Codes - Please read and help

I've been putting off posting this for a while because it's giving me a headache but it needs doing!

As MODs we are having a really difficult time with referral codes on the sub and need the community view on where to take this next.

Referal codes make people money. Because of this, people post and spam a lot to try and get it used. Many people do not engage in our sub at all and only want to use it as a free advertising space.

Another predicament is that most pharmacies stipulate in their T&Cs that you should not post your code on social media and it is for friends and family only.

We have tried to facilitate code sharing anyway. Many people expressed a dislike for codes when we first set up this sub, so we went with one dedicated, but endless, thread that eventually became unusable. People spammed it multiple times a day/week in desperation to get theirs used and most people on there were not people who ever contributed anything to this community.

To try and make this fairer, we introduced a new rule in Nov which stipulated you had to be a contributor, active / engaged member to post a code and could only post once a month. The idea behind this was to reduce the amount of spam and ensure people who deserved it, could take up 'free' advertising space to make themselves some money. Warnings were clear about bans for breaching these rules.

This did not work.

People spammed anyway, ignored the rules and then hurled abuse at us and our 'terrible sub' in the DMs. I get a little apprehensive starting the new monthly thread because I know I'm about to get blasted in the inbox about removing comments and enforcing (pre-warned) bans! It's become time consuming and not very nice for us and we have to ask, for what? We don't benefit at all from either allowing the codes or the admin and abuse that comes with it.

So, lovely MJ team.... What would you like us to do? Obviously it would be easier for the Mods to just ban code sharing full stop with all the grief it brings. But, this sub is yours so we want it to work for you. If people are benefiting we want to try and facilitate it. If no one is benefiting, then its all a pointless, painful exercise!

What do you, as a community, want? Remove codes altogether, keep the monthly thread, allow free for all and not worry about moderating it or something / anything else?! Open to any and all suggestions and opinions.

Throw your thoughts, opinions and ideas below. Be honest. Perhaps when we've got a clearer idea of where the opinion lies, we can do a poll.

Thanks for your patience with this!