GPWA Mission?

[thepokerkeep]

I don't think it's wrong or a conflict of interest for GPWA to receive sponsorship money. We're all in business to generate profit!

I would like to see a more open explanation of what "sponsorship" entails. I would also like to see GPWA drop the use of a SEAL/CERTIFICATION program for sponsors.

Many affiliates and even some sponsor programs consider the SEAL to be an endorsement of the program/advertiser. This needs to addressed in a more transparent manner.

If GPWA wants to provide a SEAL for their advertisers, it should be awarded to programs that meet a minimum standard determined by an independent panel. The recipients of the SEAL should have to undergo periodic audits and meet the AGD criteria for approval (among other things).

[pompeyrayuk]

Of course GPWA needs sponsors money to provide such a great service for all of us FOC. Just the design,printing and distribution of the magazine alone must be near telephone number proportions.

What has always baffled me since I became a member is what criteria the sponsors have to follow. Can any program with enough spare $$$ to choke a dozen donkeys become a sponsor?

After all we as members post and read posts about affiliate programs not paying, not tracking players, adding hidden costs etc
Yet you look at the list of sponsors and see some VERY FAMOUS affilaite programs that have been QUESTIONED many many times.

[Nandakishore]

What has always baffled me since I became a member is what criteria the sponsors have to follow. Can any program with enough spare $$$ to choke a dozen donkeys become a sponsor?

A very good question. It would be interesting to hear from Michael what criteria decide about sponsoring.

[MichaelCorfman]

One of the requirements for all sponsor programs is that they have to contractually agree to follow the sponsor code of conduct listed on the page www.gpwa.org/sponsor/codeofconduct.asp.

If they fail to follow that code of conduct then we have the right to respond by denying them any of the sponsor benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled.

In terms of certification, the GPWA is not currently in that business. However, the APCW has an audit program, and we are thinking about implementing some sort of certification in the future based on criteria such as passing APCW audits and having the approval of members here. But our first priority on that front is improving the APCW audit program so it is working the way we feel it should work.

Michael

[Betpartners]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with charging for certification or accepting sponsorship.

This has all been soured by the CAP affair but it does not follow that everyone in the same sector would undertake corrupt actions.

In fact i believe that GPWA should be monetized to its full potential and the best way to avoid conflicts of interests would be for GPWA to retain an independent panel that would monitor sites with the seal of approval.

As long as the power to remove the seal is not with GPWA but with the independent panel then GPWA should be free to charge a reasonable fee for its services.

I also think GPWA should take on paid advertisers and undertake other actions that would result in payment for services rendered.

If a mans integrity and self respect is high enough then he will not do anything underhanded or illegal, if a person does not have that then what difference does it make in the end, affiliates would still get ripped off by rogue affiliate programs regardless if GPWA received money or not.

Makes no difference to affiliates if GPWA makes fortunes as long as they do their job right, if they dont then affiliates suffer anyway.

Money and power corrupts in certain circumstances in other circumstances it can be a power of good.

If i was Michaels advisor i would advise him to monetize GPWA without delay but maintain the principles he believes in no matter what

Just my 2 cents worth

[arkyt]

My viewpoint is that I look at this industry at some level as my workplace and quite frankly I would like to think that my workplace is fair and just for not only myself, but for each and every member of the community i.e. the gambling affiliate industry.

I think the programs are doing their partner bases a disservice by paying large sums of money to reach a relatively small group of people. I have little doubt the programs are reaching the exact same groups of people* not only on the websites, but in their magazines, at the conferences etc; none of which do the industry as a whole or the programs partner base as a whole much good.

Possibly this new collaboration between affiliate programs will do just that. Potentially they could cut out all the middlemen and do their own conferences for a fraction of the cost. They could put up their own forum for a major fraction of the cost. No doubt all those savings could be reinvested in reaching out to the community as a whole instead of filling the pockets of a select few.

Would love to see the programs get together and brainstorm "what could we do with all this money we are spending on CAP/GPWA/etc etc?" I think they could really come up with some great ideas that would not only benefit their own companies, but the industry as a whole.

* all these 8000 & 7000 numbers which are stated as members is 100% misleading - I posted some of those stats several weeks ago. The actual numbers are in the hundreds!

[Betpartners]

My viewpoint is that I look at this industry at some level as my workplace and quite frankly I would like to think that my workplace is fair and just for not only myself, but for each and every member of the community i.e. the gambling affiliate industry.

