Jonny Nguyen - GreenValueHost - Raided by Police.

[Dillybob]

What about sharing a few screens ?

I have to ask Adam from IPXCore if he still has the script uploaded. It was just using highcharts API with PHP curl to extract users online every  hour graphed. I remember the values used to be a loter higher than they are now though. Can try archive.org to see activity too.

 

[drmike]

Wait, you have to be pay for your thread to be stickied even if you have a corporate title?

Yes sir (assumed).  Stickies are like $3k a month in the VPS section and other amounts in the other offer areas.  This is on top of membership.

There are also other sales / cost upticks available like yellowing of the offer line.

 

[Dillybob]

Yes sir (assumed).  Stickies are like $3k a month in the VPS section and other amounts in the other offer areas.  This is on top of membership.

There are also other sales / cost upticks available like yellowing of the offer line.

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/1115343/#Comment_1115343

LOL I didn't even include the sticky prices in my argument....... Holy shit!!! That is even more insane! Haha did not know about that, 3k a month... I'm dying... Thank you for the info

 

[Tyler]

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/1115343/#Comment_1115343

LOL I didn't even include the sticky prices in my argument....... Holy shit!!! That is even more insane! Haha did not know about that, 3k a month... I'm dying... Thank you for the info

Yeah, and multiply that across the forums and the multiple stickies... it adds up fast (n.b. not all sections are 3k/mo though).

 

[WSWD]

I am hoping the new owner of WHT applies their business rules and auditing soon.  When Penton steps in - even subtly in the background, heads and policies at WHT are going to roll.  Things are going to change.

Not going to happen, unfortunately.  I've asked the moderators many times to refer the situation to the owners (Penton) and they basically just blow me off.  I got an infraction in fact, because they claim I was off-topic.  The mods just got pissed off because I called them out, it what it was.  They can claim all they want that they are not instructed to keep their hands off of corporate members, but I know that's the case.  Why would they get rid of somebody paying $1400/year?

 

[Dillybob]

Not going to happen, unfortunately.  I've asked the moderators many times to refer the situation to the owners (Penton) and they basically just blow me off.  I got an infraction in fact, because they claim I was off-topic.  The mods just got pissed off because I called them out, it what it was.  They can claim all they want that they are not instructed to keep their hands off of corporate members, but I know that's the case.  Why would they get rid of somebody paying $1400/year?

And $3,000 for stickies

 

[KuJoe]

And $3,000 for stickies

There's actually a waiting line for those stickies. What's crazy is that the people paying for the stickies tried really hard to push iNET to let them bid for the stickies (i.e. paying more than the $3000 asking price) because a lot of those stickies are months old and no new stickies become available until one of the companies currently paying for them stops renewing it. iNET pushed back and said it wasn't fair to let bigger companies make the prices unattainable for all providers. Not like it matters since there were months between new stickies going up so they weren't available to anybody.

 

[drmike]

Those stickies are not worth it.  I know this from direct information.   If you spend $3k~ a month on those VPS stickies you are going to lose money at this point in time.

There are much better ways to spend $3k a month.

 

[Dillybob]

Those stickies are not worth it.  I know this from direct information.   If you spend $3k~ a month on those VPS stickies you are going to lose money at this point in time.

There are much better ways to spend $3k a month.

As I'm not a host and will most likely never be. (Programmer and a Wannabe Entrepreneur)... I cannot really comment on that, but it just seems very unreasonable. I keep pointing at Francisco, but look at him. He does not have a premium / corporate tile and is one of the most successful hosts around that I know of.  I'm sure there are others as well that I just don't know about.  

I'm not saying you cannot make money or use WHT at an advantage to boost your sales. I think it's certainly possible, but I believe there is a fine line between what you're actually benefiting from using WHT, and what you're most likely just giving them free cash.

I believe it's most likely hosts are just throwing away cash in exchange of a placebo, feel good 'moral forum high-ground' on the forums. Which you DO not need to be successful. Quite the opposite really. 

 

[drmike]

I believe it's most likely hosts are just throwing away cash in exchange of a placebo, feel good 'moral forum high-ground' on the forums. Which you DO not need to be successful. Quite the opposite really. 

I am unsure of the posting rules on WHT big picture.

But with offers, the paid membership (the big one) give you ability to spam post your ad every 3 days.   That I find excessive, insane, and get this not effective.

With many hosts the big membership is buying perceived status.  Hosts know that's #1 reason to spend on that and they know shoppers aren't informed / believe the status means they are qualified, legitimate company, etc.   WHT moderation battles this sentiment all the time and refuses to do something to fix it.

I don't know if WHT has posts required between offers.   But, I suspect they don't from what I see on frequency of offers by a bunch of companies.  Never bothered looking at regular ad spammers and their message stream to substantiate that rule or lack of enforcement if it actually exists.

I found nothing in their rules about ads, between ad/offers activity, etc.  Looks like once you are allowed to offer, you can just show up on your day, drop a pile of ad crap and run.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/rules.php

This all relates directly to GVH, as they are one of the biggest frequent ad spammers around.  That big fat membership for them is exactly so they can post ad spam every three days.

 

[host4go]

Not going to happen, unfortunately.  I've asked the moderators many times to refer the situation to the owners (Penton) and they basically just blow me off.  I got an infraction in fact, because they claim I was off-topic.  The mods just got pissed off because I called them out, it what it was.  They can claim all they want that they are not instructed to keep their hands off of corporate members, but I know that's the case.  Why would they get rid of somebody paying $1400/year?

Been there.

I received multiple infractions for calling out corporate members, I have seen corporate members slips ups (failed arguments/posts) being deleted by the mods to save their corporate members face, and then giving me warnings for calling the mods out for deleting posts that don't reflect well on their "friends" (read a certain corporate member).

 

[KuJoe]

Personally, I shop for my services on WHT more than any other website and I direct anybody looking to drop anything more than one hundred dollars on a website towards WHT also. I guess it all depends on the clientele they are trying to reach. I know of a few companies that get well over 50% of their clients from WHT and they pay for stickies and memberships, not sure if they are a factor or not but they also don't sell services for anything under $50/month either so it takes fewer new clients to pay for the WHT perks.

 

[drmike]

Guess I have a bug in me arse about WHT currently.

There is this ongoing issue about does WHT treat paid / wallet raped CORPORATE accounts differently.  I've seen a bit of it.   Expecting to see more of it soon.

There is the other side of that relationship which is: DOES WHT COPORATE SPONSORSHIP wrongly infer status to shoppers/buyers.  To which the mods over there say it does not as accounts aren't vetted in any way.

So I found this:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/blog/product/corporate-membership/

Which in part says:

"Web Hosting Talk Corporate Memberships are for serious, reputation conscious advertisers who are looking to get more attention, credibility and value from Web Hosting Talk."

(emphasis is mine)

I write a good bit of copy, this quotable is what it is.  It clearly pushes REPUTATION.  To have corporate status = REPUTATION.

Let me rewrite this:

"Web Hosting Talk sells Corporate Memberships to hosting companies looking to seriously get more attention and credibility"

or the distilled version:

"Web Hosting Talk Corporate Memberships get more attention and credibility"

or the fact checked version:

"Web Hosting Talk Corporate Memberships buy you reputation and more advertisements. This gets you more attention and credibility from Web Hosting Talk shoppers."

#1 Benefit on their sheet = Corporate Badge.  That is simply the line under your username that will say CORPORATE PAID WH[F]ORE.

^--- that would be a more adequate BUYER BEWARE notice.

It actually says CORPORATE MEMBER

$1800 a year for corporate membership.  Membership has its privileges