This is a slightly edited cross post from the same OzBargain thread, the dates and time frames will be wrong, but the purpose is still the same.
This morning we pushed out a new user-submitted referral changes. This is an update to the previous attempt a year and half ago. Problem with the previous one is that it's difficult to add new stores that support referral benefits, and the feature ended up only supporting GreenManGaming and not being used much by our users here. What happened afterwards were wiki pages created for each online shop. Yes it's an interesting use of the wiki pages, but
Not a good idea to let any member to be able to edit everyone's code.
Free-form might not be the most ideal format, and hard to police everyone to edit in the same format.
The list is ordered rather than randomised.
What we have done now is having a single place for you to put in all your referral codes. Go to your Settings page and click on the referrals tab. You should be presented with a list of "stores" that we currently have referral support.
See full updated list.
New ones should be easily added as well if the method of referral is via a referral link (i.e. unique URL per referrer). Feel free to submit new ones in the comments. I need
- The URL format for the referral link
- Instructions to get the referral link
- Benefit for the referrers and referees.
- Another reminder that Affiliate Links and Referral Links are different and we do not allow affiliate links here on OzBargain.
Once a referral system has been set up for that domain, for every deal posted to that domain, a grey box will appear below the content and above the Share buttons containing a randomised referral link AND OP's referral link (if OP has submitted one for that domain and the deal has hit the front page vote minimum - updated 9/5/16). The benefits for the referrers and referees are also shown so people know what they (and you) are getting. In this case including your own referral link and link to wiki becomes redundant.
Yes this is still in beta and needs improvement. Some potential issues / possible improvements:
Since you do not really need to put referral link in your content, you can submit deals with your link in the referral box without the deal being marked as "referral post". This might lead to abuse of people posting excessive deals from the stores offering referral. I shall look at ways to prevent it. I don't want to mark them as referral post at the moment because previously submitter can pick and choose whether to include his/her referral link. Now it's always included. Your deal must hit the front page vote minimum to show.
A good idea to let people pick and choose? For example some people might not want to use OP's referral link, not a random one either but from a list of friends.
So here it is. Give it a try guys! I will start removing some of the wiki pages later today. Meanwhile, please leave feedback in the comments.
As of today, the system will no longer show OP's referral link in the referral block when the deal reaches the front page, but the OP's link will have a higher chance of being picked from the random pool. See updated help page.
Update
Request a store to add to the referral system. Let us know if it's a code/link etc. We also need to know what the referrer and referee gets. Thanks.
If your comment is automatically unpublished due to the referral link, do not worry, moderators can still see it and will republish it before replying.
Abra added.