Limit Forum Ads

Collabora said:
Current login: today was better than usual with 33/53 posts ads. But 7 of the "legit" posts were from the same "new" user inflating their post count

Back to your point. It wouldn't be hard for Artashes to determine what are the meaningful posts. Easy way would be to recognize the non-meaningful posts.

For example a post that simply states "thank you for the info" is not meaningful. Dreamtera's first 7 posts are excellent examples of non-meaningful.
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That makes sense. You guys would know better. I think one of the biggest thing that bothers me on a forum is a topic with 5 posts. First 4 are unique, with a 5th one that restates the first 4.
 
tonight's stats

Total New = 22
Total Ads = 7
Fluff posts by single newbie poster to inflate post count = 14

Effective new meaningful posts = 1 out of 22
 
Also if the only concern is that the new post feeds include such a large amount of advertising, why don't the new posts just exclude the advertising forums.
 
helix247 said:
Also if the only concern is that the new post feeds include such a large amount of advertising, why don't the new posts just exclude the advertising forums.
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Because they serve a certain need, for a basic user/customer seeking for a service they are a valuable resource of information.

The issue is not the amount of ads, not at all, its the lack of forum contribution apart from them. As the whole thread suggests there is a core of users interested in contributing (clearly seen by the weekly/monthly/yearly stats) and the new ones predominantly care about a quick boost of their post count until they have enough to post ads. This also makes the established users unable to contribute more as there isn't much to discuss in the first place.

I would be interested to see if Artashes is keeping an eye of how things are going and if there are different regulations in the plans. :rolleyes2
 
On this login there were 17 new posts. 3 were ads. 1 was for this thread. The other 13 was from the usual suspect where we learn things like Cloudlinux only supports Linux :rolleyes2
 
Today's login stats

31 New Posts
19 were ads (including ads masquerading as news/pr)
11 post pumping fluff from a single user within a few minutes
1 normal post
 
If I have to believe the stats, in the last 24 hours there were just 7 new threads...all 7 ads of course :)
 
25 out of 31 new posts are ads right now.

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I was about to create on about this myself.

Why don't we have a system where the amount of ads you can place is based on the amount of quality posts you have made in the past X days?
For example, if you have 10 posts in the past 10 days, you get 1 ad. 20 posts in the past 10 days will give you 2 etc. It prevents people from signing up, pretend they're helping the community by posting 25 quality posts, and after that only to come back to place ads.

I don't mind looking at ads, since they help fund this community, but I keep seeing ads posted by people I never see posting any other content (exceptions apply, of course).
 
MarkPoppen said:
25 out of 31 new posts are ads right now.

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I was about to create on about this myself.

Why don't we have a system where the amount of ads you can place is based on the amount of quality posts you have made in the past X days?
For example, if you have 10 posts in the past 10 days, you get 1 ad. 20 posts in the past 10 days will give you 2 etc. It prevents people from signing up, pretend they're helping the community by posting 25 quality posts, and after that only to come back to place ads.

I don't mind looking at ads, since they help fund this community, but I keep seeing ads posted by people I never see posting any other content (exceptions apply, of course).
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While I would love to see more quality content, I can't really see that one working. What it will do is just to tolerate more and more spamming and useless comments just to get your post count up so you can post an ad. And this will be a frequent occurrence instead of just being one time.

Sad reality is that most people just focus on one forum and its the most populated one with the best content. You are a member of WHT yourself I believe and you know darn well how different it is from any other hosting related forum. You just can't beat their popularity at the moment and the most serious "players" do hang out predominantly there. :rolleyes2
 
Rado_Ch said:
While I would love to see more quality content, I can't really see that one working. What it will do is just to tolerate more and more spamming and useless comments just to get your post count up so you can post an ad. And this will be a frequent occurrence instead of just being one time.

