Which doesn't necessarily solve the problem of people getting scammed on WHT.
WebHostingTalk Worst of the Hosting Industry
- Thread starter Dillybob
- Start date
I realize they can do whatever they want with the badges and call them whatever they like. The problem is that they are incredibly misleading. A "Corporate Member" should be a legitimate corporation, or business, just like the "Verified Provider" status is here...especially when those folks are advertising products for sale, and WHT knows that folks come to their site looking to purchase products.
They should also ban folks who engage in questionable business practices (or at least take away their signatures and advertising ability) There are PLENTY of companies who do it, and WHT has been presented with the evidence many times...outright scams in fact, where providers fail to deliver a product and hide behind their "No Refunds" policies. I had that exact thing happen twice in fact, and WHT didn't give a shit. It was with 2 companies that did that exact same thing over and over and over again. But they pay their $1400/mo. and stickies I'm sure, and thus nothing happens to them.
I don't expect WHT to police the hosting industry, but I do expect them to regulate the folks who advertise on their site. There is plenty of case law, for example, where newspapers, television stations, radio stations, websites, have been held liable for allowing companies who are known scammers, false advertisers, etc., to advertise on their media. WHT has been put on notice so many times regarding the same thing, and same companies, that they are almost certainly opening themselves up for potential litigation.
But litigation aside, anyone with an ounce of ethics would seek to drive the scammers and questionable folks from their websites...unless of course those folks are paying you tons of money and paying your bills.
This is why I know the moderators are being told by the Penton folks (or iNet, formerly) to generally keep their hands off of the corporate members. Bear and friends can keep coming up with all the bullshit excuses they like, but it's obvious what's going on here. If, by some tiny chance, the moderators are telling the truth, and they are not being given direction from Penton (which would be amazing that the owners of the company would give a completely hands-off discretion to these folks to run their business assets), Penton should be notified what's going on, and heads should roll. The entire moderator staff should be wiped out. If I was in charge of Penton and found out even 1/4 of the stuff that goes on over there, the whole lot of them would be looking for moderator jobs elsewhere.
They should also ban folks who engage in questionable business practices (or at least take away their signatures and advertising ability) There are PLENTY of companies who do it, and WHT has been presented with the evidence many times...outright scams in fact, where providers fail to deliver a product and hide behind their "No Refunds" policies. I had that exact thing happen twice in fact, and WHT didn't give a shit. It was with 2 companies that did that exact same thing over and over and over again. But they pay their $1400/mo. and stickies I'm sure, and thus nothing happens to them.
I don't expect WHT to police the hosting industry, but I do expect them to regulate the folks who advertise on their site. There is plenty of case law, for example, where newspapers, television stations, radio stations, websites, have been held liable for allowing companies who are known scammers, false advertisers, etc., to advertise on their media. WHT has been put on notice so many times regarding the same thing, and same companies, that they are almost certainly opening themselves up for potential litigation.
But litigation aside, anyone with an ounce of ethics would seek to drive the scammers and questionable folks from their websites...unless of course those folks are paying you tons of money and paying your bills.
This is why I know the moderators are being told by the Penton folks (or iNet, formerly) to generally keep their hands off of the corporate members. Bear and friends can keep coming up with all the bullshit excuses they like, but it's obvious what's going on here. If, by some tiny chance, the moderators are telling the truth, and they are not being given direction from Penton (which would be amazing that the owners of the company would give a completely hands-off discretion to these folks to run their business assets), Penton should be notified what's going on, and heads should roll. The entire moderator staff should be wiped out. If I was in charge of Penton and found out even 1/4 of the stuff that goes on over there, the whole lot of them would be looking for moderator jobs elsewhere.
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I made a note to send you some drill instructor porn for Christmas.
(Well, I assume it exists...I don't actually have any and am somewhat afraid to google for it.)
LOL. It was bad wording on my behalf.
Just meant to say that some angry guy shouting is something I hear often on talk radio so I was accustomed to it.
