# Regarding new offers and post counts.



## MannDude (May 18, 2015)

I'm as tired as others are of seeing rubbish posts being made and old threads being bumped just so providers can post a new offer. Starting now the "5 posts between offers" rule is being removed because it's too much hassle to enforce and it only creates poor content from those who have no interest in using this community beyond solicitation of their services. It does no good to the growth of vpsBoard to continue to enforce this.

Was a good idea three years ago, not so much now.

The seven day rule still applies. If you simply want to post an offer once every seven days and have no other forum contributions, you may. I trust our members and visitors will be able to detect this.

The way offers are posted are being re-worked so additional updates may follow.


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## SkylarM (May 18, 2015)

Good.

I'm going to pretend this would count if the 5 post rule was required.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 18, 2015)

SkylarM said:


> Good.
> 
> I'm going to pretend this would count if the 5 post rule was required.


Ugh.

There's this guy named Skylar I know and he just spams the forum CONSTANTLY.

What a jerk!  I'm gonna make sure to ban him at the next BBQ.


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## DomainBop (May 18, 2015)

> Starting now the "5 posts between offers" rule is being removed


MANNDUDE OBVIOUSLY HAS SOMETHING AGAINST PEOPLE ON FIVERR TRYING TO MAKE AN HONEST BUCK AND WITH THIS STUUUUPID RULE CHANGE HE HAS SINGLE-HANDEDLY KILLED THE THRIVING MARKET OF _"5 posts for $5"_ SERVICES.


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## MannDude (May 18, 2015)

DomainBop said:


> MANNDUDE OBVIOUSLY HAS SOMETHING AGAINST PEOPLE ON FIVERR TRYING TO MAKE AN HONEST BUCK AND WITH THIS STUUUUPID RULE CHANGE HE HAS SINGLE-HANDEDLY KILLED THE THRIVING MARKET OF _"5 posts for $5"_ SERVICES.


You forgot to make it purple. 

Just trying to stop the, "Yeah I agree" and "Yes. we can offer this." on old threads just so post counts can be increased to meet the criteria.

In fact, if any of the criteria isn't met we're not contacting the provider. The rules are made so super clear in the post template that is seen in the text box where someone would post an offer that failure to comply will simply result in no offer being ever seen by the public.


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## Amitz (May 18, 2015)

Yeah... I share your pain. Let's hope that things like this stop:


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## SkylarM (May 18, 2015)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Ugh.
> 
> There's this guy named Skylar I know and he just spams the forum CONSTANTLY.
> 
> What a jerk!  I'm gonna make sure to ban him at the next BBQ.



NOT THE BBQ. ANYTHING BUT THE BBQ


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## drmike (May 18, 2015)

Amitz said:


> Yeah... I share your pain. Let's hope that things like this stop:


Well at least it wasn't all my posts in a row    Now I need to start running ads... I have enough credits


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## Nick_A (May 18, 2015)

Wait, there was a 5 post rule?

D:


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## HalfEatenPie (May 19, 2015)

Nick_A said:


> Wait, there was a 5 post rule?
> 
> D:


Yeah.  And I was eyeing you just waiting for you to slip up SIR.


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## KuJoe (May 19, 2015)

I vote that people who can't follow the rules and post spam should be punished instead of removing rules. That CoMBoZo clown is a prime example. He posts shitty posts to get his count up so he can spam us and then he doesn't even follow the rules and then the mods here approve his thread anyways. Come on guys, don't cave into the spammers.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 19, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> I vote that people who can't follow the rules and post spam should be punished instead of removing rules. That CoMBoZo clown is a prime example. He posts shitty posts to get his count up so he can spam us and then he doesn't even follow the rules and then the mods here approve his thread anyways. Come on guys, don't cave into the spammers.


Hm. out of pure curiosity I'd like to ask you what you'd recommend the solution should be?

I mean I could (as an admin) PM them and inform them that their posts contain no actual content and are considered spam, however what would constitute an actual line to draw in the sand between spam and not? Because that's what they'd ask for.

In addition, every once in a while when I PM individuals who fail to follow the rules I get the message "Well I'd love to do the 5 posts between but there aren't topics I can participate in with enough knowledge" or "I'm too busy running my company to do this". My answers are mostly trying to be as accommodating as possible (and as polite as possible since I don't really try and tell people "fuck off"). This has always been a bit of a pain in the ass though for me.

I personally would enjoy having that rule back up, however the constant fine line between what is spam and what isn't gets asked all the time.

Also, I don't know about how other people feel but I never really thought we'd have this big of a problem in relation to this. So many individuals just come to drop off their ad and walk away. I guess you feel pretty used and honestly offended.


