I think the biggest thing in this entire thread is that we (as a community, I mean) need to find a way to repay people taking the time and putting in the effort to do useful things such as what dooglus does (but more generally too) without it being sponsored by the company itself (which has the problem of creating an affiliation). Any ideas?
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Frankly, I don't think that there is a huge problem with affiliation, as long as we know it.  For instance, Dooglus revealing that he was in some way compensated for providing a service makes me think of him as an independent contractor.  He doesn't actually work directly for SatoshiDice, and his compensation/livelihood isn't tied directly to them, so given that he has been transparent, I have no reason to think that he is posting false information to make them look better than they are.

I mean, if we were really worried about his being influenced by the financial side of things, his approximately 10,000 shares would be far more of an issue. 

We can certainly tip him, and others who provide services (preferably through something like the Reddit tipbot), but there is also nothing wrong with people being compensated by the companies that they benefit.