My 5,000th Post: Specially for Management

I was preparing to do the traditional x,000th post thing with some awesome tips to help people build their businesses. This is my 5,000th post and I've never done one of these.

Instead of helping a newbie out or doing any of the traditional type posts, though, I decided to spend this "anniversary" post on Freelancer. I guess I could have titled this something like " A cautionary tale for newbies: how to waste $3,200,000, run off all the loyal users and customers, and be left with a deserted wasteland of a once great forum" but out of respect I won't.

I am doing this because I believe that if things don't change, the forum may not be around for my 6,000th post and the forum is important to me. I've been here since about 2000. That's 17 years that I've been a part of the forum. I have benefited greatly from what I've learned over the years and in turn have helped out where I could.

Let me say this up front. Some may see my post as an old-timer that misses the old ways and can't accept change. Some may see my post as complaining, bitter, etc. and ask if I don't have anything better to do - it's just a forum. Some may see this as tearing down people that are trying their best.

But here's the truth: I am (or at least have been) loyal to the forum no matter who owned it and no matter who the mods were. I enjoyed a lot of the things that happened in the old days and miss them. I appreciate some of the changes FL has made as well. I especially have a little more hope since it seems that Tim is willing to listen and make some changes.

The last couple years I've complained where it was called for, praised where it was called for, but mostly tried to be fair. I have and do support the mods - their job is not one to be desired and is pretty much a thankless, never ending task. I thank them every chance I get for the good they do but also realize they aren't perfect.

I don't see this as an old school vs. new school issue. I see it as a bunch of people that love the forum that have been treated unfairly, ignored, pushed aside, etc. When that started happening, people left.

The forum has been in severe decline since the takeover. Ask yourself why. Your CEO said something like we were all addicts. But now most of them are gone. Why? What did FL do that caused this? It wasn't buying it out, in and of itself. It wasn't, I don't believe the new trend towards FB groups. People that use to fill the WSO forum with their offers are still doing it - just not here. It was and is the way things have been handled by admin, in my humble opinion.

The following are some of my suggestions. Most of them have been brought up before and ignored. I realize I have no say or standing with anyone that matters. But don't ignore people that are trying to help after asking for their help and then not give feedback or answers about final decisions and at the same time sit and wonder how it all went wrong and what could be done to fix it. Like I said, Tim and the gang appear to have a different outlook about this stuff and appear to be actually listening.

Pretty Ain't the Important Thing

It's nowhere close. From the takeover, there has been an obsession to make things pretty. From the feed, to this big black monstrosity rollover thing you put in, to making the WSO forum "pretty" to the point of being useless you're focusing on the wrong thing in my humble opinion. (And yes, I know for those that have brought it up before, FL makes more $$ and has had more success online than me).

You remind me of all the newbies who talk about spending hundreds or thousands on their site, on their themes, etc. but they can't sell anything. That's because they are focusing on the wrong thing. A theme NEVER made a sale. Period.

The problem isn't the feed or functionality. No one comes because the forum has a feed or a cool rollover. People come for the good conversation, to get help with their issues, etc.

You are ignoring the quality for the prettiness. All this time and money on the feed has not caused one single person to say "hey let's go check out the Warrior Forum - it's got a cool feed."

If you want to fix things, focus on the important stuff. It's not the prettiness, it's the quality. And the quality is suffering more and more which means there is less and less reason for someone to come here.

Speaking of Pretty Useless Features

1. Why in the world would you change the email subscription notification from a full post to .

Before, I subscribed to a thread and could read the full replies in my email and then come back to the thread to comment.

This was changed, I assume to get people back on to the thread. It did the opposite for me because it interrupted my "flow." The reply above is absolutely useless and what is waiting for me in the forum is probably a spam message. I'm not going to waste my time to go to the thread just to see spam. Yes, I'm just one guy, but the attempt at forcing me to come back has the opposite effect.

Why not put it back the way it was?

2. Why in the world was the "remove thanks" option taken away? There are many cases where thanks should be withdrawn. You, again, seem to want to force interaction so I pretty much quit thanking people.

Less thanks means less interaction, less visits/traffic, etc.

