Solicitations to a video site

Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday

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Doc Holliday
We've seen many threads here when the poster starts the thread, then places their youtube video there and ask members to "go take a look". While it seems harmless, what's actually happening is these posters are using this website to drive users to their website, in which they are being monetized by youtube. So, the more people that click the video equals more money to the developer of the video.

In the TOS it states Solicitations and Advertisements are prohibited, except when posted in The Classifieds section. For the purposes of this rule, requests for charitable donations, raffles, etc., are also considered to be “solicitations and advertisements”.

So how is a thread started by a user that redirects people to his youtube channel not a solicitation of business?

I can understand a member posting a video of something they thought was interesting, but when the developer of the video plants it in a new thread they are deliberately doing it for financial reasons. And I'm sure we'll hear that "Oh no, I just want to share this with the community", but c'mon.
 
Could be a fine line between solicitation,and informational entertainment.
 
I've posted links to my youtube flying videos on occasion (more on other forums than here), and I earn nothing from any of them, never even tried. Probably most people who post videos here don't earn anything.
 
Doc Holliday said:
in which they are being monetized by youtube. So, the more people that click the video equals more money to the developer of the video.
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That's right! I've made nearly $0.20 from people here clicking on my videos. Big money. That's the only reason I do it.

Actually, if you play the video directly in POA, youtube doesn't run ads and the poster gets nothing.

But, go ahead and keep believing the bullhocky that your instructor taught you about aerodynamics. Don't watch my videos.
 
As somebody who has occasionally posted videos on here, this made me laugh. First, I will say I fully understand if you could care less about watching a video. Just like the numerous other threads on here that don't appeal to you, skip it. (kinda like that currently 7 page thread about toilet paper on POA) In past threads that I started with one, I have put (video) in the title. Or perhaps POA could create a Subject dedicated entirely to videos. I think that would be cool.

But to suggest that pilots are posting videos for financial reasons is ridiculous. Do you realize how much money these videos generate? Youtube pays me on average about $4.50 per 1,000 views! I've maybe received enough views from POA to put .2 gallons of AvGas in my plane. I enjoy seeing videos that other pilots from this forum create. Most have been either informative and entertaining. As long as they are related to flying, I don't see the issue. These videos take alot of time and money to produce and are the opposite of profitable. Just like flying, it doesn't make much financial sense. For me personally, I just really enjoy making them and sharing for other pilots or aviation fans who are interested. There are some pilots here that post some great content (Martin Pauly, Just Plane Silly and more). I would hate to see those go away. Any way, that's my 2 cents...which almost the equivalent of the fortunes I have raked in from posting videos on POA.
 
Doc Holliday said:
So how is a thread started by a user that redirects people to his youtube channel not a solicitation of business?
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Dammit Doc, I'm an engineer and pilot, not a lawyer or marketer...

While I see your point and you may technically be correct, an important distinction I think is that the youtubers are not soliciting in a way that induces me to spend money out of my own pocket. While they may make money because I watched their video (or, as I understand it, because I watched the ad before their video), they do not receive any money from me.

I say live and let live.
 
If there was a way to skip posts with only a link to youtube, etc -- here and everywhere else I browse online -- I'd love it. I never click video links, they waste minutes of my time with seconds of content.
 
Someone is breaking the rules on the internet! Zomg
 
Some (although not aviation) get millions of views. Although they tend to be better productions (graphics, music, split screens...).
Some are serious clickbait, like “equipment failure in flight!” Which turns out to be a backup alternator,
I like a separate forum idea. I especially hate when people quote posts with vids or pictures or long posts just to post the few word comment like “nice” or “+1”.
 
most I've seen here have interested me and I'm thankful for the links....
the few that don't interest me I don't click...move on. Doesn't bother me
I'll had also that most but not all I would have eventually seen anyway because I've subscribed and "clicked the bell" :)
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Some (although not aviation) get millions of views. Although they tend to be better productions (graphics, music, split screens...).
Some are serious clickbait, like “equipment failure in flight!” Which turns out to be a backup alternator,
I like a separate forum idea. I especially hate when people quote posts with vids or pictures or long posts just to post the few word comment like “nice” or “+1”.
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nice
 
Dana said:
I've posted links to my youtube flying videos on occasion (more on other forums than here), and I earn nothing from any of them, never even tried. Probably most people who post videos here don't earn anything.
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Same here. I don't like commercials on regular TV let alone YouTube videos. I enjoy doing my videos, they are for me and my family and it gives me the chance to do an in depth flight review. I don't make money or ever plan to step up my video skills that much to ever worry about making money. :rolleyes: I don't do, or contribute to, patreon.

