Links in posts
 

When is a gift of information not a gift?
IMHO if you wish to genuinely give (hopefully) useful information / updates etc, then these should be donated it within the framework of the Horizons site.
Unless, of course, the Hubb is just being used to redirect traffic elsewhere for selfish aka $$ / promoting self importance etc. reasons.

Would it not be useful if Grant/Susan could share their detailed views on what is/is not acceptable?

Why should one be limited to the HU framework ?

I am glad people share links to interesting sites, blogs, products and video's.
As far as I know, that is the purpose of the HUB, to share information in any form.

Gift of information is always a gift.
If there is a specific question being asked, and I know of YouTube video or article/blog that covers the subject, I link to it. I don't spend time to write my own answer, or copy/paste from the other location. I have also linked to well made manufacturer videos (like making carbon fiber panels) when the method can also be applied to products from other manufacturers.
If I was making some things (parts, videos, etc.), and someone asked about that sort of things, I would say that I am making those things. I would probably also put a link in my signature. I would not link to them and say they were the best thing on earth, and I would not have that as my only contribution to the forum.
So now you have my opinion, for what it's worth. :innocent:

Links to Youtube
 

Linsk to your own Youtube channel should not be allowed.
Since that is commercial advertisment: Forbidden.
Evenif it is travel story.
HU should not be used to get more viewer/subscribers/money.
Youtube channels are money makers.

But....
of course if someone else has published an instruction video that answers a specific queastion. That is OK.

a) It is not you own channel => you do not earn on it
b) It answers a question and is not used for general advertisment


That is my personal opionon.
Others have differnet views. And that is OK for me.

:D
Welcome to the Hubb
Just a quick heads up on your post
If you manufacture goods to sell on here, you need to get in touch with Grant/Susan to pay your advertising dues before you advertise on here. They'll welcome your contact.
ATB

AFAIK know linking pages with advertising or affiliate links is against HuBB rules.

I had a link to a non travel, non commercial page I used to run in my signature when I joined and had to remove it as it was against rules. I'm not aware things have changed.

From the Forum FAQ

'You agree not to post any advertising, URL's with affiliate id's or tracking numbers or anything which actively promotes your own site or company without prior authorization. Pretending to be a traveller and hyping your own business is not okay. '

I don't really have any problems with Grant's rules. After all it's not a democracy, it's his site, so he can decide what's acceptable and what's not. And most of the time it is fairly cut and dried - this link is some chancer being paid to promote something = snip. That link is someone wanting free advertising = snip. The other link is trying to drive traffic to an eg YouTube channel / clickbait site where eyeballs mean money = snip.

At the other end there's links that come up in the course of valid discussions - 'here's what I mean', or 'this is what I used'. Many of those end up at commercial sites but they're not snipped, mainly, I'd guess anyway, because there's no direct commercial gain being made - it's mainly an exchange of information. That, when all is said and done, is what we come here for. Questions and answers, freely peergroup given.

But, as always, there are grey areas. Links to personal YouTube sites, posts that start off as 'here's my experience in South America / Africa / Road of Bones' etc and end 'my book of the trip is now on Amazon', 'Big Names' that pop up with a fairly bland post aimed at keeping them in the public eye, references in the text to other people's commercial sites, people who put a bit more effort in than just a mild profanity and a link, and all the rest. All of which could fall one side of the line today and the other side tomorrow. I got my personal travel site snipped many years ago and my wrist slapped for including it in my signature even though it had no money making content whatsoever and was purely for entertainment, yet I notice other have not. Maybe they've contributed, but I was never asked for money, just told to remove it. Maybe a different moderator on a different day would have reached a different conclusion but it was what it was and that's the rules we play by. I used to think the balance point was 'here's something I did' = snip, but 'here's something he did' (that I think is relevent to the topic and I'm not making any money out of it) = tick, but it's obviously more nuanced than that.

I guess things are different over on HU Facebook where a lot of the contributions are blatently nothing but self promotion. If you snipped them there wouldn't be much left.

I do notice that there are far fewer verbal fist fights these days than there used to be. Whether that's the smack of firm moderation - a sort of snip first and sort it out afterwards approach, or that we're just a nicer bunch of people these days I can't tell (probably we're all older!) but it certainly has made it a more pleasant place to 'hang out'.

I think you are far away from reality if you state YT channels are generally money makers.

Google tells me that are 38 millions YT chanels existing and that every minute these users upload 500hrs of content. 230.000 channels have more than 100k subscribers. 22.000 channels got more than 1 million subscribers. 700 of them have over 10 Mio subscribers.

