I see a trend of new accounts recommending untrustworthy VPNs and arguing why they are good. Thisis wasting time from legitimate products, and is a bit suspicious, while some of those posts could be legitimate, I feel that this is also used as free ads, similar to how companies use Reddit for the same purposs.
This also improves this VPN product ranking in search engines.
At the very least I feel like we should restrict new user first post for mod approval, or make a general thread for new users question.
Note that I am NOT saying that we implement a RTFM policy, I just dislike it when we are giving legitimacy to shady VPNs.
I was also a noobie, so ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ, I donât think we should be unwelcoming to new users, but some light rules are fine and are very frequent on most forums.
I question whether there has been an actual âtrendâ here as there have been very few VPN tool suggestions in recent history.
I could see the argument for doing something like this for the tool suggestions category (not sure id support that) but to disallow new users to asks questions or post at all, even about âshady VPNsâ, without mod approval seems unwarranted.
This feels like a step towards becoming r/privacy with their draconian rules.
I would be in favour of restricting site recommendations to a higher trust level than âbasic userâ to cut down on these kind of low effort recommendations. I really canât see a reason not to implement such a restriction.
I would also simply encourage users not to engage with such posts, as that essentially solves the problem.
I personally think eventually VPNs will become obsolete as a privacy technology and weâll move on to something better. So maybe when that happens we can reject VPN suggestions but it feels a bit heavy handed for now.
I feel that there has been. Some or many of those posts might now be unlinked, which makes an objective assessment hard.
We could maybe have some rules, like any recommendation or product question would be subject to approval, while the rest wouldnât need.
I donât know r/privacy well (expect itâs basically dead) but many forums have some mechanism where either users need to comment and like to gain enough âkarmaâ to post (something I dislike) or the first post needs mod approval, which I think is a fair rule. Some other forum also require one to introduce themself, but that is not really realistic for a privacy forum.
Seems a bit annoying and spammy, and there are other good VPNs outside of what we recommend depending on your threat model. Cloudflare WARP is one I use just because it actually speeds up my connection, even though from a privacy perspective itâs one of the worst options.
Can you share some recent examples of these types of posts? You are saying there is a trend, show me.
My main issue with this, is I donât necessarily think its bad for users (new or old) to post or suggest âshadyâ or bad products. I think it helps people who are researching to find those threads and see dozens of comments about why PG and others would not recommend or use them.
it has 1.4 million members. You are going to have to explain what you mean by dead.
I just disagree with this. I think things like karma and âtrust levelâ are mostly arbitrary and easy to get around.
do the requirements for trust level 1, really make a user more trustworthy then a new user?
Respectfully, you are wrong. Individually you might recommend other VPNs, and so can every PG team member, but PG as a whole only recommends what is listed on the website.
And I donât believe it is âspammyâ, on each of those post, we just have to repeat that PG only recommends 3 VPN, so this would save time.
It seems like most of your argument is based on feelings and not anything objective.
The VyprVPN thread is a post asking about a VPN. Its a legitimate thing to do on this forum. Its not an endorsement or recommendation. is a recommendation from a user that likes that VPN. Its a legitimate post. I canât speak for the NordVPN one as I canât find it (which basically solves your issue with it anyway).
I donât see how this constitutes as a trend for ârecommending untrustworthy VPNsâ as your original post suggests.
I see that and edited the post. I still donât see it as anything that requires some new rule. We have veteran users recommending NordPass so I donât see why new users should be subject to some new rule to prevent âshadyâ products being recommended.
I will say that the tool suggestion form should be more robust and posts that do not take the time to fill the form out properly should be more aggressively moderated.
Understanding that posts here do not represent the views of Privacy Guides is just about the most fundamental thing that users here need to understand. I disagree that many people would trust a recommendation by a brand new account with no interaction on their post.