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> I've turned down two offers from the local bowling alley because I'm not going to have much nice to say about it. To maintain your credibility, you should re

> I've turned down two offers from the local bowling alley because I'm not going to have much nice to say about it. To maintain your credibility, you should review it pro bono; for bonus points, note that they previously tried to pay you twice. Otherwise it would be honest to clearly disclose that you mostly/only write positive reviews, albeit via selection bias rather than outright lying. I've written product reviews before, always either for stuff I bought or stuff received via an intermediary (i.e. X sends me Y's thing, I send my review to X). The whole "sponsored content" model makes me long for the days of flashing banner ads.

freehunter 10y ago
Oh don't worry I have a whole section linked in the header that lists out our advertising policy so readers can see the same terms I offer to sponsors. It even details my "anti-clickbait" policy where my headlines are guaranteed to be descriptive. I also do a lot that I don't get paid for and is not marked as sponsored content. Again on those I don't go negative, whether I'm being paid or not, whether I've been asked to write something or not. There's just enough negativity in the media that I don't want to contribute to that: what I'm selling is the way I want my city to make people feel. You should be happy to live here, let me show you how that's done. I'd link you to it so you could see all the details but it's personally identifying right down to my first name and the street I live on in my city, so I'm not comfortable linking my HN name with that. It's funny to me that whenever I mention this side project on HN it always gets a lot of interest from people wondering if I'm being honest to my readers and giving advice of how I can be more honest. Guess it goes to show that there isn't a lot of honesty left in this world.
- username223 10y ago
  > There's just enough negativity in the media that I don't want to contribute to that... I'd link you to it so you could see all the details but it's personally identifying I respect that. But 90% of everything is crap, and this is a forum created to worship shameless hustling. Negative reviews are important.

freehunter 10y ago

Oh don't worry I have a whole section linked in the header that lists out our advertising policy so readers can see the same terms I offer to sponsors. It even details my "anti-clickbait" policy where my headlines are guaranteed to be descriptive. I also do a lot that I don't get paid for and is not marked as sponsored content. Again on those I don't go negative, whether I'm being paid or not, whether I've been asked to write something or not. There's just enough negativity in the media that I don't want to contribute to that: what I'm selling is the way I want my city to make people feel. You should be happy to live here, let me show you how that's done. I'd link you to it so you could see all the details but it's personally identifying right down to my first name and the street I live on in my city, so I'm not comfortable linking my HN name with that. It's funny to me that whenever I mention this side project on HN it always gets a lot of interest from people wondering if I'm being honest to my readers and giving advice of how I can be more honest. Guess it goes to show that there isn't a lot of honesty left in this world.

username223 10y ago
> There's just enough negativity in the media that I don't want to contribute to that... I'd link you to it so you could see all the details but it's personally identifying I respect that. But 90% of everything is crap, and this is a forum created to worship shameless hustling. Negative reviews are important.