Affiliate Union
- Thread starter ThePOGG
- Start date
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- Tags
- genting review
- Joined
- May 22, 2012
It may be worth PM'ing Tom Galanis who has had something like this mooted for a year or two now, to ascertain if your ideas are similar or there is a wholly separate purpose to your proposition?
Have you replied to e-mails that have been sent directly to you? A couple of people I know have contacted you in the past week or so expressing interest.
You can count me in anyways
Sorry guys - I never saw your posts as they moved on to pg2!!
Nicola - I have responded to every email I'm aware of. If you know people that have not heard from me then can you pass them the message to email again or get me their details via PM? On that note could you provide me an email address so I can ensure you're on the list?
Given that some people here seem to actually know TG directly, it may be better received if he's approached by someone he's familiar with. Anyone like to volunteer?
TP
Revised organisational structure:
The conversation at AGD has made clear there's a demand for an option for affiliates who want to participate in a press release type structure without being tied to contributing to potential legal action. As such I'm changing a couple of thing that were originally suggested to accommodate the desire for those who would not be willing to participate in collective legal action to have a space at the table in terms of press releases. The more I think about it the more I feel this is actually the far more important group. So here goes:
The collective will now be split into two tiers as detailed below:
First Tier: These are the affiliates that are willing to participate in press released to cover programs that change their terms for the reason of reducing the revenue they pay affiliates.
The system works the same as previously suggested - all members get a vote all votes are counted equally. Any member can table an issue for consideration, a brief is distributed to members, members vote on the issue. A majority of 55% is required before any action is taken. If a majority is achieved a template press release is put together and distributed to members who can base their own articles on it. All members who voted in favour of the action will be expected to post an article.
Each participating member will be asked to link to one other member's article within their post. Order would be randomised each time so you're not always giving/receiving links for the same site.
Upper Tier: As discussed before - those members that are willing to engage in the socialising of legal fees when a serious enough case arises that the membership considers it worthwhile. Only Upper Tier members would be eligible to request help with legal fees.
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A few other musings:
- A potential issue with the First Tier membership is affiliates that are also operators consistently voting against action simply to frustrate the union. Personally I think that most operators are self-interested enough that they would likely vote FOR action against one of their competitors. Regardless, I suspect that they are unlikely to represent a large enough proportion of the membership to prevent action in any case that was even close to clear cut.
- With a cleverly designed interface voting could actually be coordinated easily. As could reporting on the vote, distribution of the template press releases and ensuring everyone links to the right site in the chain. In short, I'm not sure I see a need for an upper bound on membership for the First Tier.
- ThePOGG is currently seeing a steadily increasing number of affiliate complaints coming through. Mostly about slow/no payment and often about smaller affiliate programs. It does occur to me that this organisation might be better placed to deal with these issues rather than ThePOGG. Where an affiliate just isn't getting paid the threat of a mass PR release is likely going to be far more significant in pressure terms than just ThePOGG putting out a complaint report. However, managing these issues is time consuming and requires resources. For a start, a conversation with the operator has to take place before information could be distributed to members to ensure that any subsequent public statement is factually accurate. I have no strong preference on this, I simply think that the affiliate union would likely have greater leverage on these issues, but if the union were to take this up there would have to be some degree of funding given to the party responsible for coordination. ThePOGG is happy to fund the initial set up of the site and perhaps maintenance of the site, but long term staffing's an entirely different thing. A small membership fee as suggested previously (€5/month) could be put towards maintenance and coordination.
- Initially my hopes had been that administration could be rotated between members. With the introduction of the two tier membership the numbers of members involved could quickly rise beyond what I'd initially anticipated. Coordination then becomes more of an issue and I do have to agree with some of the feedback, if there isn't clear leadership directing the efforts it's unlikely to maintain momentum. There likely would have to be some type of elective system reviewed annually to allow the membership to select the people coordinating the project.
------------------------------------------
What does everyone think?
TP
P.S. this idea's received some media coverage over the last few days -
The conversation at AGD has made clear there's a demand for an option for affiliates who want to participate in a press release type structure without being tied to contributing to potential legal action. As such I'm changing a couple of thing that were originally suggested to accommodate the desire for those who would not be willing to participate in collective legal action to have a space at the table in terms of press releases. The more I think about it the more I feel this is actually the far more important group. So here goes:
The collective will now be split into two tiers as detailed below:
First Tier: These are the affiliates that are willing to participate in press released to cover programs that change their terms for the reason of reducing the revenue they pay affiliates.
The system works the same as previously suggested - all members get a vote all votes are counted equally. Any member can table an issue for consideration, a brief is distributed to members, members vote on the issue. A majority of 55% is required before any action is taken. If a majority is achieved a template press release is put together and distributed to members who can base their own articles on it. All members who voted in favour of the action will be expected to post an article.
Each participating member will be asked to link to one other member's article within their post. Order would be randomised each time so you're not always giving/receiving links for the same site.
Upper Tier: As discussed before - those members that are willing to engage in the socialising of legal fees when a serious enough case arises that the membership considers it worthwhile. Only Upper Tier members would be eligible to request help with legal fees.
------------------------------------------------
A few other musings:
- A potential issue with the First Tier membership is affiliates that are also operators consistently voting against action simply to frustrate the union. Personally I think that most operators are self-interested enough that they would likely vote FOR action against one of their competitors. Regardless, I suspect that they are unlikely to represent a large enough proportion of the membership to prevent action in any case that was even close to clear cut.
- With a cleverly designed interface voting could actually be coordinated easily. As could reporting on the vote, distribution of the template press releases and ensuring everyone links to the right site in the chain. In short, I'm not sure I see a need for an upper bound on membership for the First Tier.
- ThePOGG is currently seeing a steadily increasing number of affiliate complaints coming through. Mostly about slow/no payment and often about smaller affiliate programs. It does occur to me that this organisation might be better placed to deal with these issues rather than ThePOGG. Where an affiliate just isn't getting paid the threat of a mass PR release is likely going to be far more significant in pressure terms than just ThePOGG putting out a complaint report. However, managing these issues is time consuming and requires resources. For a start, a conversation with the operator has to take place before information could be distributed to members to ensure that any subsequent public statement is factually accurate. I have no strong preference on this, I simply think that the affiliate union would likely have greater leverage on these issues, but if the union were to take this up there would have to be some degree of funding given to the party responsible for coordination. ThePOGG is happy to fund the initial set up of the site and perhaps maintenance of the site, but long term staffing's an entirely different thing. A small membership fee as suggested previously (€5/month) could be put towards maintenance and coordination.
- Initially my hopes had been that administration could be rotated between members. With the introduction of the two tier membership the numbers of members involved could quickly rise beyond what I'd initially anticipated. Coordination then becomes more of an issue and I do have to agree with some of the feedback, if there isn't clear leadership directing the efforts it's unlikely to maintain momentum. There likely would have to be some type of elective system reviewed annually to allow the membership to select the people coordinating the project.
------------------------------------------
What does everyone think?
TP
P.S. this idea's received some media coverage over the last few days -
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- Joined
- Dec 8, 2009
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
Hi ThePOGG - be good to discuss. Will drop you a PM.
Tom
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2004
- Location
- Home Office
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