Proposed updates to rules -- A discussion

[AMDbuilder]

I would agree some with Henrique.  I tend to visit the forums often, but only post when I feel I have something relevant to contribute.

That being said I can't think of a logical reason to post offers more than once a week.  I would much rather have a good offer one a month (or less) from a provider than a junk offer every X days.  I don't think you can successfully run a business on offers alone.  You either offer a solid product worth it's price, a solid product with inflated prices for the purposes of regular offers, or a product that's not worth it's price and you hope offers will attract customers regardless.

Anyways, I might be a little crazy on that front.

 

[mojeda]

I would agree some with Henrique.  I tend to visit the forums often, but only post when I feel I have something relevant to contribute.

That being said I can't think of a logical reason to post offers more than once a week.  I would much rather have a good offer one a month (or less) from a provider than a junk offer every X days.  I don't think you can successfully run a business on offers alone.  You either offer a solid product worth it's price, a solid product with inflated prices for the purposes of regular offers, or a product that's not worth it's price and you hope offers will attract customers regardless.

Anyways, I might be a little crazy on that front.

I might be wrong here, but the original intention of this community was to be a community about talking server stuff (VPSeses/servers/linux/whatever) and not really a community about server deals.

To me, the ability to post offers is both a privilege and reward for being a community member who contributes, not for people who just want another venue to advertise. This community would likely be overridden in shady deals if the admins hadn't put guidelines/rules in, and that's unappealing to myself as there are a lot of places to go for that type of stuff anyways.

 

[Dylan]

May still require a minimum limit for initial postings but remove the limit required between postings.

I think that would make the most sense. There's a definite benefit to the initial post count requirement in that looking at post history can give potential buyers a bit of insight into new providers. If I check someone's posts and they've posted nothing but spammy crap, that tells me it's probably a provider I don't want to do business with. If they've positively contributed to the community, maybe they're worth a second look.

 

[switsys]

lol, that is funny

yes, I agree  :lol: 

 

[switsys]

I agree 100% that something must be done about the HUGE amounts of self-promoting nonsense posters that pester this board. And I think it's MORE THAN ENOUGH to be able to post offers ONCE a week.

 

Maybe you could keep offers completely off this board, promote the 'Daily Server Deals' site instead

 

[raindog308]

Alternate: make every new provider donate a couple VPSes for 30 or 60 days to qualified reviewers.  No review, no offer allowed.

That acts as a gate on submission time, and also you can credibly claim that all offers here are reviewed.  Also for a lot of summerhosts, one VPS for a month is about their profit margin so it'll keep them away  :lol:

I don't know if it will work in practice.  It was just an idea.  But I had a lot of sugar for lunch so it's possibly my brain has gone into random mode again.

 

[HH-Josh]

My personal opinion on this is fairly straight forward. Have the 7 days waiting time, and providing the hosting provider has somewhat way contributed to the forum, approve the thread. From what I can see (and correct me if I'm wrong) this is still quite a small but a quickly growing community. You don't want to implement too many rules at such an early stage, otherwise you'll potentially 'scare' providers and users away with having to abide by too many posting rules etc etc - as silly as that sounds it happens!

For example, I'm trying to regularly make posts within the forum but finding it difficult when most threads (when I check the forum) have already been replied to with a some what quality answer or reply. I'm not a forum user who will just post to get the post count up. If I have anything worth saying, I'll say it. If not, I won't post - and I won't repost what someone has already said, like some people do. I do regularly browse the forums in hope of posting but just want to avoid the pointlessly “yes I agree”, “quote that post and agree type” posts.

That's my two cents anyway, whether people agree or disagree idk.

- Josh

 

[MannDude]

What I am leaning towards now is simpler and easier to enforce. It's actually a relaxation on the existing rules.

No post count limit, but new accounts can't post offers. If you want to contribute, fine, contribute. If you want to wait 7 days for your account to have access to the forums and have your first post be a copy/paste of the same ad you post on WHT, that's fine too. You can do that each week.

I trust that the active visitors and members can read the offer forums and decide who is here just to post offers and who here is contributing and quality members.

Much easier for myself and moderation team to deal with as well.

 

[mojeda]

My personal opinion on this is fairly straight forward. Have the 7 days waiting time, and providing the hosting provider has somewhat way contributed to the forum, approve the thread. From what I can see (and correct me if I'm wrong) this is still quite a small but a quickly growing community. You don't want to implement too many rules at such an early stage, otherwise you'll potentially 'scare' providers and users away with having to abide by too many posting rules etc etc - as silly as that sounds it happens!

