To answer the recent SnusOn issue, and why I do what I do. 14 May 2014.

As you know, the SnusOn.com forum recently banned me from sharing snus information there.  Their terms of use say you can’t direct traffic from their site to another site, so sharing links there to information is apparently not kosher.  Which I don’t understand, as a forum is there to share information - but to each their own.  I hate having to address this because it’s very petty, but I won’t allow anyone to attempt to damage our image.  A lot of their members are readers here, and as that website didn't allow us a chance to address this, we're doing it here, so that people can know what happened and our response to this childish issue.

They accused us of “taking content from SnusOn and repackaging it”, which is in reference to us using their terms and wording for the “Dipper’s Guide To Snus”.  This content was allowed for us to be shared by a moderator there, which I have emails and PM’s to back up.  Apparently, they’re no longer okay with that, but they never told us.  So we’re in the process of reworking our Dipper’s Guide To Snus so that it doesn’t share any information of theirs.

They accused us of a “barrage of links”, which sadly, isn’t true.  It is true that we shared links with them to help members when questions came about products, reviews, or differences between various products.  I don’t see a problem with this because it’s helping snus users find the information they need, but if it violates their terms, so be it. However, after review of their Terms Of Use, we can't find a single one we violated.

They also accused us of self promotion/personal gain or using SnusOn to benefit “our own ends”.  This is a big one, which I want to explain, because this is the one which I think is an effort to demean our work in the snus community.  I’ll start with our monetary situation.  Snubie.com and GoSmokeless.org make no profit.  GoSmokeless.org is funded by it’s members, and even that doesn’t pay for all the costs of web hosting and registration, the rest is paid out of Nash’s pocket.  Snubie.com has Google Ads on our blog, which doesn’t even pay a fraction of the costs of web hosting and registration, the rest is paid out of my pocket.  

The manufacturer/webstore ads on Snubie.com are also not paid for, we make no money off of those.  We share those to help snus users find information/stores.  In fact, anytime someone approaches us to share an ad, we don’t share it unless it’s a company we believe in or want to work with.  If they offer us money, we let them know that we don’t take money for ads, because we don’t want to seem biased, Snubie.com is paid for out of my pocket and a small fraction of Google Ad income because it’s something I believe in.

The only “self promotion” or “personal gain” I receive is knowing that I helped a dip or cigarette user quit that habit by switching to snus.  So yes, I do get personal gain from that because it is a good thing to help someone make that switch.

Our 5 year anniversary sale with SnusCENTRAL - we didn’t make any profit on this.  In fact, neither did SnusCENTRAL.  This was something Swedish Match and SnusCENTRAL did to help us give something back to snus users in appreciation for them sticking with us for 5 years.  I didn’t make a penny off of it, either.  It was something I wanted to do to give back.  We shared this at SnusOn.com to help their members save money as well.

In closing, some forums and communities don’t want you sharing information, and that’s fine.  But to post outright lies and attempt to demean what we do is not okay, which is why I actually took the time to address it.  Talking about a forum banning you is about as petty as it can get, but I won’t allow them to damage my reputation or all the work that Snubie.com has done to help people quit smoking or dipping by switching to a harm reduced alternative.

All this reminds me why we started GoSmokeless.org.  Because we wanted an open community where people could share information, links, their blogs, websites, sales from their web stores, etc., without facing administrative action.  Because in the end, we’re all in this together and that’s what all this is about.  Helping others. I left that community to focus on GoSmokeless, but members (and even a moderator there) asked me to come back to share information and help snus users, which I allotted some of my time to do, but in the end, it didn't work out.

That being said, I want our readers to know that we do this because it is helpful to people.  Snubie.com isn't about making money, because we don't.  All of this is because we are passionate about saving lives and helping people quit their addiction to cigarettes and dip and switch to a safer alternative.  At the end of the day, that's what it's all about.