# WebhostingTalk catches the LE* disease



## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

Ok, so LE* can't carry the stigma of responsibility for this - it's been an ongoing condition for longer than any of us have been relevant (except maybe that old Tim guy ).  LE* just happens to be a prime example of how *not* to adapt to changing times.

Heh, anyways - the thread in question is here.  Figured I would bring it up here as I tend to enjoy conversing such topics with people I actually know and respect, rather than a gaggle of strangers and noise.  The thread over there is a bit long, but it's a good read.

A few people in that thread make a great point.  Excessive moderation, strict criteria to post, and so on will never "solve the problem" - trying to remain relevant by crippling potential competition helps nobody.  We have a realtime view of failure and deadpool over at the "cestpit" (I still want to slap whoever intentionally misspelled that) from all the _providers_ that think simply overselling even more resources and ridiculous prices and offering resources they can't actually back.

I see a good bit of innovation (and a GREAT deal of copying) that's applaudable from realistic hosts.  New features, better quality as opposed to quantity;  at the end of the day though, there's nothing really groundbreaking going on.  Can't really give props to Digital Ocean, considering the concept was already in practice (Amazon caught just about everyone with their pants down).  It's pretty rare to find a good think tank, since sharing information amongst competition is pretty much taboo.

That would be an interesting concept, though.. the best minds of VPSB pooling ideas, pioneering a potential new direction.  None of the "non-compete"/NDA nonsense.. just a group of guys deciding on a good direction for the market to take, then everyone stepping back and approaching it at their discretion.


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## KuJoe (Jan 22, 2014)

I made what I thought was a viable suggestion in that thread but it was overlooked or ignored so I figured they just wanted to bitch instead of discussing actual solutions to the problem.


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

KuJoe said:


> I made what I thought was a viable suggestion in that thread but it was overlooked or ignored so I figured they just wanted to bitch instead of discussing actual solutions to the problem.


Nail on the head, pretty much.  I don't fault the community, though - it's not like they actively encourage such idiocy.  And it is rather nice that they take an approach much similar to MannDude's;  in that they realize you cannot simply moderate what you feel is fair/unfair, as such will always be subjective to opinion and just start a slippery slope to "only people we trust/like get posted".


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## Jonathan (Jan 22, 2014)

KuJoe said:


> I made what I thought was a viable suggestion in that thread but it was overlooked or ignored so I figured they just wanted to bitch instead of discussing actual solutions to the problem.


I think it got overlooked being at the bottom of page one...


Either way, I replied.  Good idea, but near impossible implementation because who is to define the definition of managed/unmanaged?


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

If there's to be any type of seperation, I think Curtis' approach would be best.  Completely unworkable on WHT without an all new platform, but still the best way to go about it.

That being DailyServerDeals, of course.  The *Find a Plan* option, where you get a list of options you can toggle.  Only trust registered businesses?  *toggle* Don't want to deal with providers younger than two years? *toggle*

Let the consumer make the definitions.  They'll either care or they won't, and the ones that do will take the time to use filters to get what they're comfortable with.  That should be the point anyways - protect the consumer, not the companies.  It's our job to protect ourselves by staying relevant and in demand.


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## MannDude (Jan 22, 2014)

This will happen anywhere.

No one is truly happy anywhere they are.

Some people love it here, some people hate it. I can't appeal to everyone.

LowEndTalk can't appeal to everyone.

WebHostingTalk can't appeal to everyone.

I try to do what I can within my limits to please folks here, and fail often. I'm sure WHT staff, in their old age, are just tired and don't care anymore  I'm young(ish) [closer to 30 than 20] so I still have enough vigor to try to please the masses before their constant nagging drives me insane and I abandon ship to walk into the woods to never be seen again  

WHT's main issue is it's simply a sea of providers, shills, and lacking in content. The strict moderation doesn't hurt, but what does hurt is when a simple messup results in an infraction and not an open dialogue on how to correct. If I post an offer today with wrong formatting, it gets removed, and I have to wait another 7 days to post a new one. That's lame. The unlimited hosting offers being allowed is kind of lame, but whatever.


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## NodeWest-Dan (Jan 22, 2014)

I stopped using that site other than to post an advertisement once a week. Even that is becoming useless. 

