I think you already know that I'm on your side, over these issues, Theo.

I'm glad you're feeling great, but sorry you've stopped "reporting".

The moderators, I think, are actually doing very well at the moment. Even at weekends. Even at funny times of day. They obviously have some kind of "rota" and it's obviously working out for them, at least to some extent.

Most of what you're complaining about (and I agree with you completely about all of it) actually has nothing to do with the moderators at all. If what people are posting here breaks the forum's rules, they do delete it. They often even contact people and explain why. Can't complain about that?

I sometimes get immensely irritated by people who are asking beginner-level questions themselves but still posting in threads in which others are asking for advice, and often offering dreadfully misguided advice, sometimes based on clearcut factual inaccuracies (those parts, at least, can be corrected) but more often just on complete misunderstandings. But many of those situations are difficult: some are genuinely trying (albeit often very inappropriately) to be "helpful". And they're not breaking any rules, anyway.

I agree completely, but what can you do?

Almost none of that, to be fair, is the moderators' fault, you know?

Anyway, I'm glad you're still posting, even if you're not "reporting".


.

And then you have the daily recycled lectures by the self appointed
know-it-alls trying to capture another victim for their coaching,
resulting in the next generation of self appointed know-it-alls.
All very predictable these days.

Not blaming Mods either, like i said they are probably doing their best to plug the holes... Sort of reminds me of the Dutch boy plugging the Dyke with his finger...

I haven't been to the main forum in.... well actually I can't remember the last time I was there.

Any time I spend on the WF is now down here in the "bar" section.

Unfortunately, withe the exception of link dropping, there are no written rules against the above. It's not against TOS to ask stupid questions, rehash or regurgitate information, exaggerate, or lie.

So therefore, it's very difficult to report those things and I don't even try. I stick to the obvious self promotion, link dropping, affiliate links, etc. that has always been against TOS.

The problem is the single-minded focus Freelancer has had on increasing membership numbers with zero regard to whether those members will actually be an asset to the Warrior Forum. It's all a mindless numbers game with them. They get a new member for WF, they create an account on Freelancer for that member, unbeknownst to them, and somewhere down the road, they lay claim to having the largest Freelancing site on the planet. A prospective buyer isn't going to know that hundreds of thousands of those members are not participating members.

That's my take on it anyway. I still report the obvious infractions and mindless growth is not the mod's fault.

One reason the same questions get asked 24/7 is the forum search is useless.

[DELETED]

I just go here or the offline marketing forum, so I've been spared of that. It sounds like medieval torture for modern times.

Hey Theo,

I understand. It's extremely frustrating.

Why not try a different approach instead of giving up on the forum all together. If I recall, you have a B&M store, right? Why not share some of your insights about business, marketing, etc. that applies online and off?

In other words, focus on upping the level of conversation versus just reporting (and getting frustrated) at the current low levels.

With your no-nonsense approach in the answers you give that I've seen, I think this new approach may can help you and us both.

Mark

If the mods are paid for their time in the forum, I'm sure they're clicking on at least new threads to check them. Sometimes spam is entered into the middle or at the end of a thread, though, so I report those since they can be easily missed. I'm sure even in a paid position, mods don't have time to read every post.

I'd like to blame all of the decrease in usefulness of the MF on Freelancer. Their membership is mostly the500 words for 3 bucks crowd. The drop in stimulating conversation could have been predicted right there. However - the quality of discussion here was going on before Freelancer. Might even be one of the reasons that Allen decided it was time to take a walk on it.

In the long run, the decay of the conversation here should have been predictable even without the Freelancer acquisition. It's open to anyone to join and is an MMO based model. The "earn big bucks with no education crowd" is a very large one and look who created a lot of those types in here.

I remember years back many of the more solid members would slam anything that was written with too much hype. The money was too attractive that resulted and now we're seeing the ripple effect. We've now got people who will rehash anything and everything to make a buck because they had "no education, skills, experience" and continue to hype their sales pages. They haven't the faintest clue what making an actually valuable product entails. They were able to catch the lightly technical end of slamming a product together, but don't have the experience or knowledge to understand anything from an expert level or how to create something of quality, maybe even not much of an idea what quality consists of. We all know exactly what rolls downhill.

Theo,

The ultra-basic questions are a compound problem. For starters, we just went through months in which there was no point in telling people to use the search function because there was none. That creates a flow of repetitious stuff, which sets an example that is followed by other new folks.

