Advertisers, where do you draw the line? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

Romeo said:

Ok, Crystal. I'm sorry if I have offended you. In the end just like personal finances is about personal choices, what we put on our OWN personal websites is also abour personal choices. However, don't be so naive to think that if this network grows as we want it to do, members will be judged. Its just the nature of the beast. Imagine if Dave Ramsey supported credit card advertisements although he preaches that they are "so horrible." He'll lose his credibility very quickly.

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Oh, no worries.  I'm not offended, I just think you are more judgy than the other members I've had the pleasure to work with here.

ROFL. Ok, Crystal. Since you're not going to let me live this down, let's have a bit more fun with this.  I'll start with some humor. Hopefully, the video works. If it doesn't here's a link of Stephen Colbert's support for payday loans.

Okay Romeo.  I'm not sure if you are being purposefully annoying to me to drum up business or what, but I am no longer participating.  The Yakezie are a supportive group and this forum is literally where I spend hours and hours of my day.  We may have to work together in the future, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

comes down to your blog's objective. many who have adsense may not even know that there are ads showing up on their websites that they might not agree with.  i personally do not have adsense bec i like to approve ads manually at this point. on the internet, my reputation and credibility is all and everything i have going for me, and nothing compromises that.  ads have to be relevant, and helpful.

There seems to be confusion about what an advertisement is.  Having an advertisement for something on your blog is not the same thing as endorsing it.  Do you think the TV station you watch or radio station you listen to endorses all the advertisers they have?  No, they leave it to their viewers and listeners to discern what is or is not a good deal.

Part of personal finance is personal responsibility.  There are instances when taking out a payday loan is your best option.  I wrote a post about

http://bankbonuses.info/2010/0…..xperience/

I think there's some middle ground here. Most of us aren't going to put up porn advertisements or things like that because they will negatively impact our website. I don't think most financial ads fall in this category.

For example, is it a bad thing if an ad for payday loans shows up on an article bashing payday loans? I personally think it's the company's loss and the blogger's (and reader's by extension) gain. On the other hand, as I mentioned in my "challenging thoughts and beliefs", there could be situations where a pay day loan might even be a good thing. We shouldn't look at everything as black and white.

Integrity comes from writing honestly and with passion. If you are writing about what you truly believe in and are not out to deceive anyone, then I don't think there's anything wrong with having advertisements of products that you've been bashing if you feel it's a net gain for your blog (maybe the money helps you to contribute to the Yakezie scholarship, for example). Things just aren't black and white in this world, so blanket rules and assumptions aren't always appropriate.

Kevin,

I agree that many things aren't black and white, but there are some things that are.

If I don't support a product, it means I don't support a product.

Forest,

I don't want to have my post deleted.  I simply expressed an opinion, though, it may have been kind of strong. I didn't think I called anyone out by name in my initial post, but I suppose I haven't looked on everyone's site either. Maybe everyone in the Yakezie network has a pay day loan lender advertising on their site. If this is the case, I can see how I may have offended plenty of people.

Romeo

Now that I have went back to read my initial post, I guess I really did offend everyone that has a payday loan lender advertising on their site. In the sound of Homer Simpson, "Dooh!"   . 

So yes Kevin, like you are alluding to, and as Sunil actually said, it depends on one's objectives. I'll now stop with this madness before some PF blogger blacklists me by using his connections to Google.