I always though of putting up a forum for verified providers to advertise on and the public to use. I own webhostinghuddle.com but haven't ever done anything with it. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## maounique (Jan 22, 2014)

Aldryic C said:


> Nail on the head, pretty much.  I don't fault the community, though - it's not like they actively encourage such idiocy.  And it is rather nice that they take an approach much similar to MannDude's;  in that they realize you cannot simply moderate what you feel is fair/unfair, as such will always be subjective to opinion and just start a slippery slope to "only people we trust/like get posted".


Amen to that.

However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That alone is not enough, you need someone to constantly remind you what you want to do and show that current actions do not work towards that goal when that happens (it will, we are all human).

It is then very important to admit a mistake and learn from it but there is a saying: Intelligent people learn from own mistakes, but it takes a genius to learn from other people's mistakes.


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## DomainBop (Jan 22, 2014)

> That should be the point anyways - protect the consumer, not the companies.  It's our job to protect ourselves by staying relevant and in demand.


That should be the point but most forums take a different view.  Maarten at LowEndTalk tries to protect the companies first and foremost...his criticism of Ash was a rare exception (which of course pleases his masters in Buffalo).  iNET at WHT does what it has always done on all of its sites, like HotScripts and ABestWeb , tries to maximize its corporate revenues and shows little concern for the welfare of either the consumer or the companies.  I think the mods at WHT would like things to be different but they (the ones who aren't iNET employees) are hamstrrung by iNET.

edit:



> I try to do what I can within my limits to please folks here, and fail often.


fix the ignore feature so I can add admins to my list and I'll be pleased


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## GVH-Jon (Jan 22, 2014)

WebHostingTalk is an example of how all popular forums in existence should be moderated. I honestly think that WHT is a great forum as well as LET, except LET needs to be more strictly moderated to the degree that WHT is.

And "Excessive moderation, strict criteria to post, and so on will never "solve the problem" ? Not at all. WHT's moderation isn't excessive and their criteria to post isn't strict. If anything, it's not enough.

iNET is doing a great job at running WHT and I wouldn't like it any other way.


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

GVH-Jon said:


> And "Excessive moderation, strict criteria to post, and so on will never "solve the problem" ? Not at all. WHT's moderation isn't excessive and their criteria to post isn't strict. If anything, it's not enough.


...do you even know what "solve the problem" is referring to here?  Or did you just skim and throw a quick post to get your garish signiture ad out some more?

But let's play devil's advocate.  I would be 100% for excessively strict moderation on WHT, especially since it means you and all the other CC shills/shells would end up thrown out, just like Fabozzi was.


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## GVH-Jon (Jan 22, 2014)

Redacted


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

...is it just not obvious to you by now that nobody here is going to believe a word you say without evidence?  Unless you're simply that damn bored, I don't get why you keep wasting your time.

Though it is good to see that you're finally admitting how dirty things are there.


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## MartinD (Jan 22, 2014)

Okay - this direction stops immediately. Back on topic or sod off out of this thread.


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## blergh (Jan 22, 2014)

From my point of view in terms of the LEB-market/website it all went to shit with the good content disappearing. Back in 2008 when 512MB offers were kind of rare and people were experimenting, *using* their resources for something, learning something in the process. Forums were about learning, giving back and meeting new people that shared your interests or passion. I personally miss the older days when you didn't have to do actual research before choosing a provider out of fear of them disappearing or being a reseller of a reseller (resell-ception) trying to undercut everyone and everything. I miss being able to pay a honest, real-world figure for my services, both to make sure that the company I am with makes enough to grow and keep on doing what they, improving and bringing new stuff to the market. I miss the blogs with actual content and howto's, where people did it for fun and for learning instead of trying to shitspray everything with ads. Things changes and so do prices, and while I'm personally not in the LEB-market (Business-wise, that is) I feel sad for the current state of things, maybe it's just me being an old fart who's nostalgic over the glory-days or maybe it's just the cold fact.

I'm not saying that simply increasing prices would magically improve everything, because it won't. But what I'd love to see is people starting to understand price vs value, and that paying 15-20 USD for a 2GB VPS isn't to be considered a scam, bad joke or anything but actually sane business-practice. If you are confident in your service then you should have no issues with charging for it, the whole LEB-playground isn't a good ground for business I'm afraid (as seen by the huge number of deadpools over the years). As for the whole providers-shitstorms going on; vote with your money - No need to discuss or cause drama just for the sake of it.