That's always been something that had to be balanced. The percentage of new and totally inexperienced members hanging out in main discussion has been growing for years. That's partly due to the proliferation of specialized sub-sections, but mostly just because the idea that making money online isn't some pipe dream is becoming familiar to a lot more people.

Lots of other factors. Low cost broadband in most other countries, the growth of outsourcing, ease of sale and delivery, and declining hardware costs are big ones.

And there's the all too predictable one: The hiring of low wage ESL workers to do "marketing" jobs like posting for links, spamming forums, shilling, etc. That's rotated through different countries as the years have gone by, and there's always an increased number of people from those countries participating here as the cycle moves on.

It has always been considered the responsibility of new people in any online community to learn the rules and customs of the community. Along with that, the established members have always had the job of teaching new folks how to navigate and interact in those communities.

If either side gets out of balance, things get borked. We've been fighting a bigger than usual balance problem for a couple of years now. Some of it is just the world's population catching up with us. Some is the abuse of the system by people from certain countries who use extortion and abuse as ways to get what they want, and then scream that the mods are "protecting scammers" when their lies are deleted. And a big chunk is the result of deluded idiots who don't understand the difference between maintaining standards and being "elitist."

Ultimately, those are mostly things the members have to "enforce." That happened as it should for a long time, but it ebbs and flows with volume, and the cycle was stuck at a low level for longer than usual.

The mods can't do that part. It's not their function, and arguably not a proper primary role for them.

The issue of English as a very poor second language is connected, but not quite the same. That's just numbers catching up.

Once we got enough active and experienced mods to tackle more than just maintenance, I sent Allen an email about ideas for cutting down on that problem. That was only a day or two before the sale went through, so it was a bit late.

It's a really tricky thing to handle. Some of it, like this "alyssaalyssana" or whoever, are simply recurring spammers who need summary nuking. Not only do they pollute the discussions, they encourage others who couldn't write a proper grocery list in English to jump in with similarly useless comments.

I think you'd find that fewer than 2 dozen people generate the majority of that garbage. Seriously.

Beyond those, it's tough. It was even tougher when the search function was broken and you couldn't look at someone's recent posting history to see if a given post was an isolated issue or part of a pattern that needed addressed.

The goal is to welcome anyone who can and wants to participate in the discussions productively and civilly. Unintelligible comments aren't productive, but that line is grey.

The ONLY area where the new mods might carry any responsibility for this is along that edge. The ones I've communicated with do quite well in English. Better than many of our American members for whom it's a first language, in fact. Still, since English is not the primary/only language for them, they may tend to allow more slack than the old mods did. They may not even notice the deficiencies in that area in some posts.

That's not meant as a personal criticism, by any means. Their English is far better than my Tagalog. But it's still an issue that can potentially develop into a long-term problem. Given the current realities here, I'm not sure what the answer might be.

If it's not properly adjusted for, though, it's got a predictable outcome. Most of us have seen what happens to forums where pidgin is the standard.

Not pretty.


Paul

Alexa,The standard of evidence should be dependent on the investment the member has in the profile. A non-paying member who's posting junk and has very few posts should just be removed.

Paying members should get more slack, but not because of the cash to the forum. The reasoning is that they're more likely to adjust to follow the rules since they have some skin in the game. Temp bans will almost always work for those folks.

Removing someone with a big investment of time and contribution to the discussions should always be a last option, and be backed with more than just casual motivation. Especially if you're affecting their incomes.

That said, there are things which should always result in permanent bans. Refusal to honor a posted refund policy, posting demonstrably fake testimonials, faked income screen shots, and any other clear scamming. Certain excessive abuses in discussion sections, spamming via PMs (not to be confused with sending business invitations that are not random and bulk in nature), and a few others.

The object isn't to punish anyone. It's to stop behavior that harms the members or the forum. The desired measure is to use the least excessive means that will achieve that end.

It's easy to forget that the new mods are still learning. In the past, a person had to have a very clear history here before I'd even think about suggesting them as mods. They understood the community based on long experience.

The new folks don't have that experience. Unfortunately, they're unlikely to get certain aspects of it because they're not regular members participating for their own reasons. There are patterns they may never learn.

Hopefully, the other advantages will more than make up for that.


