You Bitched, We Listened. Sorta.
- Thread starter Jon
- Start date
I have an idea, on how I think the place should work, now I know who give a fuck what I think.
Anyway,
1. On top of the fee you should also charge users to post in that section. Including the poster in the thread they made. I think this will cut down on the crap in there. maybe .10 per post, and posts will be bumped in increments of 10
or
2. Also charge a fee to leave a review and itrader, somehow. One of the main problems I see in there is like someone with 30 accounts saying how great the service they got from a provider is. It is like a spider web of what the fuck sauce on that note.
or
3. Phone verification to post in that forum, This should prevent people from making multiple accounts and shit and giving those fake reviews. Now I know there are ways around this but it would get most likely to costly for them to do it as much as they do.
I do not think charging would turn the section into WaFo, because will ebooks and stupid shit will get blasted down. Things are not sugar coated here and people will bring out those torches on a crappy/scammy service.
Anyway,
1. On top of the fee you should also charge users to post in that section. Including the poster in the thread they made. I think this will cut down on the crap in there. maybe .10 per post, and posts will be bumped in increments of 10
or
2. Also charge a fee to leave a review and itrader, somehow. One of the main problems I see in there is like someone with 30 accounts saying how great the service they got from a provider is. It is like a spider web of what the fuck sauce on that note.
or
3. Phone verification to post in that forum, This should prevent people from making multiple accounts and shit and giving those fake reviews. Now I know there are ways around this but it would get most likely to costly for them to do it as much as they do.
I do not think charging would turn the section into WaFo, because will ebooks and stupid shit will get blasted down. Things are not sugar coated here and people will bring out those torches on a crappy/scammy service.
How much of this actually goes on? Forgive me for being a noob when it comes to this, but people actually take the time to sit there and make accounts and shit just to boost sales? Fuck, I wish I had that much time in the day... Hell, I'd pay any amount to have that much free time...
And this is why our world is so corrupt!
All this does is drive people AWAY. Are you going to pay a store in real life just to ask a question with one of the store clerks? Are you going to pay the store to leave feedback in the suggestions box? No. Just like you're going to see less people commenting in a SBT thread about the service and leaving reviews. You don't charge people for being helpful and answering questions.
Bumping? Why would you charge for that? It shows activity. It's not hard to write a script to alert a MOD to the OP posting to bump a thread more than once a day or alerting when the OP has posted more than once in a row with no other person posting after them. Have the MODs regulate spam bumping, not charging for it.
Are YOU going to pay for a product/service AND THEN pay to leave feedback on the thread AND THEN pay to leave an iTrader? No, you'll just buy the service and move along, not leaving any buying experience for the rest of the forum to read later to know if the service is good or not.
This wouldn't do anything with people creating multiple accounts to boost reviews and iTraders. All it does is weed out the cheap shit providers. If their service will be worth the additional expense, they'll pay it.
This is probably the only idea you have here that wouldn't hurt the quality of reviewing and usage of the SBT section. If you have to have an SMS verified account to post anything in the SBT section then you know you're only dealing with a single person (or someone who's paid someone else to verify their account).
It's good for that reason, but also for knowing that a MOD or user can contact someone if they're being stiffed on answering a PM.
Unlike your previous suggestion, you'd know (assuming the SMS verification wasn't spoofed) that it'd be a unique person leaving a review in a thread or increasing someone's iTrader.
How are people suppose to "not sugar coat" reviews and comments in a thread when you charge them per post? I'm suppose to pay $10 to tell the forum how shitty a thread is? No, I'll be less inclined to waste my time in a heated debate about something if I have to keep shelling out money just to tell someone what a retard they are.
It's actually quite bad. If you watch, you'll see accounts posting in STS and other sections with short and very shitty replies to boost post count. These accounts then wait until they have X number of posts to "help" them look used (why they think 10-25 posts does that is beyond me).
Once they "look used" they then have two places they get used: to sell services, or to support a service in the SBT by leaving a fake review and boosting an iTrader of the seller.
It's no different than you paying a provider to manually post on forums. They just happen to pay their workers to help boost their shitty services here and on other forums.
I'll support the $50 or less option. Those of you who are ballin' so much that you can drop $100 just to post a thread need to get your head checked. There are plenty of good sellers around here who stop in to sell services when they need extra $$. How are you supposed to get $100 dollars from 0?
Lets let Jon and his mods decide, rather than trying to run the price up. Think of all the starving students and/or single moms who write, do graphic designs, make websites, etc... Then you combine the cost of investing in an unknown return ($$ per thread) with thread bumping fees, and you just lost the benefit for quality sellers posting their services here (less shitty "fly-by-nights" at the top of the page.)
Take a look at forums like Warrior and MMD -- They have just as much shit (probably not more though) and lots of entrepreneurial scam artists who'll happily pay a thread fee to sell their snake oil services to people.
What I'm rambling about is: There's a fine line between what's reasonable. and what will scare good service people into going elsewhere. Not everyone is looking to build a long term service -- but not everyone is looking to swoop in and scam people out of money either.
I'm such a guy and I've made a good load of cash lately on WF. Fifty bucks to post my services would have left me dealing with the content vultures on DP... let alone spending a hundred or more. Entrepreneurs rise and fall all the time; sometimes you're left with nothing ($0) and the wolf's at the door.