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## joepie91 (May 19, 2015)

HalfEatenPie said:


> "I'm too busy running my company to do this"


Isn't this exactly the kind of user we _don't_ want on VPSBoard? Only here to advertise their company, no community engagement.


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## KuJoe (May 19, 2015)

@HalfEatenPie my biggest gripe is these providers who post ads and then when a staff approves it they have to reply "what data center?" or something else that the provider needs to answer to be compliant with the rules.

I guess it makes sense to get rid of the 5 post rule, but don't cave in when it comes to following the other rules to get offers posted.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 19, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Isn't this exactly the kind of user we _don't_ want on VPSBoard? Only here to advertise their company, no community engagement.


True. I guess a difficulty I have is basically saying "yeah no" when it comes to this part. Most for applications and posts and whatnot I do try to give them the benefit of the doubt since they took the courtesy to find our little corner of the internet. However blatant ones are removed. We'll continue thinking of ways to standardize it. I mean if no-one's following our rules, it gets pretty dull over time sending the same PMs over and over again.



KuJoe said:


> @HalfEatenPie my biggest gripe is these providers who post ads and then when a staff approves it they have to reply "what data center?" or something else that the provider needs to answer to be compliant with the rules.
> 
> I guess it makes sense to get rid of the 5 post rule, but don't cave in when it comes to following the other rules to get offers posted.


Yeah I believe this recent change is more of a push for what you're saying. I usually try and give the courtesy of a PM saying "hey this is a problem." (I don't know... it feels rude just to remove it and never notify them of the changes), but then again it has been one of the more annoying sides of staff-Approved offer posts structure. We'll see how it pans out


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## lolitseasy (May 19, 2015)

Is there a specific reason to have a staff approved offer post structure? Can we delegate that to non-provider community members and weed out offers where providers are not responsive and don't take responsibility for what they post?


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## drmike (May 19, 2015)

lolitseasy said:


> Is there a specific reason to have a staff approved offer post structure? Can we delegate that to non-provider community members and weed out offers where providers are not responsive and don't take responsibility for what they post?


Let the community burn the witches at the stake   Mob rule will cure the new visitors from hell.



joepie91 said:


> Isn't this exactly the kind of user we _don't_ want on VPSBoard? Only here to advertise their company, no community engagement.


Yeah there is the entirety of the net for drive by ad spam shilling.  I wish more communities / forums would police offer dump and run.  Too often I see folks there for sales hopes and nothing else.   That practice pisses me off and long term drives down most sites.

On the other hand, barriers in the way, where LAZY providers have to actually do work to submit offer and provider details seems to be more and more of an issue.   Is it too much to ask them to spend an extra $5 for the Indian cross post team to comply  ? (now now, before you choke on your milk - has to be correlation why so many of these sites have super representation of audience from India - it isn't spilled out in the accounts and registrations to jive - thusly I say India is fueling the cheap labor pool of ad spamming and crap commenting to get to quota on many similar sites).


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## MannDude (May 19, 2015)

Well, what does everyone propose?

Can't very well ban/block those who don't contribute positively to the forum. If we do that, then people will argue we're 'censoring' things and will complain more.

Reviewing a few accounts that have been 'problematic' in regards to this topic, they all appear to have one thing in common and that is the the owners are from non-English speaking countries so it's safe to assume their grasp of the language may not be strong enough to actively contribute as much as others do. Everyone is welcome here, regardless where they are from. There is much to learn from vpsBoard as we've got some great content and articles. Though I *do* already put forth somewhat of an increased effort in promoting vpsBoard in native English speaking countries for the simple fact that better understanding of the language that is used here usually means better contributions. (Look at LET, for example, where many new posts and contributions are rather poor quality.) When we run Twitter campaigns to show vpsBoard as a suggested page or sponsored Tweets I do so only for English speaking countries instead of diluting the campaign budget on a global audience as I want everyone here to be able to effectively understand each other without much confusion and do want to prevent the "hi i want cheap vps thx" type posts that can be found elsewhere.

So, about offers... What to do? Offers have been moderated since day one. The public only sees the offers that make it through the approval of either myself, @HalfEatenPie or @Martin-D. The non-Verified Offers forum would _literally _be nothing but spam. I just looked and well over half of the offers submitted were not approved (I still see the hidden/non-approved threads). The Verified Provider forum is much better, but still requires approval of new threads simply because there are still a lot of folks who don't read the rules in the post template and just copy/paste their latest WHT offer over it and click 'Post'.