Paul

Alexa,

They may also be people setting up accounts for PM spamming. That's where the "50 posts and drop" thing was most common. But yeah, selling accounts is another part of it.

As an FYI, banning IPs does little to stop the spammers, and a lot to slow down the forum overall. If we started banning big net blocks, the people paying the spammers would just buy VPN accounts or load them up with proxies. And too many legit users surf with proxies to start banning those wholesale. The false positives would outweigh the benefits.


Paul

Well, that's easy. Talk to 10 or 20 people and create your own forum where you are the boss, together with your partners. If you don't need hundreds of dumb answers to your question, but a few solid ones, by people that you respect, then it shouldn't be that difficult to arrive at such an idea.

Perfect example of what I'm talking about:

So in 2+ hours nobody has reported this fool?
He/She has been a member for a while and should know better, it's not only new members.....

Not all members here take such a passive stance...

I reported the post mentioned above and I have had no regrets posting a review that was less than positive when asked to do an honest review for a vendor. Some of this is on the users, but employing all new mods that know basically nothing about internet marketing or the forum past has left the door wide open for BS hell to walk through. This is not all on the users...some of this falls on management, especially when you consider some of the mods and/or admins can't tell shi* from a shingle.

Cheers

-don

Note: The post has been removed at this point.

What I find a bit comedic and/or appalling is the number of folks trying to use the War Room as a PLR dump these days. Freelancer raised the price to $99 bucks a year yet they are approving ancient PLR that can be picked up anywhere and everywhere.

Sure I have been reporting what I have been finding, and some of it has been deleted after multiple reports, but it's pretty ridiculous what passes as WSOs and War Room material these days.

Freelancer adds domain sales and an affiliate program but IMO they have done LITTLE to NOTHING so far to maintain what is left of the Warrior Forum (quality). Dumping the old ways and the old mods is not helping at all. In-fact IMO it's been quite detrimental...

Get your old 3rd party PLR here...just $99 bucks a year!

http://www.warriorforum.com/war-room...-no-optin.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/war-room...ml#post9677127

I reported this thread --> and hopefully it will be deleted soon. If it's not deleted then it looks like the War Room could be on it's way to becoming a massive PLR and Resale Rights garbage dump.

What makes this even funnier is the delivered PLR license from PLRStore.com (which is not resolving) states...

Funny stuff, eh?

How can these new guys be expected to know some of this stuff? They can't ...therefore the quality of the forum content automatically drops. What's the payoff for we members that spend time reporting BS posts and deals? Not freaking much these days. Sure they delete the spam and stuffed cookies but they are VERY hit and miss with the rest of the reports.

But yeah, sometimes I do ask myself "is nobody else reporting some of this stuff?" and/or "are the mods and admins asleep at the wheel?". But then I realize that some of the BS stuff that I have reported multiple times is still on the board so obviously someone with some power (or lack of) has decided it's perfectly appropriate for the forum.

Just calling it the way I see it...

-don

I'm definitely too new here to bemoan the good old days -- and maybe I even qualify as one of the "self-appointed know-it-alls" referenced above -- but to my way of thinking the main problem with the WF can be summed up in three letters: MMO.

I don't have a problem with the MMO niche per se, nor with people who engage in it, but what I don't like is the feeling that every other post around here was written by someone who is trying to sell you something. The outcome is that the WF often feels less like a community of people trying to help each other and more like Times Square, with a bunch of shady characters hawking the digital equivalent of cheap-looking, knock-off Rolex Watches to unsuspecting tourists.

From a business perspective the situation is actually pretty interesting -- though definitely in a "don't run your business like this" sort of way. I view one of the biggest -- if not the biggest -- strategic advantages of the WF to be the quality of forums, but the monetization methods the WF has chosen seem (to me at least) to undermine this. As just one example, monetizing premium signatures essentially makes it in the WF's financial interest for people to post a lot of garbage so that the signatures they just purchased will be seen. But of course that's not the only way that their business model undermines their core business.

Fundamentally, I think the WF needs to decide whether it's going to be an MMO marketplace or a lively community of users genuinely trying to help each other out. I really don't see how it do both well. There's too much of a conflict of interest between the two sides of the business.