I think the programs are doing their partner bases a disservice by paying large sums of money to reach a relatively small group of people. I have little doubt the programs are reaching the exact same groups of people* not only on the websites, but in their magazines, at the conferences etc; none of which do the industry as a whole or the programs partner base as a whole much good.

Possibly this new collaboration between affiliate programs will do just that. Potentially they could cut out all the middlemen and do their own conferences for a fraction of the cost. They could put up their own forum for a major fraction of the cost. No doubt all those savings could be reinvested in reaching out to the community as a whole instead of filling the pockets of a select few.

Would love to see the programs get together and brainstorm "what could we do with all this money we are spending on CAP/GPWA/etc etc?" I think they could really come up with some great ideas that would not only benefit their own companies, but the industry as a whole.

* all these 8000 & 7000 numbers which are stated as members is 100% misleading - I posted some of those stats several weeks ago. The actual numbers are in the hundreds!

I dont want to take this off point and the affiliate programs potential project has/is being discussed elsewhere but i will say this one thing.

If you think that the money these programs will save by cutting out middlemen and running their own forums etc will benefit the affiliates i think you are very wrong.

That money saved will go on direct marketing and will in effect harm affiliates.

Most already know my opposition to this.

Sorry don;t mean to derail, just had to respond.

[MichaelCorfman]

My viewpoint is that I look at this industry at some level as my workplace and quite frankly I would like to think that my workplace is fair and just for not only myself, but for each and every member of the community i.e. the gambling affiliate industry.

I think we would all agree with that.

I think the programs are doing their partner bases a disservice by paying large sums of money to reach a relatively small group of people. I have little doubt the programs are reaching the exact same groups of people* not only on the websites, but in their magazines, at the conferences etc; none of which do the industry as a whole or the programs partner base as a whole much good.

Possibly this new collaboration between affiliate programs will do just that. Potentially they could cut out all the middlemen and do their own conferences for a fraction of the cost. They could put up their own forum for a major fraction of the cost. No doubt all those savings could be reinvested in reaching out to the community as a whole instead of filling the pockets of a select few.

Would love to see the programs get together and brainstorm "what could we do with all this money we are spending on CAP/GPWA/etc etc?" I think they could really come up with some great ideas that would not only benefit their own companies, but the industry as a whole.

I think the programs have decided that what you said is true with respect to the fees charged by CAP and the value received. The whole reason they got together is because of their outrage on that front.

However, I would respectfully submit that the primary interest of affiliate programs and operators getting together is to further the shared interests of affiliate programs and operators. But in the situations where there is a conflict between the interests of affiliate programs and operators and the interest of affiliates, their interest will determine their actions.

Affiliates have said loud and clearly in a poll here that they support affiliate programs working together for the good of the industry, but do not trust that they can run a community for affiliates that puts the needs of affiliates first.

Organizations like the GPWA, APCW, AGD, and PAL are in a different situation. We depend on serving the needs of affiliates for our very existence. If we don't do a good job on that front then affiliates would not participate in the communities we work so hard to create. And if we don't do a good job on that front then affiliate programs would not find it worth their while to provide funding for our efforts in exchange for an advertising presence within our communities.

CAP may have used the money they received to line the pockets of a few individuals. The rest of us use the significantly lower level of proceeds we receive to fund activites that I personally believe provide true value to affiliates. And I don't believe affiliate programs could provide that same value to affiliates at a lower cost if they attempted to go down that path.

Michael

[Betpartners]

Affiliates have said loud and clearly in a poll here that they support affiliate programs working together for the good of the industry, but do not trust that they can run a community for affiliates that puts the needs of affiliates first.

Not sure the poll gave the impression that there was clear support for affiliate programs working together, to me the poll clearly stated it was bad or very bad

The poll asked Is the joining together of operators and affiliate programs good for affiliates and leaving out neutral and not sure the vote was/is good/very good 15.25% and bad/very bad 49.15%

With all respect Michael i don't see were it gives support for them working together

However, I would respectfully submit that the primary interest of affiliate programs and operators getting together is to further the shared interests of affiliate programs and operators. But in the situations where there is a conflict between the interests of affiliate programs and operators and the interest of affiliates, their interest will determine their actions.

Without doubt that will be the case, which begs the questions why anyone would support this.

In light of Affiliate programs getting together i dont see why they should not be charged a reasonable fee to get certified or have a seal approval from a community of affiliates.

GPWA and such organisations themselves should band together to confront this challenge because believe me it is a challenge.