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Because the end-customer is always wrong and are not allowed to voice their opinion, right? You have it wrong... Truth of the matter is look at the screenshots of forum activity from 2013, and 2014 compared to now. There is a reason why it's becoming lesser and lesser. Since you care so much for about WHT you should be regularly posting on their forums telling them they need to do BI & QA checks on all corporate titles, otherwise, you're just as bad as them and you like to mislead the public. They are doing a disservice to the hosting industry and if you just want to sit back and let them do that, I pity you.
"If you don't like WHT, don't go there. If you have a vision for something better, then build it."
That's about the same as starting up a new site to compete with Amazon, or Google. It will never happen. WHT owns that market. VPSBoard is about the closest we can get and they are doing a pretty damn good job, far better than what I could of built. Take that as an example, it would be pointless to start another one up.
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
I took this as inspiration and what others have been saying for a long time and did the necessary. WHT has been directly made aware of the freebie account code use BY ME. Anyone that doesn't like it can line up for a damn punting. Zero fncks given. Hopefully stupids get demoted and shuffle their ass elsewhere and WHT rescues self respect and image and this helps.
iNet/Penton is trying to track the code down and get to the bottom of what is going on. Some noise brands were using the code. No clue why such code existed or if some loophole entirely.
If they prune abusers on code basis some big name noise brands are getting slapped on WHT and will send clear signal to me that clear division between moderators on WHT and the corporate money folks with account info. What I am saying is to me this will verify the legitimacy of mods claims that they aren't caring about status bought via membership. I am hoping it pans out for them and prunes fools.
Mods I ride see saws with. Moderation is a thankless job. Impossible to please everyone. I am hyper critical of wall paint drying let alone human intentions. Love people, hate human behavior.
TheLinuxBug
New Member
See, I have a slightly different view point on this. Let these companies pay whatever they want and post etc, however, my complaint is the fact that there is no way to comment on an offer to let others know about its validity or if there is a scam. There have been many occasions where these corporate badge members have posted misleading advertisements or even old outdated advertisements (for products they don't even sell anymore) and if you decide to make a comment on the thread to let others know this fact 9 times out of 10 the comment is removed and you are reprimanded for the comment. This alone was enough reason for me to stop participating on WHT. It is pretty insulting when you take the time to inform the buyer of possible issues or inaccuracies and then the staff doesn't even give a care and removes your post and things move along like nothing happened. This is the biggest scam in my opinion, people should be able to leave their opinions and point out issues without risk of having it removed because they are a corporate member and WHT staff could care less if the end user gets screwed in the end. Just as long as they get their membership payments they seem to be happy with cleaning house of any negative feedback.
@Dillybob had some good points, but really what it comes down to is you need to understand that WHT is a business. This was my biggest complaint about LET when it became known that CC had purchased it, it went from being a not-for-profit community of intelligent people in the technology field to being a full out advertising shit hole where it became, "How cheap can we offer X" instead of "How can we best use the resources we have available." This pushed out a lot of the people that used to actually post quality topics and cared about the VPS community on LET. Honestly, LET is just as bad as WHT now, if not worse in the long run (you just don't see them as the mods tend to do it quietly behind the scenes). The fact is they will censor anything they don't agree with and they have no problems with CC shills running around on the site as well as helping out shit companies like GVH stay in business to keep promoting their brand. The only difference here is that CC doesn't want your money for membership because if they took your money they would have to actually clean up their act and start acting at least semi-ethically (CC having ethics and morals is it's self a joke and will likely never happen). At least WHT tries to be fair to the consumer in most cases, CC just outright lies to your face and stabs you in the back when you turn around. While WHT may be no walk in the park I still think its light years better than LET from the standpoint of ethics and morality (I am not saying they are ethical or moral about what they do, only that they are by leaps and bounds better than ColoCrossing).