Personally, I'm much, much more interested in the community than the marketplace. I've never bought anything through the WF, I've never sold anything through the WF and I probably never will. But the sad thing is, if I were in Freelancer's shoes, I'm not sure I'd pick community over marketplace. Given that there always seem to be double the users browsing the WSO section than the IM section (well, at least if you believe the numbers, which frankly I'm a little skeptical about), it might make more financial sense to concentrate their efforts on monetizing all the MMO-activity here. For instance, if I were running the WF, I'd probably be working on a way to transition the WSO section into more of a store front, taking a cut of each sale rather than just collecting a flat fee.

That said, the Stack Exchange has shown that forums -- when done right -- can be very profitable. And truthfully, part of me hopes that the Stack Exchange spins off an online business or IM forum; I think with their momentum and their model, they'd eat the WF's lunch and the quality of the postings that everyone is lamenting would be much, much improved. Interestingly, there's been a proposal within the Stack Exchange's Area 51 to create a Digital Marketing forum (Digital Marketing - Area 51 - Stack Exchange). I, for one, will be watching.

Kilgore,That's not as hard as it looks. You set rules designed to promote the good of the members and keep the moderation team completely separate from and unanswerable to the financial side of the forum.

It's a question of one decision. Not even a complicated one. But it takes the will to go in that direction, which isn't a choice everyone will make.


Paul

It took me all of 2 minutes to find another PLR dump by that same member in the War Room...hopefully it will be deleted.

http://www.warriorforum.com/war-room...ml#post9659258

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sb...uard=8767-99a6

This is a 2008 member that one could think should know better and/or is intentionally taking advantage of the War Room to grab some cheap "Thanks" or whatever.

If this stuff is allowed then I have several thousand pieces of PLR, RR and MRR on my hard drives that I could post in there. Yeah, I never did open up that PLR site but I do still have a few of the domains.

It's up to the mods and admins to smack this crap back...and it would not hurt to post some bold rules and/or thread closers to make people aware of what is acceptable and what is not.

Heck...I can download an entire PLR site in a day or two on a "trial basis" so why in the world would anyone want to pay $99 bucks a year to wade through this sort of muck?

Not me, but if this is the type of War Room material they are looking for, I have 4 tons of it for 'em.

Cheers

-don

Don, when I recently reported a WR offering, a mod asked me to write a review on the thread which I did. Later posters took my lead and said it was just one big advertisement - not worthy of the WR. The poster then took down the report and is revamping it.

What's wrong with using an approach like mine instead of just waiting/hoping that the mods will act? Publicly but politely saying how it is. Might it turn into a fight? Sure. Might we be proven wrong and embarrass ourselves - the offer really was good but we just didn't see part of it or whatever. Sure. But what is the alternative?

Mark

Edit: I see you did post in the thread. Didn't check before I wrote my post. However, my point still remains the same. Maybe we should be more proactive and public while the mods are learning the ropes.

Update:

Both War Room giveaways that I reported mentioned earlier in this thread have been removed --> good going Warrior Forum staff.

Cheers

-don

I got to V7 forum for information and techie questions. On here it's a lot of filtering through BS and garbage. But it is a good place to find reviews of other BS that people are pitching me on facebook.

About all of the spam threads in all of the "numerous" forums. Is "numerous" the keyword? Personally, I think "numerous" contributes to the problem because I consider the Forum to be too large in terms of Forums for a limited number of Mods. Also, consider that quite a few members go to great lengths in reporting numerous problems to the Mods. Actually an understatement.

Is there a fix? I've seen a lot of good intentioned fixes over the years. Some worked and some did not. However, the forum always seems to fall back regardless of the fix.

A drastic change might and I stress "might" be a temporary fix and if not a temporary fix I personally do not see what it would hurt, except maybe profits...

Maintain a handful of active forums, say six, for six weeks. In other words, suspend all posting to all, but six of the forums for six weeks.

What would that accomplish? The Spammers would be able to post their spam in the active forums.. where Mods and members could moderate. For six weeks it could be a campaign of sorts wherein Mods & Members could collaboratively focus on the problem.

Would it hurt anything? Would the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or would the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many?

We will never know unless we try?

BTW: Six forums for six weeks is just an example.

Jeffery 100% :-)

Edit: P.S. Six weeks of "forum bliss" would make a nice holiday gift from FreeLancer

Funny how things work out. While searching for sig. rules for war room members I found this thread.

Aren't WR members allowed six lines in their sig.?

I just received this message from someone claiming to be a mod.??


