually appealing and explicit. It would be different from the ads at the top of the page in that it would always have ads/info/links to each sponsor, rather than displaying them one at a time..

Hi Yssie and Everyone,

Thank you for brining it to my attention and helping me look through all the different views. I have decided to remove the links for the sponsors.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Written by PS Admin » November 13th, 2010, 1:44 pm:

Written by AGBF » November 12th, 2010, 11:38 pm:I'm not clear on what was changed. In the past few days I realized that whenever I typed either the letters "W" and "F" next to each other or whenever I typed out the name of the vendor I was linked to that vendor's website. I wasn't whisked away to the site, mind you, but a sentence I typed was provided with links to a vendor as if I wanted to direct people to that vendor. Since this happened in a thread in which I was writing negative things about the vendor, I certainly didn't want to direct anyone to their website! If these links are going to remain, I may circumvent them by writing in the way I did above. That is going to look stilted and stupid and make Pricescope look ridiculous. But I really don't want to advertize a vendor at whom I am angry and I won't do it voluntarily. If Pricescope has these links in place for certain letter combinations, I'll just have to type around those combinations.

By the way, I usually have very good feelings about the W and F vendor. I was just angry today about an advertizing campaign they ran. The point is, if I get angry, I should have the right not to advertize them!

Deb/AGBF

Hi AGBF,

That is a good point and I didn't see it that way.

What do you all think about a linking the full name and not the acronym? Such as only linking Good Old Gold, but not gog?

Yes, that was my suggestion (above).

In any event, I am glad you decided to scap the hyperlinking.