Stop the less than subtle competitor hinting.

[NokkonWud]

What a surprise that dirtydog is making a fuss too? Do you ever give up?

You side with your nose, I'll side with the voice of the people thankyou. He is doing nothing wrong, he is speaking in detailed posts about what nearly all of us are thinking.

At the end of the day, I don't hint at anyone, I don't even mention other sites as I believe all details such as these should be dealt with through e-mail, but I understand what people are saying.

But my question, without a list and new members coming all the time, will you be more lax with people posting a name and having to edit it out or just strict with the hinting. A new member, without a list may just say the full name of a shop, but not know (or think) that it's wrong (after all, it's a forum and it's freedom of speech). Will you just edit this and let him off with a yellow warning or just suspend him?

And now for the question thats REALLY bugging me. Time and _time_ again we are told that this forum is seperate from the shop and that shop matters can't be talked about... yet something opposing the shop is disallowed.. We are all on these forums because we shop from Overclockers. I know I do regardless of the fact you're a fair quid more expensive because I haven't had bad service yet.

The only reasons someone would go somewhere other than overclockers is purely down to overclockers, it could be bad service, could be overly expensive, after all, 95% of all the customers have shopped with you before, hell, you can rule a country with less than 95% of people on your side... so other people mentioning other sites won't or shouldn't cause alarm, after all, they could shop from Overclockers... That should be something for you to strive at, not moderators stopping the public talking.

 

[DaveyD]

And now for the question thats REALLY bugging me. Time and _time_ again we are told that this forum is seperate from the shop and that shop matters can't be talked about... yet something opposing the shop is disallowed.. We are all on these forums because we shop from Overclockers. I know I do regardless of the fact you're a fair quid more expensive because I haven't had bad service yet.

Shop matters cannot be talked about on here due to the fact that no OcUK staff can deal with customers this way (one of the reasons anyway) etc. It has nothing to do with competitors, as even though the forum has a no shop talk, it is still funded by the store, meaning it still has an implication financially to OcUK.

 

[NokkonWud]

Thanks for explaning that DaveyD, but I believe most of my argument holds water .

 

[Adex]

Or ocuk could simply offer `competitive pricing` and have no need to worry about policing all the sly links and suggestions
As surely if a company was comfortable with its pricing structure there would be no need to have an army of mods and brownies (RTM spammers) wasting their own valuable time chasing every suspect link !?

From reading most of this thread it seems that its ok to mention any company as long as they dont sell anything priced more customer friendly than ocuk.

Quote `If Game sold more hardware than 2 keyboards and a Geforce 2 Ultra stickered at £300, then they would be a competitor`

 

[JUMPURS]

as far as i know, i read in i think it was the graphics section, you can talk about shop matters, you just cant talk about any order issues etc.
the forums aint really seperate, they are just a mass form of advertising. you ask for help in one of the hardware sections, people always give you a list of products from the OCUK shop and i dare say most folk just buy it from them. And fair enough ocuk supply the bandwidth, storage of these forums they should get some form of return.
tbh i think there should just be a blanket ban, but let folk use the Aliases of Jersey, Purple shirt etc

 

[Phil99]

as far as i know, i read in i think it was the graphics section, you can talk about shop matters, you just cant talk about any order issues etc.
the forums aint really seperate, they are just a mass form of advertising. you ask for help in one of the hardware sections, people always give you a list of products from the OCUK shop and i dare say most folk just buy it from them. And fair enough ocuk supply the bandwidth, storage of these forums they should get some form of return.
tbh i think there should just be a blanket ban, but let folk use the Aliases of Jersey, Purple shirt etc

The rules are:

You can talk about the shop unless it's negative talk
You can't talk/hint about direct competitors
You can't talk about order queries/RMAs, though you can share +ve experiences of queries/RMAs.

Makes sense from the business point of view, though sometimes I wish this community was a completely seperate entity*

(*though I do appreciate the forums being here and am thankful to Spie for paying for them, and the mods who give up their free time to run them )

 

[JUMPURS]

well technically it is us that pay for them but yeah i agree wid ya

 

[Davey_Pitch]

well technically it is us that pay for them but yeah i agree wid ya

The money comes completely out of Spie's own pocket, not the shop's money. You can of course counter argue that he gets the money from the shop, but since not all of the customers are members here (and not all the members shop at OcUK), it's an invalid argument.

 

[cheets64]

Face it, if you had built up your own company and people where talking about competitors on your forums, would you be happy.

It may not take away business, but it could do, if you want bargains bookmark dedicated sites like i do, there is nothing better than getting a bargain, but i'd ban people straight away from mentioning competitors to my business.

 

[Davey_Pitch]

Bumping this, as some people are being blatently stupid and ignoring it. I'm getting fed up with it now. If people carry on with the hinting I won't be deleting posts any now, I'll be deleting post and suspending accounts.

You have all been warned. It stops now.

 

[Kalsius]

And it's the 4 letter one causing most of the problems in all fairness. The number of people doing that in recent weeks has got insane.