True story. A few years ago a guy posted about how he'd finally had his big breakthrough and was finally able to start making some money after a long struggle. We were all proud of him and wanted to encourage him to continue. So, we thanked the post.

Then, a day or so later came the kicker. He explained that how he had his big breakthrough was to steal email addresses and blast them with spam (or something like that - I forget the details). A couple people bought the junk he was selling and so he made his first $ online.

Your new way would force us to continue to show our support for a spammer. Why not put the option to remove our thanks back?

3. Modern vs. Classic view. Even though I use and prefer classic view, I'm not bold enough to say I would leave if it went away. I wouldn't be happy but I'm not sure what I would do.

The original design left two important features out - signatures and the report button. Sigs have been almost added back in but why no report button?

Is this why reports are ignored in a lot of cases? Internally you don't want the reports since you don't include them on your preferred feed view?

4. I've written extensively about the bell notification feature. Why in the world would anyone use this as their notification tool when the notification gives no context to what the reply is (again - it's probably spam) and when you click the link it opens a new tab.

Don't you want people using the forum and its features a lot? Isn't that the goal? Why make this design choice where those of us that have a lot of subscriptions are facing tons of open tabs? Why not make the feature useful and helpful?

5. Why is the classified section left off the bottom menu? People pay for ads there. Is it not important to the forum community to have a quick link at the bottom?

6. Many of us use the forum almost exclusively through the New Posts feature. Not too long ago the WSO and other paid forums were taken out of that. Why? Don't you want to encourage more people to see the paid ads? Isn't that what is paying salaries and keeping the lights on? Why limit it? Better yet, give us a personal choice of what forums are included in the New Posts.

7. Why was the preview post with a rollover feature taken out of the new WSO forum? It's everywhere else, why not there?

8. Why does the subscribe button on each thread ignore the subscription settings in each user's control panel and leaves the only option to be immediate email notification?

Warrior Forum Morphs into Blackhat Forum

1. There used to be a rule that if you started talking about spamming with email, you were banned and/or the thread was deleted immediately.

These days, it seems that FL is condoning this behavior. There are more and more of these posts about a friend that gave a guy 1,000,000 emails and they want the best way to milk it.

I wish this rule came back. You are condoning and supporting spammers.

2. There is a rule about no WSOs that talk about: Mass Account Creators, E-Mail Harvesters, Lead Scrapers, Cookie Stuffing Scripts, Mass Automation Tools, SEO Spam Tools, Blog Commenting Tools, Wiki Poster Tools, Spamming Tools, Automation Bots, Forum Posting Tools, Classified Ad Posters, Email Lists.

Why are these things supposedly not allowed to be sold here but they are condoned and supported by allowing discussion?

It's either one way or the other. A double standard never works out. You have principles or you don't.

Marketing Speak

1. Why are you still promoting the WR and not fixing it? We've pointed out the flaws many times. Nothing has been done to fix them over a long period of time which means the marketing copy turns into untruths AKA lies. It's interesting that one of the guys on your sales page for the WR was banned from here for stealing money from people. Many or most of the links are dead or useless. Wouldn't it be good to fix things like that to match the marketing copy?

2. Why are you saying that WSOs to the forum are exclusive and they just simply are not? That used to be the rule but it's not the case anymore.

Tweak to the Rules Needed??

1. You want more interaction. A signature is part of the motivation for people to post help. This helps increase interaction.

I think we need a rule that says that if you say something like "nice way to get your signature in" should be banned or something.

It makes people that are trying to help look bad. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. There are obvious sig spammers and they need to be reported and banned. What I'm talking about here is pushing away good interaction. Who wants to share something if they are going to get attacked for sharing it?

Rules. What Rules?

1. Which set of WSO rules is in place? Your mods are advertising 2 conflicting sets in their sigs: http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...rum-rules.html vs Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace - Announcements in Forum : Warrior Special Offers

2 A simple question for you: Are there any current WSO rules still in place? Don't laugh - FL had 2 sets of rules before - a public one and a private one when it came to income claims and guarantees.

After I get an answer, I'll elaborate on why I ask.

Again, thanks for all the good that you all are trying to do - both mods and admin.

Mark