For example, I'm trying to regularly make posts within the forum but finding it difficult when most threads (when I check the forum) have already been replied to with a some what quality answer or reply. I'm not a forum user who will just post to get the post count up. If I have anything worth saying, I'll say it. If not, I won't post - and I won't repost what someone has already said, like some people do. I do regularly browse the forums in hope of posting but just want to avoid the pointlessly “yes I agree”, “quote that post and agree type” posts.

That's my two cents anyway, whether people agree or disagree idk.

- Josh

I see no reason why people can't post the same answer/response to a thread as someone else. I'm not saying copy paste the response, but if someone asks for a solution but someone already provided the answer that you know/think is correct you should still post to help back that solution.

Not to say you now need to do that, but if you see somewhere that you can answer the question but give a little more insight or from a different point of view than the previous answer, go for it. It will help people realize that, yes that is the best solution.

When I go googling and looking for an answer I look for solutions and people backing said solution, I'm not going to be that comfortable using a solution where no one else seems to be backing it. I understand I can't expect that for every answer I'm looking for but seeing others back someone's solution goes a long way and is reassuring.

 

[mojeda]

What I am leaning towards now is simpler and easier to enforce. It's actually a relaxation on the existing rules.

No post count limit, but new accounts can't post offers. If you want to contribute, fine, contribute. If you want to wait 7 days for your account to have access to the forums and have your first post be a copy/paste of the same ad you post on WHT, that's fine too. You can do that each week.

I trust that the active visitors and members can read the offer forums and decide who is here just to post offers and who here is contributing and quality members.

Much easier for myself and moderation team to deal with as well.

If that's what you are looking to do then I would vote to remove the offer forums from showing up in the recent topics sidebar.

 

[zed]

 

What I am leaning towards now is simpler and easier to enforce. It's actually a relaxation on the existing rules.

One guy's vote, but I like this, thanks m8.

 

[raindog308]

If that's what you are looking to do then I would vote to remove the offer forums from showing up in the recent topics sidebar.

I like this idea.  I come here to read all the insightful commentary from learned thinkers and sparkling conversationalists, etc. - if I want to look at offers I go look in the offers forum.

However, I imagine some people like to see offers in the sidebar.

Perhaps in his copious free time, MannDude can code up a IPB module that lets you set which forums you see in the sidebar as a preference.  Sidebar length would also be another nice preference.  

 

[kpmedia]

It would be nice if there was a way to replace the "X posts" requirement with an "X number of characters" one. Now that would be a nice plugin that enforces posts with substance and thought put into them.

It's very possible to write a plugin that only counts posts with X characters to count at all, for the newbie user group. You can also code it directly into core (and that would be easier).

I've never done it, but considered it myself years ago on a vB site.

 

[drmike]

Alternate: make every new provider donate a couple VPSes for 30 or 60 days to qualified reviewers.  No review, no offer allowed.

That acts as a gate on submission time, and also you can credibly claim that all offers here are reviewed.  Also for a lot of summerhosts, one VPS for a month is about their profit margin so it'll keep them away  :lol:

I don't know if it will work in practice.  It was just an idea.  But I had a lot of sugar for lunch so it's possibly my brain has gone into random mode again.

I think this is a good approach also.

Honestly, Verified status or whatever it is called for subset of providers around here, really should me something.   More than you spent $100 on an LLC filing and did the next generation dance steps to get into the site.

 

[drmike]

What I am leaning towards now is simpler and easier to enforce. It's actually a relaxation on the existing rules.

No post count limit, but new accounts can't post offers. If you want to contribute, fine, contribute. If you want to wait 7 days for your account to have access to the forums and have your first post be a copy/paste of the same ad you post on WHT, that's fine too. You can do that each week.

I am so tired of the same old post and run copied the offer from 3 months ago with same errors approach by providers.  Calling their stuff robotic is an understatement.  Hell there are providers I like who are on that same old stuff and I am like make it stop....

If your sales are about the offers on such sites, your business likely isn't sustainable.

As far as I see it, the reasons to make offers are:

    1. You are member of the community.

    2. You contribute to the betterment of the community.

    3. You launch something, even if not newsworthy, it's a HELLO and the first two points should net you some interest.

    4. You have excess inventory idling, so you actually offer a promotion to move that inventory.  That promotion is limited on time and/or inventory.

    5. You have other milestones, accomplishments, reasons to be building awareness.  Like anniversary of business, or growth level or merger/acquisition.

Seriously all that said, unless you are innovating, anything more than once a month ad posting is really questionable.  When that month rolls around, do something for real, spend $20 and/or 2 hours creating something memorable [heck real companies spend a lot more than that].

I realize some folks are like "f-you-drmike"  but really think about it.  You are ad slathering in markets because other folks before you were and the house rules are there to create more noise in more offers and thus sinks visibility faster and faster.  It's counter productive to a company to really play into that artificial noise cycle.