I'm all for making my life easier. We _could_ do away with the moderation queue for new offers and do away with the guidelines and let providers simply submit whatever, with or without whatever information they find relevant to their ad.. but I'm not sure that will go over well. The entire idea of the moderation queue was that quality offers were submitted, but it may be good to make it easier to post with some less restrictions. If it's a bad offer / post, people aren't punished here for commenting on offers like they are at WHT so you're free to comment and ask questions or even warn other members if the company posting is shady.

Anyhow, that's the update. I'm open to suggestions as always.


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## drmike (May 19, 2015)

MannDude said:


> 1) Reviewing a few accounts that have been 'problematic' in regards to this topic, they all appear to have one thing in common and that is the the owners are from non-English speaking countries so it's safe to assume their grasp of the language may not be strong enough to actively contribute as much as others do....
> 
> 2) ... So, about offers... What to do? Offers have been moderated since day one. The public only sees the offers that make it through the approval of either myself, @HalfEatenPie or @Martin-D. The non-Verified Offers forum would _literally _be nothing but spam. I just looked and well over half of the offers submitted were not approved (I still see the hidden/non-approved threads).
> 
> 3) I'm all for making my life easier. We _could_ do away with the moderation queue for new offers and do away with the guidelines and let providers simply submit whatever, with or without whatever information they find relevant to their ad.. but I'm not sure that will go over well. The entire idea of the moderation queue was that quality offers were submitted, but it may be good to make it easier to post with some less restrictions. If it's a bad offer / post, people aren't punished here for commenting on offers like they are at WHT so you're free to comment and ask questions or even warn other members if the company posting is shady.


1) Oh the good old English comprehension thing.   I don't buy that.   These folks or those they hire have a grasp good enough on English language.   They are just quick to post from their copy and paste mess.  Rules just slow them down and make the no value spamming not viable.

2) I'd be interested in a shame list for the non-verified providers.  Which providers are that ridiculous and how many times have they gone the fail route each...

3) Doing away with moderation queue will just have me dropping F-BOMBS and nuking crap providers spamming and bullshitting the community.  Will drive my work queue up    I am fine with that though


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## splitice (May 22, 2015)

Have you thought about requiring a certain number of new threads in certain sections (i.e articles) or something like that?

I understand its a fine balance, but honestly we don't need another WHT where everyone only posts for offers.


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## MannDude (May 22, 2015)

splitice said:


> Have you thought about requiring a certain number of new threads in certain sections (i.e articles) or something like that?
> 
> 
> I understand its a fine balance, but honestly we don't need another WHT where everyone only posts for offers.


Well, only Verified Providers can post offers in the offers forum. That is something WHT and no other forum does. The requirements are somewhat lax, but it does require that hosts posting there are operating under some form of legal and traceable entity and have things like public WhoIs.

The non-verified offer forum is more or less useless. Guests who are not logged in can not see the forum and I don't believe it's indexed by Google either. About 60% of all offers posted there never see the light of day because they're useless spam.


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## KuJoe (May 22, 2015)

What about a pay-to-post type of subscription? I'm not saying a huge amount but any amount will deter the drive-by-spammers making $0.10/ad or whatever the going rate is these days.

How about something like $2/month with the current restrictions still in place? Extremely affordable even for start-ups and just based on the first page of the Verified Offers section (assuming $1.50 per host after fees) that's an extra $24/month just off of those 16 hosts and when money is involved (even $2) people will be damn sure the follow the rules when their wallet is involved (as long as threads that don't follow the rules don't see the light of day).

Basically, in addition to the current requirements for being a Verified Provider there would be a monthly fee to have access to advertise. I mean some hosts are already paying for ad space so you know they'd pay an extra $2/month to post an ad on the forums.

$2/month is just an example. I'm sure hosts would be willing to pay more if it meant keeping the crap/spam off the forums.

More quality content = more quality traffic = higher quality clients.


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## rds100 (May 22, 2015)

I wouldn't mind having to pay to post offers, but then we would need to receive invoice for the payments made, and vpsboard would probably need to incorporate for this.

We (as a company) can't just send money to some random guy's paypal address, our accountant would want to kill me if i were to send money somewhere without getting an invoice for the payment.


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## KuJoe (May 22, 2015)

rds100 said:


> I wouldn't mind having to pay to post offers, but then we would need to receive invoice for the payments made, and vpsboard would probably need to incorporate for this.
> 
> We (as a company) can't just send money to some random guy's paypal address, our accountant would want to kill me if i were to send money somewhere without getting an invoice for the payment.


Not sure if they are still using it but they were using BoxBilling for their invoicing before for the paid ads, could just as easily use it for invoicing for forum permissions.