#1 Their profile certainly doesn't inspire confidence and the fact they don't know the rules (as far as I've been aware) made me wonder.

#2 If you are claiming to be a mod. telling me to do something, you should be recognizable as one.

It's my Birthday today ( 29...again!) so I thought I could get away with airing my frustration over some things, but it seems Theo has beaten me to it.

The decline and subsequent death of WF is just a matter of time IMO.

When you alienate the core membership who made the place what it is, you are in trouble.

Still, my biggest issue is the refusal to remove sigs. from paid forums. I see it as a slap in the face of the people who pay the bills. Such an easy fix too.

Edit: I see Suzanne's sig. is six lines and a banner, so...

SIGNATURE FILE RULES

(1) Maximum length of sig file is 5 lines which includes any blank lines used for spaces.

If you have a graphic signature, you get 6 lines plus the graphic, I believe. I may be wrong on the six, but I do know that the above is in the signature rules posted here.

That person is a mod. Don't be disrespectful to the new mods. They haven't done anything to deserve it. Some do not participate in the discussions and at least one does. That's their option to do so or not, and you shouldn't be posting private pms and outing mods.

Oh, and happy birthday!

I'm not aware that I have been.

I have a graphic sig. I just don't have it in my sig. at the moment.

So I have to use a graphic to have six lines even though I have paid for it?

Thanks! I am old, no doubt.

Also, I'm about at the point where I just don't care anymore. I used to really enjoy visiting but lately it is just kind of depressing and sad.

I don't know for sure but I think it would be a very easy thing to check subscriptions.

Removed it.

Thanks!

I understand. The point I was trying to make is anybody could send a message claiming to be a mod. At first I thought someone was just trying to mess with me.

Thanks! It's been an odd one so far!

FYI I am really 52 today...still feel like a teenager!

Right. It's a one-sided view I have.

I have a fat steak and cake waiting!!

You all have a good day or night!

Fact is, this forum has been going down hill for years. I used to be quite active on the WF back in the day. But now I rarely even bother to visit and when I do visit, I usually head to the War Room to see what kind of crap is being slung in there. Don't get me wrong, it's not all crap, but I've seen stuff in there claiming to be new stuff that has been around for YEARS, on free member sites no less.

Stupid questions on the WF is normal and has always been on the WF. But they aren't always stupid just because YOU think they are. Most people have NO clue about marketing and/or the internet and they have to find out somehow. How better to find out than to ASK questions, even if they seem stupid. And since the search feature on this forum doesn't always work, asking questions may seem like the best way to get those answers.

What bothers me more than "stupid" questions are stupid answers, which there's no shortage of either.

I've also seen people get banned for stupid reasons, hell I've even been banned before (long ago) and to this day I have NO IDEA why and was only able to get the ban lifted by emailing Allen Says and asking him to look into it. Which he did and of course he lifted the ban. But I've seen people who offer genuinely good advice on SEO get banned simply for giving away free guides on SEO and keyword research, etc. The only thing I can figure is that there is/was a competitor that also happened to be a moderator.

Anyway, I don't really see this forum getting any better. I mean it hasn't gotten any better in years, it's only gone down hill and now that it's under the control of freelancer, who only seems interested in numbers, I don't see it all of the sudden getting better.I know that since it's been taken over by this Alaister guy, I all the sudden get tons of email from this forum, whereas I very rarely got email from this forum while Allen was in charge.

Anyway, I'm not even sure why I bothered to post tonight as I'm sure it's mostly just a waste of time and energy.

What surprises me most is that there are still some really good people on here (old timers even, Like Paul Myers and Mark Singletary) that still try their best to help out the newbies and even other old timers. Alexa Smith is another great example of someone that helps people despite all the BS being slung around here. She seems to try her best to help people out. I mean you don't see too many posters who have been thanked 23,000+ times. That shows some serious commitment. I don't know how she does it. I know I certainly don't have the patience for that kind of dedication to a forum like this.

Anyway, I'm rambling now and need to go get some food in me to replenish the energy I just used up posting this. LOL.

I just go here or the offline marketing forum, so I've been spared of that. It sounds like medieval torture for modern times.

This forum was created as a place for entrepreneurs. For a lot of years it was people who were educated in fields who were building their own livelihoods.