A joint universal certification program from 4 or 5 organisations would carry immense weight.

Oh and i dont include CAP in that, not yet anyway, they need to prove themselves again etc

[arkyt]

I think we would all agree with that.

Thanks.

CAP may have used the money they received to line the pockets of a few individuals. The rest of us use the significantly lower level of proceeds we receive to fund activites that I personally believe provide true value to affiliates. And I don't believe affiliate programs could provide that same value to affiliates at a lower cost if they attempted to go down that path.

So Michael how many members does GPWA have? I know you advertise you have over 7000 - CAP advertises a number over 8000 ... most know these numbers are clearly exaggerated and I posted numbers a few weeks back that potentially indicated the numbers may not even be in the hundreds.

How about we start the transparency with this number?

A joint universal certification program from 4 or 5 organisations would carry immense weight.

Its been proposed before, most of the key sites werent interested in it (most pledged their support but never showed up at the table) and as long as profits are the motivating factor for most of those sites it wont work - thats IS a fundamental conflict of interest!

[MichaelCorfman]

So Michael how many members does GPWA have? I know you advertise you have over 7000 - CAP advertises a number over 8000 ... most know these numbers are clearly exaggerated and I posted numbers a few weeks back that potentially indicated the numbers may not even be in the hundreds.

How about we start the transparency with this number?

That number is the number of member registrations reported by vBulletin minus registrations that have been removed by us.

Of course, many of those registered "members" will not be actual current participants who actively post here. However, the vast majority of the webmasters visiting our site never register - they just lurk and view the information available in the public threads. In terms of site visitors, there are about a thousand visitors a day and the average visitor views seven pages according to google analytics. The country with the most traffic to the site is the United States, but more than 70% of GPWA traffic is from outside the United States.

Michael

[bb1web]

I don't think its fair to ask to do it for nothing.

If we get to a point where the forum has to have its own server is when my claws come out.

There's nothing wrong with getting paid for providing a valuable service and just because CAP owners abused the power created by the community ... doesn't mean the whole idea of providing paid ads is bad.

Nor is asking the programs to kick in.

But Ark you make the point. It can be done for much less.

I see more problems arising from affs claiming they've been cheated and wanting programs that are "approved", "certified" whatever you want to call it ...

Its going to be damn hard to not end up with members feeling alienated when they ask a program be removed because they sent 10,000 hits last month and made $20 and they're sure they've been cheated.

It won't matter if you put it to a vote there's still going to be a number of people that feel slighted and that's serious damage on a forum over a period of time.

... but anyway I see more problems coming from that than I do from charging a little bit to have a permanent spot at the forum or for advertising banners in the forum.

I really think the major problem with the cap situation was not that the programs paid to be there but rather how much?

[giggles7p]

also , i think all affiliate managers or companies need to pay the EXACT same amount of money. Not, one pays thousands, and the other pays hundreds, that is just unfair practice. If the terms and conditions for "certification" or " approval" is the same for all companies, then the price should also be the same.

but i also believe that gpwa and any other "proven" affiliate forum should be able to charge for the advertising they do to affiliates, also, i think all links on the site should be affiliated with the owners, etc.... so they may make "their" own money from sub affiliating.

[MichaelCorfman]

also , i think all affiliate managers or companies need to pay the EXACT same amount of money. Not, one pays thousands, and the other pays hundreds, that is just unfair practice. If the terms and conditions for "certification" or " approval" is the same for all companies, then the price should also be the same.

That is actually the way the GPWA does business. We decided early on that unlike some other forums we were going to have fixed sponsor prices, and they were what they were, and we would not charge one program a different amount than another program for the same thing just because they argued harder for a special deal. We do provide a few different sponsorship packages so programs can choose whether they want to provide more or less funding to the GPWA, but they aways get the same thing at the same price as other programs that select the same sponsorship package.

Michael

[giggles7p]

And thats why GPWA is still on top of the business and others are not!

[Betpartners]

That is actually the way the GPWA does business. We decided early on that unlike some other forums we were going to have fixed sponsor prices, and they were what they were, and we would not charge one program a different amount than another program for the same thing just because they argued harder for a special deal. We do provide a few different sponsorship packages so programs can choose whether they want to provide more or less funding to the GPWA, but they aways get the same thing at the same price as other programs that select the same sponsorship package.

Michael

You would do well under a communist regime Michael

Ok just joking, but i am i firm beliver in the free market principle and if someone wants more and is prepared to pay it then that option should be open to them.