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## drmike (May 22, 2015)

rds100 said:


> I wouldn't mind having to pay to post offers, but then we would need to receive invoice for the payments made, and vpsboard would probably need to incorporate for this.
> 
> We (as a company) can't just send money to some random guy's paypal address, our accountant would want to kill me if i were to send money somewhere without getting an invoice for the payment.


Mann most certainly can do billing for that....  That shouldn't be a problem.



MannDude said:


> The non-verified offer forum is more or less useless. Guests who are not logged in can not see the forum and I don't believe it's indexed by Google either. About 60% of all offers posted there never see the light of day because they're useless spam.



This is correct.  Unverified offers are just visible to us logged in folks.

What's going on here with all the ad spamming is someone has software(s) for forum spamming.  In researching stuff recently for clients I bumped into the very same folks all over random sites spamming offers.   I need to map the times and order of the common suspects to see how rapid/close the posting is.  If for instance it appears they hit 30 sites in say  < 1 hour - something that would be nearly impossible as a manual human posting process.


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## DomainBop (May 22, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> What about a pay-to-post type of subscription? I'm not saying a huge amount but any amount will deter the drive-by-spammers making $0.10/ad or whatever the going rate is these days.
> 
> How about something like $2/month with the current restrictions still in place? Extremely affordable even for start-ups and just based on the first page of the Verified Offers section (assuming $1.50 per host after fees) that's an extra $24/month just off of those 16 hosts and when money is involved (even $2) people will be damn sure the follow the rules when their wallet is involved (as long as threads that don't follow the rules don't see the light of day).



What about a limit of one free ad every two weeks per company and making them pay for posting additional ads to cut down on providers who fill up the new posts page by posting ads in multiple offer categories (VPS, dedicated, colo, etc) .  There are a few companies whose only contribution to the forum is to stop by every two weeks and fill up the new posts column by posting several ads for each of their different product lines (example from earlier this week: a Los Angeles/Dallas providier posting  a VPS ad, a dedicated ad, a colo ad, and a DDoS protection ad during his bi-weekly 2 minute visit to the forum.).


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## splitice (May 22, 2015)

Personally I don't think buying ads is the right approach. Having money does not necessarily indicate quality.

I would rather see advertising be a reward for those who contribute to the quality and content of the community.

Maybe "is an active and contributing member" should be a requirement for getting verified?


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## KuJoe (May 22, 2015)

splitice said:


> Personally I don't think buying ads is the right approach. Having money does not necessarily indicate quality.
> 
> 
> I would rather see advertising be a reward for those who contribute to the quality and content of the community.
> ...


They tried that and removed that requirement, hence what this thread is about.  Since that rule didn't work and only promoted shitty posts, we are looking for other ways to weed out the kids/spammers.


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## splitice (May 22, 2015)

My definition of "is an active and contributing member" would be based off an individual assessment, not any post counts. A rule of thumb could however be applied for guidelines.

Either that or ${X} *quality* posts / threads. Then just rejecting those who do spam. Guidelines for quality could just be set with examples, and the bar need not be that high.


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## joepie91 (May 22, 2015)

splitice said:


> Personally I don't think buying ads is the right approach. Having money does not necessarily indicate quality.
> 
> 
> I would rather see advertising be a reward for those who contribute to the quality and content of the community.
> ...


I have to agree with this. I can't see money improving things here - if anything, it's going to cause a shitstorm if/when users (or worse, forum staff) comment critically on an offer thread, with hosts complaining that "users shouldn't be allowed to trash my thread, I've paid for it".

Monetary compensation doesn't just make people more careful - it also makes them more demanding. I don't think this is what we want.


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## HenriqueSousa - WebUp 24/7 (May 22, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> I have to agree with this. I can't see money improving things here - if anything, it's going to cause a shitstorm if/when users (or worse, forum staff) comment critically on an offer thread, with hosts complaining that "users shouldn't be allowed to trash my thread, I've paid for it".
> 
> Monetary compensation doesn't just make people more careful - it also makes them more demanding. I don't think this is what we want.


To solve those complains of the hosts, they just need to make a ToS for this type of offers.

Mann could always invoke the ToS, if an host starts harassing the community.

- Henrique


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## MannDude (May 22, 2015)

Nah, not going to charge for new offers to be posted.


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## drmike (May 22, 2015)

MannDude said:


> Nah, not going to charge for new offers to be posted.



Good, just charge a fee for companies wanting to be listed on offers.  $5 for someones time to vet them. 

Benefit of heavily policing the offers is that it gets rid of noise for sake of noise by automated posters who flood site offers areas (which has been done quite successfully on vpsB).  It's a matter of curated offers and better quality of companies represented <-- those are the goals and proper outcomes.


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