One thing that happened as a repercussion of product builders being here was an influx of affiliates - by affiliates, I mean people who were attempting to replace building their own business with working for people online - to a point that is a good mix, but eventually, the affiliate minded starting to aspire to building businesses they had no skills to build. Products offered here started to lose the quality of the originals. A lot of them turned into almost worthless rehash.

Years go by and the "affiliate" qualified started to over-run the actually business ownership qualified.

Take that up a notch to now - we have a corporation who serves an affiliate base trying to figure out how to best serve entrepreneurs. The two rarely mix well. What's worse, is that the base of the "tourists" being pulled in are not the clients of the corporation - they are the worker bees. The 5 dollar writers and techs who really don't have much ability to give much input because their only experience is low wage contracting of remedial skills and working for someone else. If the clients are actually being lured to the forum, they are those that pay low wages for people with remedial skills.

So...........where does that leave the original genius that was rampant in the forums?

Diana,Thankee, ma'am. I shall be adding that to my swiped file.


Paul

So that's what OG stands for!

[DELETED]

Martin,

The biggest thing they can do as far as the mods is to have each of them pick one section of the forum and read it regularly. That's the only way they'll ever start to learn the patterns and get a real feel for the forum as a dynamic system.

At the moment, they don't understand the place in the way someone does who's here as a member, rather than an employee. Because of that, they're missing the perspective of someone with an investment in the discussions.

They have no idea how the parts all fit together. Without that, modding is just mechanics, and that doesn't work.


Paul

A few of my thoughts, for what they are worth, if any of the UK members wants to share:

1. The marketplace (the $$) needs a revamp. 2-3 weeks ago Alaister promised an update to the rules where they were training internal staff and would post it in a day or two. There is a way, I believe, to have it wildly profitable for FL AND to provide good value AND to be moral/legal/ethical. WIN-WIN-WIN. Right now NO ONE is winning. Sales are down. Traffic is down. $20 signup fees are down. Look at how many WSOs are selling in WP's own payment stats.

2. People, someone, needs to become the new Paul and come here at night and on the weekends - not just when "clocked in." They need to build a relationship that is rock solid here. They need to be the face. They need to respond - even if it's I don't know or management said your idea is crazy or whatever. But there has to be some trust built and right now there is 0% for most of us. There needs to be someone that lives it and breathes it and protects it - just like Paul (and others that were very visible) did.

3. Reducing barriers to entry is NOT the way to a successful marketplace. We see people all the time that are literally borrowing $20 so they can put up their WSO to tell us how to get rich. Or they have no idea about how to get traffic so they wonder if putting up a free WSO would work or not.

4. We have complained about the icons many, many times - mostly the ones that indicate participation in a thread. Management promises to look into it but has never either fixed it or explained that they weren't going to fix it. Forever looking into things without a follow-up and without actually doing anything is one of the reasons for a lack of trust. Someone that understood and loved the place could see that it's a huge problem and even if it wasn't a big deal to them personally they would make it a big deal because so many people have complained so many times.

5. If FL can vet the WSO of the week that they send in an email they can vet them all. If they aren't vetting (and by the complaints I've seen they aren't) they are wrong and typical of a money grubbing, churn and burn "guru". We get enough of that. We want something we can trust.

6. One idea that may be considered is creating a "member board" made up of various Warriors. This board could meet regularly through Skype or other group calling ways with FL management to discuss the state of things, give feedback, etc. FL retains full control with their in-house moderation but would get the advantage of having this focus group - people that care more than a sig - help drive growth and progress.

Board members wouldn't need special titles or ranks per se - they just want to help. They don't need to be paid - but it would be nice. They would contribute out of a desire to make the place better and not let it die which would hurt some of us deeply. Then FL could take the best of the advice and implement it and put the rest on the back burner or scrap it. HOWEVER, to keep trust with the board, next month or quarter FL needs to be open and honest and say "we scrapped that idea put forth last time" or "this is in development AND will be ready 1st quarter 2015". Trust and relationship are key.

Mark

7. Do something about the War Room. Upping the price without adding value is a little backwards. To be honest, many of the free WSOs that are in there are there because they failed as WSOs. There are none (that I remember) of the wildly successful WSOs that are listed there. There are a few extremely high quality things but most of it is from years past.

It's a last shot at getting a little exposure for a failed WSO. If anyone actually looked at the downloads they would see why many failed. In many cases I would have felt a little cheated if I had paid money for the WSO.