My TL;DR is probably just that of; Get your services, honor those that you think do good. As for the community feel free to try and improve it, be it by doing reviews or guides - Doing something to keep new people from learning, sharing the knowledge. Unfortunately there seems to be an awful lot of e-peen involved in just giving a helping hand or giving honest and helpful advice.

I apologize if i am being off-topic, but just figured i would throw my thoughts out there.


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## MartinD (Jan 22, 2014)

Looks like Dennis has sent it out in an email, too:


http://click.inetinteractive-email.com/?qs=472b8134d547baff766bff915b00907ab24034d826cecce1bc4a6c7ac278f9e7


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## NodeWest-Dan (Jan 22, 2014)

The only customers I ever seem to be in touch with from webhostingtalk are fraud and spam clients. 

All of our legit customers come from here, reddit, and word of
Mouth. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Hxxx (Jan 22, 2014)

@Aldryic C'boas

I like your point of view. Are you sure you cannot buy WHT?

I can't imagine WHT more restricted, you can't even say fuck, not even shitty?... Sometimes that is needed.

I also agree with you on the new platform. Definetely a most. Forums for advertisement is not longer appropiate.

You know what is funny about WHT management, they don't point out solutions, they dont even really participate. That email that went out was clearly to get more traffic ^ ^ . As always no solution (if any needed) will be implemented.

Geez ... Money and traffic is all that counts there.


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 22, 2014)

Heh, you don't ever want me in a position of authority in a community.  Trust me on that one - I simply don't have the tolerance.

You can curse on WHT, so long as you don't go overboard with it and aren't directly insulting someone.  I've used 'dicking around', 'completely fucked', and other such charming phrases in the occasional post - never been warned about it.  But I do strive to keep my language clean there when I can, so that's likely why I haven't taken any heat for the few slip ups.

To be fair... of course they want more traffic, and they're not going to give 'official' input this early.  That thread is a great opportunity for them to sit back and gather user opinions, which they may take into account when deciding on changes down the line.  The more prominent mods already posted their opinions anyways - I wouldn't sweat them not getting down and dirty with all the mud-slinging that took place.


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## hellogoodbye (Jan 22, 2014)

Maybe it's due to me being a newbie, but I find WHT to be a very active forum and one that I have to struggle to keep up with because new threads are always popping up and comments being posted. I didn't participate in that thread because I feel like it was mostly soliciting responses from the providers that frequent WHT, but it was kind of disheartening to read some of the comments there even though I've seen the same attitude before elsewhere. I think for some people, they've just been around the forums for so long that they fail to see things from the other side, ie. the perspective of newcomers/end users.


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## drmike (Jan 22, 2014)

Just got through that WHT thread. 

Well... Found Ald's title here a hoot.

WHT is nothing more than a constant machine gun of offers.  It's deafening.    

Too damn corporate DOLLA DOLLA BILL YA'ALL.


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## GVH-Jon (Jan 23, 2014)

This industry is full of greed if any of you haven't noticed. The majority of responses from providers on that thread are either bias or complete BS to throw people off on purpose.


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 23, 2014)

Oh, we noticed.  We watch the same come from you on a daily basis.


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## tmzVPS-Daniel (Jan 23, 2014)

WHT is just another business, thats all it is. At the end of the day they are going to make any change they want to make sure they get more and more traffic so they make more and more money. It is what it is. 

- Daniel 



drmike said:


> Just got through that WHT thread.
> 
> Well... Found Ald's title here a hoot.
> 
> ...


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## raindog308 (Jan 27, 2014)

I think the WHT/LET problem is the perfect storm of:

 

- industry with an extremely low barrier to entry.  You can start a web host for, what, $20?

 

- very generic, commodity product that is difficult to differentiate

 

- product that, by its nature, people tend to find on the web.  Most people don't learn about web hosting companies via traditional advertising, sales reps, etc.

 

- product that has no geographical boundaries.  Someone living in the third world can rent a server and offer the service as effectively as someone living in the first world, which means a race to the bottom.  Because of the cost of living differences, some people will be willing to except razor-thin margins.

 

Given that, it's not surprising that advertisers would flood a free open forum.


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## dcdan (Jan 27, 2014)

Sometimes I want WHT mods to ban all signatures and any links what so ever, but I realize this will not happen. The amount of fluffy nonsense in every single topic is ridiculous. When you ask a question, you must expect a few dozen BS posts from salespeople who's only goal is to flash their signature. I absolutely understand why quality went down - I just do not have any desire to answer, say, a technical question when the topic is flooded by fluff (and the OP has left long ago thinking "WTF was that?!").