You need a minimum of 1000 subscribers and you must have reached a minimum of 4000 watched hours in the past 12 months before you can start monetizing your channel. If you reached this than the CTR(Clickthrough rate) ist coming to the game: You get a 100 views on a video and 5 user click an ad. Gives you a CTR of 5% which is the value that is monetizing. A video like this would you make earn some less cents.

So to state a YT chanel is a money maker will be for the majority of YTs still a dream that never drives into the reality of money making. Growing the amount of monthly subscribers and views through valuable content is hard work and it takes normally years to get some money back. Not everybody in the scene of motorcycle videos is a Noraly from Itchey Boots who was able to create an explosive channel wonder. And btw she has a lot of subscribers from regions with a with a very low CPM. Which means simply explained that indian viewers don`t create as much ad value as european users do and which reduces clearly her income measured only by the numbers of viewers compared to channels with western viewers. (a reason why she offers subtitles in many languages)

I totally agree if someone registers a The Hubb and tries to use the forum only to start selfpromoting his channel - that this should be stricltly forbidden.

But if there is a member who contributed to the social community here and who now starts a travel vlog why should he/she not to be permitted to give this information to the community?
In todays times YT is what the books in the 18th century were and nobody would state generally that books should be forbidden because the writer could makes eventually money on it.

I think that the contributing community here as well as the owner with his forum rules and moderating actions are doing a realy great job which donesn`t need any strictly ban to YT channels of members.

If I look to the stats I get the info that HU website has an average of 3155 unique users with 9466 pageviews a day. And because you can read the forum without any registrations an easy way to stop abusing this plattform as a multiplier for your YT channel or ad/afiliate websites will be to generate a script that blinds out out all links in comments for not logged in users. But be aware this will also have an negative effect to the stats and ad income of HU website and it would possibly damage the over years build up image and value of this openhearted and helpfull community.

So I think the rules of HU are still fine and all members create a valuable community which does not need more strictly bans than existing today. We are all guests here and as a guests and people who travel the world we are used to follow the rules given by the host or don`t we?

Think some of you are making a mountain out of a mole hill !!
It is a great site !
#
If it bothers you so much then dont "U TUBE "

I think some have missed the point, sharing useful info is often a great help, but a user who just posts linking his blog to earn revenue rather than provide useful info isn't in the spirit of the hubb imho.

The updates I've been providing on the COVID situation are posted on 2 other sites that I run, now I could just post a link to one or both of those sites, but thats against the rules so I post the info here as a new comment in the appropriate forum. I gain nothing from posting here or elsewhere except the knowledge that people may find the information helpful.

I very much disagree with that.
I put links to my TouTube channel on the HUB, not to make money (with the few views I get I don't make money anyway) but to share the experience of the things I love to do (motorcycle rides) with others.
Youtube channels only are moneymakers if you have thousands of viewers and even if they are moneymakers for some peoeple, if the video's are interestings, why not share them on the HUB ? You don't have to watch them and you don't have to pay for it so why would you care.

My take is that you are not and have not used the Hubb to promote your channels.
For me that's absolutely fine and I have zero issues with you attaching links in your signature.
Some, however, constantly promote their channels. Either for a monetary reason (quite rightly against the rules). Or through some sort if hubris/self gratification (just plain boring and tedious:thumbdown:

If you don't like it, don't watch it. There is enough other content on the HUB.

I don't think that he was referring to your content as being boring or tedious - but he finds the way that some people constantly self promote their channels - you don't do that.

Youtube is Youtube and not HU
 

If I want to watch Youtube, I can go to Youtube.
And subscribe if I so want.

If everyone that made a youtube video related to Motorcycle travelling, would publish that on this HUB.
The HUB would collapse.

I do not see the point of the posts
"Now I have publiched a new youtube video"

That is my view.

I definitely wasn't referring to your links:thumbup1:
And you're absolutely correct, I do just scroll on by. So it's no big deal really.

Grant, any pointers pls? before we go 'playing hop-scotch in a minefield'!

The mods are aware of the circumstances you are referring to, and there was a discussion about the particular poster whose post was the initiation for this thread. And whom yes, seems to offer nothing other than links to his site. That's not on.

So that's a clear breach, but it's quite difficult to otherwise draw a fixed line, so feel free to report anything you find tiresome and we can deal with it case by case.

It seems my YouTube videos constitutes a 'channel' so if you want to see an unpolished totally amateur adhoc collection of doggie videos, foxes, Roman ruins, Spanish campo and lots of Moroccan quickies (none of which are monitised), go to https://www.youtube.com/c/TimCullis/videos

Reposting from other threads:


It seems it's time for me to step in and clarify what I kinda, foolishly / naively thought would be obvious, but clearly not.

da rules...

