Czar are you sure you are not an employee of SI?
Total disclosure: For the second time, John, I am not and have never been an employee of SI. Also, I have never collected or requested any monetary compensation from SI other than revenues earned through their affiliate programs. I'm simply a happy camper - and one that has been reviewing affiliate programs and ad networks since 1996, so I've certainly seen my fair share of shady programs come and go. I know that SI does not belong within this category, and thus am willing to defend their honor when one of their unhappy ex-affiliates makes public statements against the firm that are unrepresentative of the experiences of the majority.
As Robert noted, over 100,000 publishers have given SI a go, and of those only a very small minority have legitimate complaints. I'm not doubting that your experience was bad - that's not a question here. Whenever an affiliate manager is handling 10s of thousands of unique accounts, there are bound to be a few legitimate publishers burned unrightfully (just look at the experiences of MailBits, CJ, and other popular affiliate ASPs - it goes without saying that the silent majority of their affiliates are happy with their treatment from these solid firms, but there is always a vocal minority who make repeated public posts that attempt to tear away at the comfort of others). What's happening on this forum is that one or two unhappy affiliates are repeating their negative statements again and again, with painful predictability - and those of us who have a more rounded view of the firms in question (in addition to being the editor of Net-Ads and an SI affiliate, I'm a Geek/Talk moderator and SitePoint mentor, so I hear dozens of stories regarding SI each day) are here to add balance.
I can't remember exactly how much you lost during your relationship with SI, but I seem to recall that it was something in the range of $25. Is it really worth pursuing your agenda in the name of $25 that may or may not have been dropped out of an accidental flagging of your account almost a year ago? The mere fact that SI have survived this long since that time (when others in the field have continued to burn through their cash reserves, all while withhold payments en-masse, breaking contracts, dumping 1000s of affiliates and slicing pay rates several fold) should be testament to their strength - and in these times, knowing which firms are the strongest, most flexible and most reputable is life-or-death information for professional publishers.
As a side note, I have witnessed several successful conflict resolutions involving SI, in which publishers voiced their legitimate complaints publicly, before following this up via email and having their accounts and earnings reinstated. If you honestly were dropped unfairly, then pursuing this route, and avoiding making fiery accusations would have been a far wiser avenue.
To claw my way back on-topic: Good luck, WebbyTwax. Hopefully your experience will be more in-line with the 99,000 affiliates who have never had a bad word to say about SI.