Besides, the main take away should be if you don't like the thread/post don't click on it. If somewhere in the thread there is a video link, don't click on it. Good grief, it's really not that difficult. If the folks who post videos are in violation of the forum rules the mods can delete the post. Easy peasy..... back to your regular scheduled program.
 
I think I am with the majority - they definitely do not bother me and I am selective which ones I watch.

I guess there are ways around it too.

If you posted the link to a @Radar Contact video it would not break the rule as he is not self promoting it. Many of us are posting links to other products (eg. Bose, Lightspeed. Garmin, Avidine, Sportys, Cirrus, Textron, Monster Trucks, Ashley Madison LOL! Etc). They make far more from those links than the majority of the aviation you tubers here.

If it became an issue I'd vote to change the rules.

Interestingly though - at least of late: Mat G, Steveo, Mr Aviation, Flight Chops, Barron Pilot, Trent Palmer, etc do not come here posting links to their videos. We do. But they dont. Obviously their following is large enough. I actually think it would be cool if they posted here. Probably some good stories behind several of their videos.
 
I get where the OP is coming from, but if folks aren't overdoing it, and the content is aviation related, I don't have an issue with it. As others mentioned, these folks aren't Kardashians, with just a few exceptions they're not making much money at it.

Now if these folks only posted on POA to hawk their latest video and didn't otherwise participate in the forum, I might be less tolerant of such posts.
 
Brad Z said:
Now if these folks only posted on POA to hawk their latest video and didn't otherwise participate in the forum, I might be less tolerant of such posts.
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What if someone shifts to Farcebook, except to link to their videos here?
 
Walboy said:
Meh...I don't see it as a big deal.

Take @Martin Pauly for example.

1) His videos are well done, entertaining, informative and educational.
2) It's obvious he has a real passion for aviation and is not trying to make a career out of posting videos.
3) There's a certain amount of expense to putting together quality videos, so if he offsets those expenses, so what?
4) His videos generate good discussion, and after all, isn't that why we're here?

Ignore the posters who get under you skin, enjoy the posters you like.
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I agree. @Martin Pauly is one of my favorite pilots on youtube (And of course in real life).
I subscribed, but I like the off yt dialog here when he posts a video. This is not a video comment section and the people in the yt comment section are unknown, one liner commenters.
Here, you get your inner circle so to speak discussing it.

Being the admin of a few different things, I hear a lot of this recently about people complaining of members promoting their videos.
Just checked and I have posted 3 of my last 13 videos here. I have intentionally dialed it back for that reason.
When whatever it is I do, started getting traction, I posted every video here which is not what POA is for but I welcome any video creator to post their stuff here.
If it is flying content, I will likely watch it and I will probably subscribe but if it is @Martin Pauly , @Radar Contact , @mr_happyland , @Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe etc, I will come here to see if it is being discussed here as well.

Maybe it does or doesn't violate the TOC but that is the admin's place to enforce not mine.
I also am a grown man and I am capable of scrolling past things I don't care about and additionally, I am well aware that every time I click my mouse on a webpage, someone makes a penny.

For what it's worth, It isn't about money. The last video I posted made me less than $5.00 and I probably spent $100 in fuel and 5 hours editing the 1 minute clip.


money.png
 
Sheet. A while back I ‘joined’ youtube just so I could ‘subscribe’ and support y’all who do these videos and now I find out I’m only a drop in half a cup of coffee. Y’all keep havin fun doin em and I’ll enjoy watching em. Thanks
 
The MC has discussed this. Although we do have a rule against advertising commercial services outside of The Classifieds, we do not believe that links to YouTube videos posted by established members qualify for two reasons:

1) People aren't being asked to pay anything to watch these videos
2) The monetizing associated is quite meager

With that said, we do believe it's against the intent of this forum for people to join with the express intent of then sharing their YouTube channels, or for people to link to videos where goods are services are advertised. Folks like Bryan, Martin, Kevin, etc. are just posting videos because they enjoy making them. We have had people in the past who have tried to get around the Classifieds requirement by posting videos that then advertised their products. That would still be considered a violation.
 
