Originally Posted by BaldBishop

John gave a satisfactory answer to the first questions. I think most of us understand why the hide_join option was added. There were however a couple extra interesting questions raised in this thread that deserve an answer as well. I hope John will answer them soon and I find it strange that he thinks people are trolling him. Affiliates are faced with nonpaying programs every day. Affiliates take on huge risks by promoting affiliate programs and it's perfectly reasonable for them to be asking questions. It's even perfectly understandable that some of them got loud when they learned NATS had a hide_join setting. You have to admit that the name of that option can cause confusion for those who are not familiar with the internal workings of NATS. In the current climate of nonpaying programs, it's really no surprise that people got suspicious when they read the first post about the hidden joins.