Advertising
You agree not to post any advertising, URL's with affiliate id's or tracking numbers or anything which actively promotes your own business site or company without authorization.

Pretending to be a traveller and hyping your own business is not okay. Businesses desiring to advertise products or services on the HUBB, the Horizons Unlimited website or the monthly e-zine should contact us. See AD RATES here. Advertisers / Small Businesses Posts on the HUBB

a. Small vendors, tour operators etc: You can become a "Contributing Vendor" by simply paying for a one line Advertising Signature, which will show whenever you make a post.

• The price is only US$ 40 per year, payable in advance, minimum 1 year.
• Your signature can contain up to 40 characters of text and your link in one line.

b.You can also become a "HUBB Advertiser".

• The price is only US$ 100 per year, payable in advance, minimum 1 year.
• Your signature can contain
  • up to 150 characters of text and your link in three lines.
  • Signature Image / logo, animated .gif, 200x50 pixels, max 30kb.

c. Vendors with a regular ad (minimum 6 months, US$100 per month) on the HU website, are entitled to the "HU Sponsor" status. See AD RATES here to become an HU Sponsor.

• Your signature can contain
  • up to 250 characters of text and your link in three lines.
  • Signature Image / logo, animated .gif, 330x72 pixels, max 50kb.

IMPORTANT: The above options a, b and c do NOT allow you to make advertising posts, or any post promoting your services or products. You can offer information in response to posts by travellers, but NO MENTION of your services or products is allowed unless it's FREE.
If you wish to make advertising posts:

"Contributing Vendors", "HU Sponsors" and "HUBB Advertisers" can also make an Advertising Post on the HUBB. These are the first post of a thread advertising an event or product, in the appropriate forum.

• You can make as many posts in the thread as you like.
• Price is US$ 100 per thread, payable in advance.
• The thread is "live" for as long as you maintain your "Contributing Vendors", "HU Sponsors" and "HUBB Advertisers" status, so a minimum of one year.

CONTACT Grant to arrange any of the above options.
You can also have a FREE link to your website with a link to us of similar quality. See www.HorizonsUnlimited.com/linktous for details


-----------------------------


With all that, it IS ok to post links to your PERSONAL SITE for more information. HOWEVER - there is a trade-off here if you do that. What we ALLOW and what is FAIR to ALL - including myself, Susan and HU - is a little trickier.

Horizons Unlimited is VERY expensive to run, and is my full time job / living. And I DO like to eat. (During the pandemic our income has been essentially ZERO, not that it has ever really paid near enough.)
So, to do that, we need traffic TO HERE, and CONTENT for google to find and send people HERE, so they spend time on the site, maybe buy a DVD or a t-shirt or download the Achievable Dream series, or even better, go to an HU event or become a Supporting Member.

IF YOU SEND PEOPLE to YOUR site, or any other site, you drive traffic AWAY from HU - and that hurts us. If your site is a hobby, and you like what we do here on HU, the now 24 years of effort to support the traveller community, perhaps you could help to SUPPORT HU by driving traffic and providing full information here whenever possible.

Some people have complained that the "treatment" has been uneven, or unfair:

If you feel you've been done wrong, TELL ME. There's a link to contact at the bottom of every page, or PM me. I listen, and will ALWAYS do my best to hear both sides of a story and be fair to all.
I've also noticed that sometimes peoples understanding of all the factors improves, and they change their ideas, their attitudes, and how they interact on the site, and that's usually a good thing. They day I stop learning is the day they put me in the ground.

The moderators have a VERY difficult job, far harder than you can imagine, trying to apply the rules fairly at all times. They are to be congratulated and appreciated for their usually thankless and always unpaid efforts. We are forever grateful to them.

Sometimes they err - and sometimes mods have been relieved of their duty for too many errors. But always, they try their best.

We - the mods and I - often discuss how best to deal with an issue. I've been thinking hard about this one for several days now, (amongst all the personal stuff I currently need to deal with) - and hope that I have clarified for everyone the essence of what is ok or not re posting on HU.

P.S.: Please note that Greg Frazier has SPONSOR status here, as he has for a very long time promoted HU on a regular basis wherever and whenever he can, in the press, his books, and in presentations. He is a great AMBASSADOR for HU.

Surfy - great info, sparked lots of discussions, and it's much appreciated - please try to post full info here whenever possible.

Someone complained they thought they had been unfairly stepped on for posting a link in their sig to their own site years ago - contact me. Or, just note that a sig link to YOUR OWN NON-commercial, NON-money making in ANY way travel website is fine.

I hope all that makes sense!