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the points made were good ones, and if it weren't a business running WHT I would get right on that soap box right next to you. As long as it is a business and is about money - the customer is always going to be king and they will always expect to get what they pay for, even if that means it results in some semi-shady practices.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
@Dillybob had some good points, but really what it comes down to is you need to understand that WHT is a business. This was my biggest complaint about LET when it became known that CC had purchased it, it went from being a not-for-profit community of intelligent people in the technology field to being a full out advertising shit hole where it became, "How cheap can we offer X" instead of "How can we best use the resources we have available." This pushed out a lot of the people that used to actually post quality topics and cared about the VPS community on LET. Honestly, LET is just as bad as WHT now, if not worse in the long run (you just don't see them as the mods tend to do it quietly behind the scenes). The fact is they will censor anything they don't agree with and they have no problems with CC shills running around on the site as well as helping out shit companies like GVH stay in business to keep promoting their brand. The only difference here is that CC doesn't want your money for membership because if they took your money they would have to actually clean up their act and start acting at least semi-ethically (CC having ethics and morals is it's self a joke and will likely never happen). At least WHT tries to be fair to the consumer in most cases, CC just outright lies to your face and stabs you in the back when you turn around. While WHT may be no walk in the park I still think its light years better than LET from the standpoint of ethics and morality (I am not saying they are ethical or moral about what they do, only that they are by leaps and bounds better than ColoCrossing).
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the points made were good ones, and if it weren't a business running WHT I would get right on that soap box right next to you. As long as it is a business and is about money - the customer is always going to be king and they will always expect to get what they pay for, even if that means it results in some semi-shady practices.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Been there and done this multiple times
What you expect anything less from me. I'd slap a nun for lying in public. I agree it's highly problematic. The holy altar of offers is garbage. If brands are doing crap then customers should see that upside their commercial.Amen to that! I am glad @TheLinuxBug remembers the trail of sorrows that LET became for many who participated there pre-hostile takeover.
What? True? Paste the data here in public... So everyone can see, please.My biggest complaint about LET/LEB at the moment is that LowEndBox is featuring a provider on its front page, e6l.su, who is using a nulled WHMCS.
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
sleddog
New Member
Unbelievable. Do you slander everyone who disagrees with you?
Might be just me, but I thought DP's staff were harsher than WHT's. That was many years ago though.
As for the corporate badge, I wasn't a fan of it, but I do know why WHT did that on a marketing perspective. Sounds a lot better than say a Platinum Member badge I guess.
As for the corporate badge, I wasn't a fan of it, but I do know why WHT did that on a marketing perspective. Sounds a lot better than say a Platinum Member badge I guess.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Nothing like having LizardSquad vouch for your services:
https://twitter.com/lizardlands/status/587211112711618560
OH LEB, how ye fails.
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
It gets better: enter the LizardStresser botnet for hire connection
full article: https://www.recordedfuture.com/lizard-squad-analysis/
Little late to the party, but please show me where I 'slandered' someone in that quote, thanks. (Hint: You might want to re-read the definition first before replying back).
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
As far as OnraHost goes:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1405098
I am meh about their claims of profitability with WHT stickies. Owned hardware or not.... They are pushing small few dollar transactions. Unsure what the sticky costs in Reseller category currently but talking about quite a few sustained purchases to even break even.
20 x $4 a month for Xen 512MB = $80 income on a server. Yeah that's sustainable even if you own your own equipment... not.
Onra has a sticky for reseller hosting that smells like GVH offers - throwing everything in the universe in the offer. But oddly, is not a Premium or Corporate member. (strange new world of WHT? maybe...)
Not saying Onra runs a bad show or anything, but, numbers are numbers. Markets are markets and the buyers are pretty darn predictable on what most buy and why they buy.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1405098
I am meh about their claims of profitability with WHT stickies. Owned hardware or not.... They are pushing small few dollar transactions. Unsure what the sticky costs in Reseller category currently but talking about quite a few sustained purchases to even break even.
- from their recent LEB offer.
20 x $4 a month for Xen 512MB = $80 income on a server. Yeah that's sustainable even if you own your own equipment... not.
Onra has a sticky for reseller hosting that smells like GVH offers - throwing everything in the universe in the offer. But oddly, is not a Premium or Corporate member. (strange new world of WHT? maybe...)
Not saying Onra runs a bad show or anything, but, numbers are numbers. Markets are markets and the buyers are pretty darn predictable on what most buy and why they buy.
hahahaha absolutely atrocious. Douchebag American Exceptionalism at its