People spend 100's of hours writing, filming and editing their videos. They post them on youtube, and ask us to watch their latest adventure. Some are great, some not so great, but I enjoy the opportunity to see them.

To those that put all the time and energy into these, please do not let the naysayers stop or discourage you from posting!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I agree. @Martin Pauly
For what it's worth, It isn't about money. The last video I posted made me less than $5.00 and I probably spent $100 in fuel and 5 hours editing the 1 minute clip.


View attachment 84074
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Trying to make us jealous what with you rolling in the big bucks?
I started a thread to get feedback on this video:
upload_2020-3-31_7-54-49.png
 
Doc Holliday said:
In the TOS it states Solicitations and Advertisements are prohibited, except when posted in The Classifieds section. For the purposes of this rule, requests for charitable donations, raffles, etc., are also considered to be “solicitations and advertisements”.
Click to expand...
Forums need to have rules. You can make the enforcement of those rules absolutely black and white if you want, but you generally end up with a pretty boring forum with not much traffic if you do. There are members who get paid to take photographs of airplanes. And they create threads to show off those photographs. And lots of forum members enjoy those threads. But it could be pretty easy to see those threads as solicitations or advertisements if we really wanted to do absolutely black and white enforcement of the TOS. Very few her would want that.

So there's going to be grey area, and that means there's going to threads left up that you personally might not want left up. That's why the back button exists. When you click on a thread and you see its just someone trolling for youtube clicks, you hit the back button and you move on.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Someone's cranky from all the social distancing.
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Round here The Shutdown has brought all kinds of Nazis out of the woodwork - those who get a kick out of ordering people about and now see their chance.

And while I am writing I should point out that your signature is excessively long :mad:
 
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IK04 said:
Send money to my PayPal or I'll post links to Nyan Cat videos...
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·.,¸,.·*¯`·.,¸,.·....╭━━━━╮
`·.,¸,.·*¯`·.,¸,.·*¯. |::::::/\:__:/\
`·.,¸,.·*¯`·.,¸,.·* <|:::::(｡ ◕‿‿ ◕).
`·.,¸,.·*¯`·.,¸,.·* ╰O--O----O-O
 
midlifeflyer said:
Speaking of cranky...
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I hoped that if I pretended to be unreasonably angry in a message about someone being unreasonably Nazi that I might get a laugh - no no no no no. That's cool, not every one works, well very few do but I keep trying.

The signature thing is a bit irritating though. A signature about 2/3 the height of the usable PoA screen on the laptop is too much for me.

So I fixed it.

Mahooosive signature
upload_2020-4-5_22-50-54.png


Abracadabra, PrestoChangoSelector - No signature visible
upload_2020-4-5_22-51-41.png

Other signatures unaffected
upload_2020-4-5_22-52-8.png

This is an improvement over last years option where I blocked someone who was a prolific poster with a huge signature, my only block on PoA.

Now I have a way to manage unreasonable signatures I can unblock the poster. This is all good.

So welcome back to my world SkyDog58. Oh oh! There is no long sig now, maybe it was some other reason? Multiple blank lines appended to one line posts? who cares, welcome back anyway.:)

The trouble is that this work has drawn my attention to posters with multiple blank lines in their posts. This thread is full of them - maybe that will be the next target? Removing the offending lines would be ideal. Wonder if it will be as easy as the last one:)

One or two is OK but 10 or 15???

Sorry everyone, looks like it's not the posters appending blank lines but something else. I'll mention it in the support pages.

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful posts, I really enjoy reading them.
 
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Salty said:
Someone is breaking the rules on the internet! Zomg
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duty_calls.png
https://xkcd.com/386/
 
What about people who post a bunch of full size images - overflows my screen. Breaks up the flow.
;-)
 
+1 nice
Spring Ford said:
Round here The Shutdown has brought all kinds of Nazis out of the woodwork - those who get a kick out of ordering people about and now see their chance.

And while I am writing I should point out that your signature is excessively long :mad:
Click to expand...
 
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