Edit: Linking to single items on ebay from areas that don't compete is considered ok.

For example linking to a funny car ad is fine, linking to something in the computing section isn't.

-Dolph

Not to be awkward or anything but...

Posting links to or the mentioning of auction sites

Just to illustrate the way the rules "being bent" is causing problems to people. The rule is clear, don't post or MENTION auction sites. Yet we get a half okay from a mod saying we CAN post a link or mention an auction site. I try and stay away from linking, I remember a time when i wanted to point out the stupidity of pricing but after re-checking the rules I didnt post as the rule was clear. Now there's a different interpretation hidden away in some topic somewhere for someone to quote??

I agree with the rules, I sure as heck wouldn't want to pay for forums and have competitors sites mentioned but make it clear when making decisions. The rule says one thing, the mod seems to say another.

P.S. Not trying to cause aggro, just pointing out an area where clarity is good

 

[Abooie]

Whilst I agree with no direct competitor links I'll come back to

if a company if primarily a toy retailer it should be ok to mention as long as you're not referring to it for hardware.

I think my common sense had always been this but applied to all non-hardware retailers including the one that's had the plethora of unsubtle mentions that's imo sparked this thread.

With the scarcity of the 360 and components people have been publishing links and mentioning sites with a sense of urgency. I've yet to see any link direct or otherwise to a banned site with regards to any item other than a console or component not sold by OcUK.

Imo, there is a wider issue regarding the support of a Console gaming forum at all, as people are now sat playing their 360s and not upgrading every 6 months! But that's for another time

I personally would take the common sense approach that to my knowledge no one on this forum (Console) has referred to a competitor for anything that OcUK sells.

P.S. You could also have solved all this trouble by stocking 360s and it's components!

 

[Davey_Pitch]

I personally would take the common sense approach that to my knowledge no one on this forum (Console) has referred to a competitor for anything that OcUK sells.

That generally isn't the problem. The problem is there is a certain store, which although not an instantly obvious competitor cannot be mentioned at all. People still hint at this competitor in any way they can think of. That is where the problem lies.

 

[TheMagicPirate]

But surely if we all know that they sell hardware etc, then most if not all of us would check the site before buying [component] anyway?

So the problem of mentioning them thus resolves itself? (Partly due to this thread)

 

[da_mic_1530]

so let me understand something

specifically for the console game section, we all kno that the 4 letter competitor is a no go

GAME by your own admission isnt due to them selling no PC hardware of any worth
id assume Gamestation to be the same?

Then we have the grey areas, id adsume "where in the world" to be a competitor, also the two Red high street retailers who seel everything electrical

Im assuming the console forum will be where most of the competitor posting is being done, but if the place ONLY sell games, are we ok to link?

imo linking to the auction site - there is simply no need as the prices are inflated anyway so that isnt a problem

Cheers 4 any1 who clears that up

 

[Davey_Pitch]

But surely if we all know that they sell hardware etc, then most if not all of us would check the site before buying [component] anyway?

So the problem of mentioning them thus resolves itself? (Partly due to this thread)

It doesn't work like that. If something is deemed to be a competitor, then you can't mention it, whether it's completely obscure or the most famous shop in the country.

 

[Euro_Hunter]

That generally isn't the problem. The problem is there is a certain store, which although not an instantly obvious competitor cannot be mentioned at all. People still hint at this competitor in any way they can think of. That is where the problem lies.

Hehe, well you're going to have this problem forever then until you either name the store or ban all links.

I don't know which store it is you are refering to and I guess many more people don't know either.

 

[Davey_Pitch]

so let me understand something

specifically for the console game section, we all kno that the 4 letter competitor is a no go

It's a competitor forum wide. It's not specific to games.

GAME by your own admission isnt due to them selling no PC hardware of any worth
id assume Gamestation to be the same?

Correct. Game, Gameplay, Gamestation et al are completely fine

Then we have the grey areas, id adsume "where in the world" to be a competitor, also the two Red high street retailers who seel everything electrical

There's no grey area. Your first example is a PC specialist, so is a very obvious competitor. The other 2 are less so, and can be mentioned, but only as long as you're mentioning them regarding something OcUK doesn't sell (ie, games, washing machines, etc)

Im assuming the console forum will be where most of the competitor posting is being done, but if the place ONLY sell games, are we ok to link?

Of course, if it doesn't sell anything OcUK does then it's completely fine to mention or link to.

imo linking to the auction site - there is simply no need as the prices are inflated anyway so that isnt a problem

Cheers 4 any1 who clears that up

Questions answered.

 

[Davey_Pitch]

Hehe, well you're going to have this problem forever then until you either name the store or ban all links.

I don't know which store it is you are refering to and I guess many more people don't know either.

Don't you think telling you which stores you can't link to or mention kinda defeats the point? And if you read the first post I think it's very obvious which store I'm reffering to, pretty much everyone else here has got it.

 

[da_mic_1530]

cheers davey thats cleared it all up for me tbh, no arguments