Should we create a merchant deals forum?

Quote from lovinthemdeals : NO. I would say no because merchants sole purpose it to make profits and not to decrease profit margin. Merchants should have the ability to help users find details about their products, like the snowboard company that helps match sizes. There will be inevitable collusion.

You really can't have it both ways, don't let the merchants post deals but want them on here to help users.

FYI, if any of you thinks any of the following is true, you are fooling yourself.
1) merchants don't know about slickdeals, thus they don't know when people are abusing their system
2) merchants that are looking to advertise for themselves aren't posting in the hot deals forum already
3) slickdeals puts users' interest before their own

The majority of spam comes from Selma/bots racing to post every weekly ad and daily deal on the internet. Adding a merchant system is an over complicated solution for this problem. Just enforce spam rules against the bots or make a subforum for all their posts and move only the good ones to the Hot Deals forum.

Anything to try to cut down on the "undeal" crap ... go for it.

Quote from RHCCapri : Just put all of the midnite Selma posts in one Meritline/Buy.com/Amazon thread.

Strongly seconded, if this idea does not go through.

Quote from ryocho : You really can't have it both ways, don't let the merchants post deals but want them on here to help users.

I don't want merchants posting, and couldn't care less if they post on here offering "support"... Personally I think it makes great business sense for some of these smaller merchants whose deals get posted for them to help users out as needed, but they shouldn't be doing that just for a quid pro quo deal with SD, just as an added layer of customer service for consumers. But if they don't do that, doesn't make a difference to me.

It shouldn't matter. Just like any worthless spam posted already, a non-slick merchant posting would simply get deleted and TDed.

Otherwise, SD users could benefit from merchants creating truly-slick deals for us with the idea that they'll sell a good volume here to make it worth it to them. I think it could be a win/win.

If any of you Sd members think this is a good idea creating a Merchant forum because you can easily ignore the forum and it will cut down on spam in Hotdeals your dillusional. If it was being done to cut down on spam in hotdeals. The moderators can easily restricts / ban those seen as spamming much easier than making up a whole sub forum that needs moderating and takes up hard drive space on servers. It will make more spam because 'preferred' merchant will get to cross post on hotdeals . Preferred meaning the ones that generate more income to SD not necessarily the ones offering the best deals.

and oh no Merchant is going to pay for an account if their garbage can be easily filtered out by the community.

Go for it. As long as it is separated from the traditional "deals" sections I would not have a problem with it.

Quote from damageinc : If adding a merchants forum will put an end to bots Selma spamming every weekly ad and daily deal, its got my vote. Just because its on sale doesn't make it a hot deal...so rather than having the hot deals forum clogged with all these threads (that get little to no views or replies), stick them in a merchants forum. If it truly is a hot deal, then move/copy it into the Hot Deals forum. This will also put an end to the race of (re)posting them first to get the rep points.

this reply I agree with - At 1st I thought yes, sounds like a good idea, it might help to keep hot deals to us and not the guy who spams his snow gear and boards every week or so. But on the other hand - yes we do get posters who seem to think every weekly ad (and Ebay front page deal) deserves a place on hot deals.
So ~ im sitting on the fence on this one. A place to get rid of the weekly ads and spam? yes great - but maybe limit their use to twice a week? AND they need so many posts and referrals to use it (so they just wont keep signing up new account names)

Would the merchant site be a free site for merchants to post in? I'm wondering if they have to pay a premium to post advertise. If so, you will still have merchants posting in Hot Deals as some inevitably will try to get their own slick deal with a free post.

Alot of the merchants that try to post now are small internet based businesses, I would guess. I wouldn't think places like Sears, Target, Walmart, Dell, etc are trying to get one over on SD by creating accounts and posting illegally in Hot Deals. This just seems more like an opportunity for revenue for SD than it is a benefit for the SD users.

no.

if its for support or helping others then maybe. something similar to newegg. however for anything else.... no.

I'm afraid that some great deals will be locked out in the Merchants Gulag where I won't see them.

There needs to be some mechanism whereby manufacturer-originated deals can wind up in the appropriate forum.

Everyone knows that many freebies really come at the cost of your personal information and/or an email address. If a manufacturer is upfront about it and offers it directly, I think their post should wind up in the Freebies forum where the freebie-hunters hang out.

Some kind of a poll that mods could use to decide if we, the SDers think it's legit. It could be as simple as "needs 25 thumbs-up"

Quote from .teri. : Would the merchant site be a free site for merchants to post in? I'm wondering if they have to pay a premium to post advertise. If so, you will still have merchants posting in Hot Deals as some inevitably will try to get their own slick deal with a free post.

This is one of the big red flags for me, regardless of whether or not there is a charge for merchants, and here's why...

One of the main reasons given for this new forum is to cut down on deals in Hot Deals that SD thinks are likely "spam"...aka posted by the merchant posing as a regular SD member.

If this merchant forum is created, giving the merchant an opportunity to legitimately post deals AS themselves in that forum, what's to stop them from also using other fake/personal/regular user accounts to keep posting other deals in Hot Deals, under the guise that they are just a "regular SD" member posting a "hot deal" they found? You could track by IP or cookies, but that wouldn't be a hurdle for any halfway-savvy computer user to get around.

I just don't see how creating a separate forum would cut down on the supposed self-promotion in HD? A deal appears much more "legitimate" when posted by someone who has no vested interest in the sales of the deal...so how would creating a separate forum for merchants incentivize them from not posting as "regular users" in HD, if that is indeed what they are doing?

Quote from mikejones : what's to stop them from also using other fake/personal/regular user accounts to keep posting other deals in Hot Deals, under the guise that they are just a "regular SD" member posting a "hot deal" they found? You could track by IP or cookies, but that wouldn't be a hurdle for any halfway-savvy computer user to get around.

Except that it is already happening, so what's wrong with slickdeals organize the forum to make the merchant posts more contained?

I see this as similar to the US border issue. It's like saying let's shut down the US border to stop illegal immigration.

Doesn't matter how good your security is some will get through, and some are already here. Wouldn't it be better to have some sort of legal immigration process set up so that at least some of the immigrants entering (legal or otherwise) will be checked and tracked?

Quote from we-was : No please, it's a slippery slope downhill. Slicksters always have access to regular merchant deals by other means. Don't clutter Slickdeals more than it is.

Quote from silentlight : My fear with this is that most times I see something implemented as being completely separate, eventually it becomes integrated with everything else. Also, I doubt any merchants will be posting better deals than SD'ers do anyway.

Quote from turtleXL : SD - for the people, by the people. would love to see a poll actually. after reading several comments, the decision is fairly even.

All of the above. I really don't think we need it. It would really clutter up things and then how would you stop it when the crap gets out of hand? Would you have contracts with merchants to be bound and tethered here?

SD is an awesome community. The fact that it is user driven and so many posters help each other out makes it priceless.

I vote no.