Affiliation

[Todd]

What is your policy on affiliation for your sites? Is your affiliation policy different for each site? Are you more picky regarding affiliation on some sites than others? How do you differentiate affiliates from links?

[Saya]

Well, normally I try to affiliate with shrines that are from the same series or if it's a manga at least from the same mangaka.

When it comes to links, well, when I'm not lazy I link to stuff I really like and think are worth seeing, or also the fact that they have some other information that I didn't give in my shrine, because it would go off topic.

[Todd]

My general policy on affiliation is that I'll affiliate with *quality* sites that are like mine. I use the word "quality" loosely, because if someone asks me to affiliate, they have unique content not ripped from Wikipedia, and I can see that they care about their site and are putting effort into it, I'll most likely always say yes. I just don't want to affiliate with unfinished sites, sites with stolen or no content, or sites that will break my browser.

That policy applies to pretty much all of my sites but my collective. For my collective, I affiliate with people, not sites, so I like to be acquainted with or friends with my affiliates. I have a lot of affiliates at my collective, but I consider them all friends, so I'm fine with that.

I find that most of the other sites dedicated to my fandoms are of quality, so I haven't really had to think about being picky. They're all a lot like mine, too, as in they're character shrines that focus on analysis. With my Drew Barrymore and (past and upcoming!) Knuckles sites, I tend to affiliate with anyone who asks as there really aren't sites like mine to those subjects, and I appreciate the hits they bring.

On smaller sites, I just link affiliates with banners somewhere. On the larger sites, I try to make affiliates pages, and write small reviews about what my affiliates have to offer my visitors.

This is random, but one of my favorite groups of affiliates is my Sabin site's. We all shrined different characters, so I pretty much am affiliated with one shrine per character, and I think it's awesome that we can be connected that way and offer our visitors a look at the game from different characters' points of view. I also like the sprite "party" in my site's footer. :)

[Mikari]

I've only been doing link exchanges. It seems easier and there's mutual linking involved. I'm not too picky, I link sites that are somehow related to mind, but not necessarily very closely. For example an entirely different video game where their only real similarity is that they're both RPGs. This doesn't mean I wouldn't affiliate, just that it has not come up.

[dubiousdisc]

I will not shy away from putting up on my fansites any link that's related to the subject and - in my opinion - worth a visit. Which naturally means more than a wiki page. Unless it's an entire wiki devoted to that subject, in which case...

It depends on how large is the fandom though. I can't possibly put up all related links to, say, Pokémon, lol. But in that case, I will link to other character shrines, or other goodies devoted to the same character I'm talking about.

As for affiliates, it's strictly other fansites about the same series. Affiliates on my collective: other collectives of people I have already had some sort of...communication?...with. But if someone I don't know asks me, and they have a collective, I will gladly link exchange with them, as long as their site is not the shit palace or I don't know what.

[Aku]

Stereotypically, I feel like I like to stay within the same series. Affiliate Macross shrines with other Macross shrines, because those are directly correlated and that's what visitors might be interested in seeing. However, since all of my shrines are from pretty niche fanbases, I try to be open-minded as well! I would happily shrine Gintoki with any other shounen jump heroes (or even shounen heroes) that actually wanted to be affiliated with that shrine. I think it's interesting to think of affiliation in a broader sense--maybe people who are interested in Ranka would be interested not only in other Macross shrines, but shrines to other mech characters, songstresses, or characters of a similar archetype as Ranka?

And, agreeing upon what Todd said, I think it's nice to hold yourself to a standard and try to affiliate with shrines which are of the same "quality" or "approach" as yours. I don't necessarily mean writing or design quality, but moreso that the shrine takes a similar conceptual approach to how they present the information.

[Destinie]

Lol, this is funny because I just wrote a post asking for Affiliates. XD;

I like to affiliate with shrines within the same franchise or series. Sometimes I will go out of my way to link exchange with sites that are related in media if there is little option. I'm pretty loose about it.

[Chibi]

I'm not picky at all when it comes to affiliates. I'll affiliate with any shrine from the same series. I think I'd resort to link exchanges only in case the site in question is different than mine in some way (if, for example, instead of being a shrine, it's a media/gallery/resource/etc. site).

As for collective/domain affiliates, I don't have a strict policy for those, either. Anyone can request an affiliation/link exchange, we don't necessarily have to write to each other every day. I suppose it would be nicer to keep in contact or get to know each other, but it's really not necessary. (Also, I sometimes cannot even keep in contact with my closest friends due to real life, so keeping in contact with more people is not gonna be easy for me. XD)

[Shiori]

What is your policy on affiliation for your sites? Is your affiliation policy different for each site? Are you more picky regarding affiliation on some sites than others? How do you differentiate affiliates from links?

For shrines I prefer affiliates to have some relevance to visitors of my shrine. Same series would be nice, but I'm also happy to affiliate with sites that are thematically similar as well. (For example, Todd's Reiko shrine is affiliated with my Reina shrine based on the fact that the two characters share a very similar role in their respective series. I figure if people enjoy reading about Reina, they'll love hearing Todd's take on Reiko. )

To differentiate from regular links I add a button and some kind of blurb/endorsement of the affiliate site. Though tbh I don't exactly have a lot of affiliates to begin with, likely owing to the fact that I only like complete crap nobody else cares about.

[Masao]

I wish I had more affiliates, but the truth is most of the time I'm just too lazy to make it happen. Instead of my sites being "too good" to affiliate (I hope no one thinks this), I just never really get around to asking people. I will mostly affiliate with any related shrines or fansites, and sometimes even fanlistings; as long as the subject is related or has similarities.

Depending on the layout/setup of the site, I may or may not differentiate the bigger affiliates with a button.