Lets let Jon and his mods decide, rather than trying to run the price up. Think of all the starving students and/or single moms who write, do graphic designs, make websites, etc... Then you combine the cost of investing in an unknown return ($$ per thread) with thread bumping fees, and you just lost the benefit for quality sellers posting their services here (less shitty "fly-by-nights" at the top of the page.)
Take a look at forums like Warrior and MMD -- They have just as much shit (probably not more though) and lots of entrepreneurial scam artists who'll happily pay a thread fee to sell their snake oil services to people.
What I'm rambling about is: There's a fine line between what's reasonable. and what will scare good service people into going elsewhere. Not everyone is looking to build a long term service -- but not everyone is looking to swoop in and scam people out of money either.
I'm such a guy and I've made a good load of cash lately on WF. Fifty bucks to post my services would have left me dealing with the content vultures on DP... let alone spending a hundred or more. Entrepreneurs rise and fall all the time; sometimes you're left with nothing ($0) and the wolf's at the door.
I think you should include a script that, if someone is banned, instead of giving them a "you've been banned message", redirects all attempts to access from that IP to a page that says "Wickedfire has now been acquired by DigitalPoint. Please recreate your account there."
Most of the schlubs who get banned from here are too stupid to see through it, and it will help redirect them back where they belong.
Most of the schlubs who get banned from here are too stupid to see through it, and it will help redirect them back where they belong.
great idea. give them more reason to spam pointless crap until they get to 100.
btw... nice move
Yes, as a new provider, my concern was the same - What would happen to the existing threads?
I don't mind paying the fees - as the marketplace does give providers a good amount of business, so paying for the threads isn't really that big of an issue.
I guess the best bet would be to lock all threads and open only those for which the OP is ready to pay the price - but then this would be a ginormous headache for the mods.
This can, however, be automated - wherein the OP gets a message with a link "Unlock this thread" and then redirects to a Paypal Gateway and on successful payment authorization can be sent back to the forum with the thread unlocked. I don't mind writing a similar script for you guys, should the need arise.
Another one would be a "paid bump" feature. Since we follow the automated thread burial format, a buried thread doesn't mean the provider is bad, it could simply mean that the provider doesn't frequently update the thread with the "4 slots remaining" & "Hurry 24 hour offer" shit. So a paid bump feature would actually be quite nice, wherein for something like $5 or $10, the thread could be temporarily boosted to the top of the line.
Nonetheless, this should come as a very WELCOME decision. Atleast for providers who care about their services.
Cheers
I don't mind paying the fees - as the marketplace does give providers a good amount of business, so paying for the threads isn't really that big of an issue.
I guess the best bet would be to lock all threads and open only those for which the OP is ready to pay the price - but then this would be a ginormous headache for the mods.
This can, however, be automated - wherein the OP gets a message with a link "Unlock this thread" and then redirects to a Paypal Gateway and on successful payment authorization can be sent back to the forum with the thread unlocked. I don't mind writing a similar script for you guys, should the need arise.
Another one would be a "paid bump" feature. Since we follow the automated thread burial format, a buried thread doesn't mean the provider is bad, it could simply mean that the provider doesn't frequently update the thread with the "4 slots remaining" & "Hurry 24 hour offer" shit. So a paid bump feature would actually be quite nice, wherein for something like $5 or $10, the thread could be temporarily boosted to the top of the line.
Nonetheless, this should come as a very WELCOME decision. Atleast for providers who care about their services.
Cheers
After thinking about it Jon was right on his post, $20 to $30 is actually good amount for a post.
Just slowing down the flow will make it easier to moderate, and adjustments can always be made later on as needed.
Some forums have the option to only show post within the last 30, 60, 90 days, etc. In addition to said fees, it would be nice in SBT to be able to only show threads started by someone with 100, 250, 500, 1000 (or custom number) of posts or having been a member for 6 mo, 12 mo, 2 ears, etc. This way we can filter out what we don't want to see better.
My two cents from another thread discussing this topic...
A paid bump feature would be retarded. If they already pay to start a thread, there's no need to have someone pay to "bump" a thread. If a provider is good that they get consistent posts from multiple people, they deserve to be on the front page. And if they spam it, they deserve to be banned. Paying for bumps doesn't make any sense on the long-term of a provider or the forum (in my opinion, of course).
If you wanted to have it half way, just have it so that the thread only bumps when someone other than the OP posts in it.
Edit: I'm 100% for charging per thread if we're not to take a post count/reg date model.
Yes, but then again the tards with multiple accounts will still pay a one time fee of $30 and keep on using their other accounts to bump their threads and make it as good as a sticky.
It's a fucking complicated thing.
I understand this, but at least you'd be able to spot it with them rather than alienating a service provider that won't want to pay for 2-3x more bumps, that could have been more successful and launched a better service down the road. Not saying this happens with everyone, but like most have said in the other thread - the diamonds in the rough and newer guys occasionally have a keeper and a barrier of entry to go from "break even" to "successful" to "worth 8 hours of my time a day" makes a difference. I know at this point I'm basically debating on the use of like $60 total but at the same time, for those guys with a lot of time on their hands (especially out of the country, etc) that can make a difference without an investment on their end that could produce a big service, $60 is a decent amount of money for it.
You're the seniors. You know best.
It has nothing to do with me being senior, if you think I'm wrong dude tell me and we can keep going back and forth until we find something we agree on - progress isn't made by bowing to assumed status.
I'm just giving my opinion in hopes of helping guide everything in a direction that will work longterm and not alienate too many people, while not losing too much to bullshit. Too much control is the antichrist of progress, but a happy medium is so fucking hard to find.