Sad reality is that most people just focus on one forum and its the most populated one with the best content. You are a member of WHT yourself I believe and you know darn well how different it is from any other hosting related forum. You just can't beat their popularity at the moment and the most serious "players" do hang out predominantly there. :rolleyes2
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Yup. I believe that WHT is struggling with the same issue, though. Although they have 3 pages of new topics almost every time I log in, the majority is advertising.
It's up to US, the existing members of HD to create quality content for others to find. I think the ads are putting people off to sign up right now.

If I were to start a community like this, I'd do it without advertising in posts. Just have a sidebar where you can buy a link, just like here. and/or have a "reddit gold" type-structure, where you can throw gold/karma at someone for being helpful, and that gold/karma/cookie or whatever you want to call it can be bought.
 
IMO there's a misconception that people post ads instead of posting in a discussion. I think that's incorrect. I think that if people who only post ads were suddenly unable to post ads, they simply wouldn't post at all. I don't think they'd just spend that same time talking about billing or livechat software.

Sure, you can motivate someone to post in the discussion threads by implementing a rule like "you must post in the discussion threads before you can post your next ad" but then you encourage junk posts.

To really drum up conversation in the discussion sections, engaging topics are necessary. Basic questions like "What billing system do you use" doesn't engage users.
 
mikebvm said:
IMO there's a misconception that people post ads instead of posting in a discussion. I think that's incorrect. I think that if people who only post ads were suddenly unable to post ads, they simply wouldn't post at all. I don't think they'd just spend that same time talking about billing or livechat software.

Sure, you can motivate someone to post in the discussion threads by implementing a rule like "you must post in the discussion threads before you can post your next ad" but then you encourage junk posts.

To really drum up conversation in the discussion sections, engaging topics are necessary. Basic questions like "What billing system do you use" doesn't engage users.
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I agree, but it's a vicious cycle.. "Why would I post an engaging post, knowing that there will be little to no reply, if I can post it elsewhere and get pages of comments in 1 day?" and "There's no engaging content to reply on"...
 
MarkPoppen said:
Yup. I believe that WHT is struggling with the same issue, though. Although they have 3 pages of new topics almost every time I log in, the majority is advertising.
It's up to US, the existing members of HD to create quality content for others to find. I think the ads are putting people off to sign up right now.

If I were to start a community like this, I'd do it without advertising in posts. Just have a sidebar where you can buy a link, just like here. and/or have a "reddit gold" type-structure, where you can throw gold/karma at someone for being helpful, and that gold/karma/cookie or whatever you want to call it can be bought.
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True...but to a certain extent. WHT is still enjoying most of the hosting presence in forums and indeed many hosts advertise there. However, I am checking the New Posts around every 24 hours and there are certainly not just 3 pages of new posts, more like 12-15, and around 3-4 pages from those are ads. This still leaves you with plenty of discussions to participate in AND place your ads once a week. I dunno, I still see a huge gap between WHT and other hosting-related forums. Monopoly is never good news so hopefully new interesting forums will emerge from the shadows but for now they are a long way from achieving that. :rolleyes2
 
dont trust WHT. I terminated a client for non payment, he posted false statements against me and my business on WHT, so i replied with the truth and evidence to this and guess what my posts were removed and i was banned while this ex client remains on WHT
 
jamm said:
I'm confused atm lol. Where are you guys getting these statistics?
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heheh. When you log in click on New Posts. Then start counting

I logged in to day for the first time in weeks. There were about 450 new posts. Too many to count. But in the first 52 there were 9 that were not ads or non-fluff posts
 
I know the forum administration could change the advertising forums to require 25 regular posts before you can even post in those forums. There is that option.. If you want more substance, it could do something to add more posts.

I know WHT uses this method.

There used to be a mod that allowed you to post a in a forum every x days if you are part of a certain member group. Don't know if the mod is still in production.

Options are already available.

limit private messages till after 10 posts.

Seriously instead of whining about something, suggest solutions.
 
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