When was the last time anyone learned something useful on WHT?


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## raindog308 (Jan 27, 2014)

dcdan said:


> When you ask a question, you must expect a few dozen BS posts from salespeople who's only goal is to flash their signature.


^ This

"Check the offers.  And oh by the way, here is my *densely bold colored signature *stuffed with promo info."


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## AuroraZero (Jan 27, 2014)

I generally stay away from WHT and Namepros and the like. Most of the staff of those places act like morons. Not to mention you can not find shit even if you wanted. Too much garbage to sift through, that even if you did find something it would be too late to act on it.


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## raindog308 (Jan 27, 2014)

AuroraZero said:


> I generally stay away from WHT and Namepros and the like. Most of the staff of those places act like morons. Not to mention you can not find shit even if you wanted. Too much garbage to sift through, that even if you did find something it would be too late to act on it.


I've cited you for an infraction.

   -- bear-non-e-mouse


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## AuroraZero (Jan 27, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> I've cited you for an infraction.
> 
> -- bear-non-e-mouse


What kind of infarction? Mio-cardial? (think I spelled that correctly if not oh well give me another infarction for me spelling  )


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## hellogoodbye (Jan 27, 2014)

AuroraZero said:


> What kind of infarction? Mio-cardial? (think I spelled that correctly if not oh well give me another infarction for me spelling  )


That would be myocardial  You were very close, though!


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## KuJoe (Jan 27, 2014)

I go to WHT when I want to learn something new or have more advanced technical questions. It's still my preferred forum for anything hosting/coding related. I also only buy services from their Offers section but that's because, like others have said, they have a vast sea of offers and the few times I've needed to buy service it wasn't for a VPS.

I come to vpsBoard when I want a more relaxed environment and to get away from the seriousness.

I visit LET when I need a good laugh.


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## wlanboy (Jan 27, 2014)

dcdan said:


> When was the last time anyone learned something useful on WHT?


If a board is small you won't find enough people knowing something usefull about a topic.

If a board is too big you won't find enough non-sales people which still want to post something.

I stick to boards that don't want growth at any cost and keep at a specific topic.

Not an easy task for the owner but I think MannDude will manage it.


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## ThePrimeHost (Jan 28, 2014)

WHT has it benefits but it's also referred to as "the shark tank". I found Ryan / Gary / [email protected] there and have had a great and properous relationship with them.

I've just learned to ignore a lot of posts and a lot of what people say. I've been in the industry "offically" since 2001 but in an unofficial capacity, a few years prior to that. As someone stated in the WHT post, the industry is cyclical in nature. The crazy cheap offers come and go all the time. New developments are made that create new paradigm shifts and with them increases in price and value.


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## raindog308 (Jan 29, 2014)

KuJoe said:


> I go to WHT when I want to learn something new or have more advanced technical questions. It's still my preferred forum for anything hosting/coding related. I also only buy services from their Offers section but that's because, like others have said, they have a vast sea of offers and the few times I've needed to buy service it wasn't for a VPS.
> 
> I come to vpsBoard when I want a more relaxed environment and to get away from the seriousness.
> 
> I visit LET when I need a good laugh.


...and I'm guessing you never go to FreeWebHostingTalk because that place is a spooky ghost town.


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## KuJoe (Jan 30, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> ...and I'm guessing you never go to FreeWebHostingTalk because that place is a spooky ghost town.


Not anymore. It was way to much work and iNET pretty much ignored us because the income FreeWHT was generating was the lowest of all of their online properties (which I understand but I had a lot of good ideas that were dismissed, although we got to beta test all new versions of vBulletin before they pushed it to WHT). Last time I was there I put in a request to have my admin perms removed since I was still getting 20+ e-mails a day about duplicate accounts and spam. Before that time I only went back to remove somebody else's mod perms because somebody opened a thread on WHT about them scamming people on FreeWHT.

I want to get back into the free web hosting scene but I doubt I'll return to FreeWHT except to post an ad or two to get it started.


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## Kakashi (Jan 30, 2014)

WHT for me, due to the community size and since it's been around for a long time is the place I frequent the most to read up on technical issues and purchase servers/colo etc.. I don't really feel any sort of community spirit there like VPSboard has. Each has their own niche I suppose.


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