IMPORTANT DISchurners ANNOUNCEMENT
The State of the DISchurners Community
On behalf of the 6 moderators of r/DISchurners, I’d like to address our little community here on a handful of topics. DISchurners is approaching its 2nd anniversary and I never could have envisioned it growing into 300+ members. Coupled with the growth on our thread here on the DISboards, we have truly become a large community of friends and churners, brought together by our shared love of credit card rewards points. In addition to our most vocal members, it’s also clear that we have hundreds of others looking to US for information about churning, and that is so awesome! BUT with this growth comes additional exposure and potential risks and the mod group of DISchurners feels that it’s time we address this.
Just to clear, what we aren’t doing is suggesting to take our entire community off of the DISboards. The DIS is how we found each other and it’s how we continue to find new folks to help on this quest. We DO NOT want to squash the enthusiasm here for helping new folks find their way in this hobby. However, our thread can easily be found via google with churning related search terms and we are perhaps too nonchalant in our open discussion of advanced strategies and loopholes.
Advanced Strategies & Loophole Discussion:
I love the enthusiasm around some of the more lucrative strategies and loopholes. However, certain loopholes are starting to be mentioned very frequently and as we’ve discussed before, the more widespread they become, the greater the risk for them to get shutdown. I think it’s time for us to self-police as a community and move these discussions a bit more towards DISchurners. It is the responsible thing to do – we aren’t looking to “hide” the information. We just want to protect it as best we can.
You are certainly encouraged to say things on the DIS thread like “Hey guys, I just posted a neat DP on the Chase Ink Preferred thread on DISchurners”. But coming right out and citing that you got card #5 is perhaps something we want to avoid. As a community, we should WANT people to see important information and be well informed of the advanced strategies that exist. BUT we temper that desire with also wanting those strategies to exist 3 months from now, hence why we’re suggesting this approach. We will be setting up threads on DISchurners for a few of the major discussion items that we expect.
Manufactured Spend Discussion:
Similar to my comment on loopholes, manufactured spend (MS) has slowly crept more into our everyday discussion here. Many folks are new to MS and are eager to learn as much about it as possible. Those that have more experience in this arena will be quick to tell you that locations can get burned and strategies destroyed by folks who are irresponsibly conducting their MS activities. There are also a lot of risks around MS and I’m not sure our entire user base grasps the fact that you can’t get stuck with more than you can float. I would also suggest that we self-police in this arena and gently nudge folks to take more specific MS discussions to DISchurners.
What Card Advice and Strategy Discussion:
Handing out advice and helping with strategy is the activity that the community is built upon! Helping people find their way is great and the fact that people are willing to give back to the community is wonderful. Recently, we’ve noticed a more casual approach to dishing out this advice. This is a reminder that for somebody stumbling on to our thread, it’s important that we balance the advice with proper cautions.
By moving discussions of loopholes and MS off the DIS thread, that will certainly help, as newbies won’t be drawn immediately to advanced strategies that could place them in trouble or cause harm to the long-term viability of these strategies. Additionally, I feel that we should try to balance our advice with cautions about spending beyond your means, incurring interest, and just provide a general care around advocating for business cards. It can be hard to remember what it was like as a new churner, but think for a minute about how “crazy” business cards sounded the first time somebody told you to go for one.
If we adjust our approach a little, people who were just “driving by” will still be able to get a card or 2 and be happy. For those that WANT to dive deeper, all the resources necessary will be provided to them on DISchurners. Let’s encourage new folks to display a willingness to research and learn BEFORE we “spoon feed” the best information we have out in the open. And don’t hesitate to recommend joining DISchurners to all new folks. Our DISchurners group is open to ANYBODY who finds us via the DISboards. We have never denied entrance to anybody.
I heard Reddit is scary and people are mean there:
DISchurners will continue to function as a safe place for all to visit. As a private group, we will maintain complete control over who has access and the only way in will remain to find us on our thread here. While some of the advice there may become more advanced, the community will keep the respectful and welcoming tone found on the DIS vs the aggressiveness of r/churning (for example we won't tolerate disrespect of new folks or asking questions, etc.)
Why Is this being said now?
It’s important to note that this comment is NOT directed at anybody in particular. This is a proactive action before something happens, NOT a reaction to something that has happened. It is the culmination of seeing a group more than quadruple in size over the course of a couple of years. We have assembled a great group of 6 moderators for DISchurners and the consensus was that we need to address things. Our group will likely continue to grow, and it was important for us to set a tone of how we want operate now vs. when we have 1,000+ people frequenting the thread daily.
We also acknowledge that we have no authority whatsoever on the DIS. Anybody can say or do whatever they please so we’re asking the community as a whole to exercise caution and responsibility and help to protect the valuable information that we have. I would suggest that the best way for us to conduct this would be to simply reply to anybody who is sharing “sensitive info” and say something like “Do you think that this information would be better shared on DISchurners”. I’d also probably edit the quote on that reply to exclude any information that you feel needs protected. Hopefully then that user will comply and edit their comment accordingly as well.
In closing, please help us protect the valuable information that this community has to offer. Pay it forward to future churners by being responsible with your approach! The DIS has been and will remain a great home for our general chatter. We welcome any feedback from the community to this suggested shift in approach.
FYI: I will likely post this again as an announcement on a couple of occasions throughout the next week.
I think not. Putting my foot down on that one.
good luck!
