I can see this place's guidelines be 15 posts, but then to have to put a button on your forum?

Why?

Because it generates trafic. Generating trafic to RPG-D will, in turn, generate trafic to your own forum.

It's a circle, and a very reasonble one, I might add.

What if our forum doesnt have a plae that we could put it?

Could I put the button in my signature on my forum?

You could put it in a redirect category at the bottom of your board. I don't think you could put it in your signature, because guests won't see it straightaway.

It has to be on the index.
If you don't have a sidebar or anywhere to put it, you can always just add it at the footer.

^ Right . . . I knew that. :p Listen to sarahj. She's the smart one around here. ^_^

Is it for DirectAdvertisement, the site in your signature?
For that, I'd suggest a marquee in your little Welcome note for you to put your Affiliates.

Well, our fantastic members seem to have covered everything nicely (I love you guys, I really do) but I'll just jump in to enforce this.

It's for the traffic. Anyone who advertises here needs that traffic or people will not see their ads. I think it's a pretty easy price to pay.

Really, putting the button up doesn't benefit one's own board, per se. Instead people will jump from your board to RPG-D to other boards. However, people from other boards do the same, jump to RPG-D and then to your board.

I have run some large advertisement forums in the past and dont enforce that. I just have the post rule.

I dont understand it :/

I'm a little confused about what's so hard to understand. :/

Okay, listen here: I came from realms of the internet probably similar to wherever you're from: we didn't have all sorts of fancy things like placing buttons on forums. However, that's the way that RPG-D and several other sites work. No, you don't get a button on RPG-D's site so in some ways it's not totally fair. But think of it like this:

If I open up a business and decide that I want to advertise, I pay $40 to have my advertisement put into a newspaper. Similarly with RPG-D, I want to advertise my forum, so I put RPG-D's button on my page in exchange to have my RPG advertised in their "newspaper" (aka the Directory). Instead of paying money to RPG-D, you're putting up their button.

Fair? That's opinion. But that's how it goes.

And much like the newspaper, if the price is too high to pay, you don't have to advertise here; there are other boards where you can advertise. However, will you be getting the same quality? I doubt it. I've seen other advertisement boards, and they pale by comparison.

So take your pick: advertise on RPG-D and place their button on your site or . . . don't.

This is a non-profit forum that relies almost completely on that button being placed on the forums of people who advertise here. The rest is through word of mouth.

This forum relies on traffic exchange in order to work. If we don't put up RPG-D's button, people wouldn't know it existed. The proof of this method's success is in the member numbers, the board's age and the number of posts. This board has a constant stream of traffic that is down to other people hosting RPG-D's button.

Now. If we have that many people coming through this forum, this greatly increases the chances of more people seeing the forums that are listed. More people see the forums, more people join them. This forum would not generate a fraction of its current member flow and boards if no one had to put up a banner on the front of their site and therefore, the board would become moot point because no one would see any boards through this one.

Work for RPGD to work for you.

Hey, they pretty much covered it. But I really want to add . . . how much work is it? I think you're spending more time complaining about it than it would have taken to just put up a button. And it's a favor to other sites. Think about it.

But all you RPG admins have a thing on the side where you can put buttons easily. I have no wear to put it unless I want to make it look like a clutter.

Perhaps if it's so much trouble for you to advertise here you should forgo it. It's not any trouble for most people so this is the board for them, but maybe RPG-D isn't the board for you.

There are several options you can do:

1. Put it in your footer. It won't look perfect, but it'll be there.

2. Add an annoucement box at the top of the page.

3. Add a scrolling affiliate box at the bottom of the page.

4. Follow Emma's suggestion and don't advertise here if it's too much trouble.

If you need technical assistance on 1-3, you can check out the support center. If you need technical assistance on 4 . . . well, I really don't know what to say to that. :p

You can always add an affiliation marquee box at the footer of your forums. A lot of non-rpg's do that, and also RPG's who don't have a sidebar. You can easily find such a code on the IFSZ for instance.

Then there is one last positive point about advertising here on RPG-D (unlike half of the advertising forums out there), everybody can see your ad once it's sorted. Members and guests alike. You really have no clue how many lurkers we have. I don't have any specific statistics, but I'm sure of it that there are many lurkers here who come visit RPG-D occasionaly to check over boards to join up with. They all found us via that button.

So it's your choice, you either want to advertise here and follow our rules (which aren't hard), or you go somewhere else ^^.

*topic closed*