UKC

I'd just written a hugely witty and entertaining response to a thread about first leads. But on posting it said 'error no such thread'.

The thread is nuked I guess because it had a link to a humorous climbing.com article.

Question to the mods - what links are acceptable? Anything as long as it's not a rival site? Seems a bit petty - it could have been a good thread.

Bet it wasn't as witty and entertaining as the one I wrote which suffered the same fate!

I've never written anything witty or entertaining, but have still had threads pulled, if that helps

My response was rude and thuggish. Brutally carved by the hand of an fool from the lowest tainted ore and slag. Its features grim and charicature. 

I still miss it though. 

Yes, deleting the thread was a mistake. I think it was a good starting point for some amusing stories about our first trad leads. At least it brought me back to my reckless youth with a smile.

Is this a thing that UKC does often? Would be interesting to hear from a moderator as to reasons.

Apologies for this. It is a slight problem with removal when people may be in the process of replying.

We don't mind external links to an extent, however threads with them really need to contain some discussion. That is the nature of a Forum - a place for opinions and discussion. Just linking to external articles is not something we want to proliferate. I am aware that there are plenty of examples of this type of thread currently live on the forums but we had a bit of a purge this morning due to it becoming a little more prevalent.

It is also a common practice amongst people fishing for free publicity for their own interest although these are almost always quickly pulled up by readers reporting them as spam. 

Alan

Fair enough.

See, they've got you sussed - "It is also a common practice amongst people fishing for free publicity for their own interest although these are almost always quickly pulled up by readers reporting them as spam. "

Surely the arbiter for  a post should be the  viewing figures?How will you know what those figures are if you abort a post in its first day?

I thought the point of UKC,from the proprietor's viewpoint,was to sell advertising and products and services? If people come to the site to see what is being posted,then surely that will make you money?Is not the space for new posts infinite?

The point of UKC is to create a great climbing information site with news, reviews and articles that inspires people to go climbing and record what they have climbed. In order to pay for it we offer advertising to our readership to companies (no products and services unless you include Rockfax books but they are presented as an advertiser).

Increasing the readership is an asset to us when we approach advertisers but we don't gain any money directly by a UKC user's presence. ie. viewing a page doesn't add some magical click to a grand totaliser machine that adds it all up and spits out a bill to the relevant advertiser at the end of the month.

Having 85,000 registered users is a good thing for us. 86,000 would be even better but initially it would just be a cost (small) in extra bandwidth - we need to sell the numbers to convert it into revenue. 

As an aside - there are plenty of advertising systems that do pay per view/click but I think most readers will be well aware of the sort of advertising these display and the reasons that we reject them on a weekly basis. It would make our advertising work easier but it would probably destroy the appeal of the site for most readers.

You are correct in that we could allow anything and everything to be posted on the forums, it isn't a question of space. However unmoderated forums rapidly become unpleasant spaces where no-one wants to spend any time. To achieve this we have rules on the forums one of which is that we discourage threads started with just a single link going elsewhere. I gave the reasons why in my reply above.

Alan

Guilty as charged. Actually I was being sarcastic - my post was dull as ditchwater.

Very dry response Alan. I don't think my posts bore or particularly upset the readers. Why don't you ask them? Links to other sites or no,people come onto the site and if they are reading the posts,that means they are on the site and susceptible to advertising. You said it yourself.You made a policy decision.Policy is not always based on profits.The punter on this post said he regretted you pulling my link to climbing.com. Is not the customer always right?

Is not the customer always right?

A sentence that sends a shudder down the spine of anyone who has ever worked in retail...

Since Alan James said that 'We don't mind external links to an extent, however threads with them really need to contain some discussion', why not just repost the link (create another thread as necessary) and add a bit of discussion. Everybody should be happy.

This post bored me.

I have wondered in the past if you would get bored of forever starting new threads with an absolute minimal description of what it's all about then a link to odd youtube videos...

There's nothing to stop you starting another one, and nothing to stop the folks who're disappointed that their witty/entertaining/brutish/thuggy tales of derring do are gone from posting them again.

The thread really didn't need the link anyway, it would have been better for someone to start it with a personal story of their own in the first place.

I'd almost be tempted to have a go myself if I had a story to share, but my first lead must have been very boring.  It will have been something on Stanage, but I can't even remember which route it was.

I don't think it's exactly done out of malice.

I quite like the stuff he's digging up.

I got banned for being witty(in my opinion) with no links attached! 

To the UKC editors, why not start a topic group called "found online" which is only external links to interesting articles. External links to competitors shouldn't be a problem if you add the caveat of a descriptive link and the start of a discussion (or reasonable rules around that)

An interesting idea but I don't think it is really necessary. We don't mind links to external sites if they are qualified with some introduction and potential discussion. We are already well aware of the pitfalls that can happen when people try to get free advertising using this method, but readers are way ahead of us in this respect since any attempt to freeload in that way is reported within minutes.

The purge yesterday was a series of single link posts, in the Off Belay forum, with no qualification. A lot of these were being reported to us anyway by disgruntled readers who clicked on them and got something annoying, boring or irrelevant to them.

Cheers

Alan

Well, since you have...  your posts often both bore and annoy me.  Anyone can trawl around youtube and put up a set of bald links.  It's ill-mannered (hence the annoyance) and tedious (hence the boredom).  I'm very glad Alan is taking the stance he has.  I was a bit surprised you got such a considered and measured response.

I've often enjoyed the articles or videos that Paul links to. He was/is a very good climber and is an asset to the forums. I'm just wading in because I find that kind of ganging up on someone via the dislike system etc. quite distasteful.