I would be gutted if i paid the same amount as a sponsor whos name begins with an A and mine begins with a Z, though that of couse is if paid programs are listed alphabetically.

As long as a program is certified i see no reason why they cannot negotiate a better deal for a better position

[mojo]

As long as a program is certified i see no reason why they cannot negotiate a better deal for a better position

But what is certified?

That is the problem. But I do not want to solve that problem lol. I have outdated pages to fix.

I have no problem with the GPWA covering costs for the innovative services they bring to us affiliates. There are some unique qualities to the GPWA that makes them special.

I also have complete faith in Michael. Yes, he is in business but so am I. I don't question his ethics any more than I do my own, if that makes sense. It's not even a thought. Michael and his staff is an asset to all affiliates.

[arkyt]

That number is the number of member registrations reported by vBulletin minus registrations that have been removed by us.

Yes I understand where the 7000 number comes from. The number of active users which most vbulletin boards display by default has been removed on this site - no doubt the reason why is because it is far far less than the 7000

Anyway so the number is? You aren't being very transparent here ... how many active users does GPWA have? I could post a number, but I would rather give you the chance to be transparent since you have stated that the GPWA wishes to be just that.

After that we can get onto how transparency goes hand in foot with having most of the site being private.....

[Betpartners]

Not sure what difference it makes how busy a forum is to be honest, are GPWA expected to release every last single bit of info to prove their transparancy, surely they are allowed keep some info confidential.

I understand fully arkyt why you are after more info in the quest for transparancy, in fact GPWA have made a rod for their own backs in this regard and thats probably not a bad thing.

But i would be more interested in the info that means something to us affiliates, personally i dont care how much money they make or how many active members they have.

What i care about are conflicts of interest, open declarations on their approval programs, how they arbitrate in disputes between affiliates and programs, how they decide when a program steps out of line, their procedures in all this and so forth.

[MichaelCorfman]

Yes I understand where the 7000 number comes from. The number of active users which most vbulletin boards display by default has been removed on this site - no doubt the reason why is because it is far far less than the 7000

Anyway so the number is? You aren't being very transparent here ... how many active users does GPWA have? I could post a number, but I would rather give you the chance to be transparent since you have stated that the GPWA wishes to be just that.

After that we can get onto how transparency goes hand in foot with having most of the site being private.....

You are stretching the limit of my patience with your inappropriate and undeserved insinuations. You asked a question before implying the number displayed on the site by vBulletin was wrong, and I explained it.

Then you say I'm not being transparent because I deliberately made changes to the site to avoid being transparent. That is just plain false. I just went and used the wayback engine, and have determined that information was not being displayed the way the GPWA forums were configured since before I had any involvement with the GPWA. Take a look at the archive in April of 2006 here http://web.archive.org/web/200604111...pwa.net/forum/, before we purchased the GPWA, and you will see that an active user count was not being displayed at that time. In fact, I've asked about adding more statistics and moving them to the bottom of the page as is done in most forums, but I have prioritized other changes that I felt would have a more direct benefit to members as being more important.

Anyway, I have played around with the back-end of vBulletin a bit, although I don't know it very well. If I am correctly interpreting the information I found, it looks like there were 1,532 active users in the last 30 days.

And then in your post you raise the question about portions of the site being private representing a lack of transparency. The decisions about the GPWA having private forums were made long before my time. Although they certainly made sense, in my opinion, so that webmasters could exchange information without so much fear of government agents or affiliate programs prying into what members considered to be private conversations.

But you know I am an advocate for more transparency in general, when appropriate, and hence as executive director of the GPWA I have worked to have more information available in the public forums. Most recently, I have moved huge numbers of posts related to affiliate programs from private forums to public forums. But that is a painful and time-consuming process because I cannot move most material without permission of those who posted the material because I cannot choose to ignore privacy commitments made in the past.

Anyway, even though I try to be responsive and take the time to answer questions, I don't think it is fair for you to expect me to take the time to do that when you are just being rude to me in the way you go about asking questions. Especially when you just seem to be asking random questions with the primary objective of saying what we do here is not worthwhile from your perspective.

Don't get me wrong, I am very open to suggestions about how to improve the GPWA and the things the staff here does to provide services to the webmasters that participate in these forums. But I'll be honest and say I'm not a believer in firing the staff here and reducing what we do for the affiliate community because you think that we should be able to operate without charging affiliate programs what it costs to cover the reasonable salaries of the employees that support the GPWA.

Michael