Many of the gifts are old and not updated leading to dead links. Rules need to be put in place as to how to handle limited time offers. If a poster deletes the WR gift then the thread needs to be locked with an indication that it is no longer available.

Your WR bonus special promos aren't special at all. For example, I get 3 months free trial with my CC instead of 2 months that I can get on my own. That's good and all - thanks. But not worth $97 a year. It's still just a trial. And it requires further payment and/or submitting email to get the offer where those are disallowed in other parts of the WR.

8. Understand that the complaining isn't because we hold a grudge, we hate FL, we have disrespect, etc. It's because we want the place to be better.

It's kind of like a spouse. A spouse that never complains, never disagrees, never has ideas of his/her own, and never rocks the boat is probably ill, having an affair, about to leave, etc. because the lack of concern is a huge red flag. Normal people that care have ideas/suggestions they offer as well as complaints when necessary.

Don't run away from the input - embrace it. Because being ignored is a very fast way to ruin a marriage or any relationship and many of us feel pretty much ignored up to now.

Mark

Matt,

The icon problem is that with the redesign, it's very difficult or impossible to tell that you have participated in a thread once it gets "hot". Many people have described it, added screenshots, etc. trying to get it fixed.

For example, open up the Off Topic forum. You have posted here several times in this thread. Where is the quick indicator in the icon to tell you that? There isn't one.

Before we could quickly scan a page and the threads that we've participated in were extremely clear because of an icon and so it was much easier to go back and check on new replies etc.

Here are some explanations/complaints/suggestions:

http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...t-replies.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topi...ly-posted.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/suggesti...something.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...cons-mean.html

Thanks for looking into this.

Mark

Matt,The problem is, the stuff is already getting reported, but the new mods don't understand how to deal with it efficiently. And that is really not their fault.

Suzanne, Alexa, and several others have repeatedly mentioned the problem of reporting people who post constant junk, one-liners, and sigvertising. That used to result in the person's posts being removed, and them getting either a warning, signature removal, or a ban. Only took one report, and we'd use the search function to see if the report was accurate, and how much of a response was needed.

The search function was broken for so long the new mods didn't have that to use while learning. And now they have habits.

Don (ForumGuru) is probably your best friend when it comes to reporting copyright and other issues in WSOs. If he's reporting these things and they're not getting acted on, that's also not the new mods' fault. Just because they're new. That stuff can get complicated.

You don't need more mods. Adding more people who don't understand the beast they're tending will just lead to a bunch of folks bumping into each other. What you need is a system for the mods you have.

And you absolutely need at least one person to learn how to handle reports about the sales sections. That's a whole other kind of animal, and takes a lot more focus than just nuking spammers and deleting nasty posts.


Paul

9. Matt, you run a respectable set of Internet based companies. Spammers, scammers, and other kinds of low lifes bite into your profits, reduce your traffic, run off your customers and legitimate vendors, and hurt your business.

For example, you are hiring mods left and right to control the deluge of spam. That represents money out of yours and other investor's pockets. Spam is driving many away - this very thread is a cry out because of out of control spam and conversation quality being at an all time low.

Yet by their action (or inaction) management condones running down and hurting other respectable companies, hurting their profits, and making it harder on them and their customers.

How?

By allowing the discussion of buying fake likes, fake followers, phone verified accounts, proxies (very few legitimate uses), scrapers (including email and FB group members), etc. There used to be a rule that discussion or products that hurt other companies or were against their TOS was not allowed. Now these things are allowed, condoned, and thriving.

Do you think the fake likes and followers and such are helping Craigslist, FB, YT, Twitter to have a thriving, wonderful experience for their users and management? Or making it to no one can tell whether something is legit or a lie bringing down the quality of the Internet as a whole?

We don't like it when we get hit with spam bots, fake accounts, etc. yet we let it happen to others. And then when it happens to us we wonder where the quality went.

Mark

The sales forums need to be cleaned up or this place is going to be black listed everywhere. Its reputation has already suffered a great deal. You dismissed the one person on the planet who is the most qualified to deal with all the dirty tricks and shysters.

The quickest way to get things back on track would be to bring Paul Myers back, if he'd take the job again. You want only paid staffers? Then pay him. Hell, he deserves it more than anyone.

He knows the bad actors and he knows the games they play. He knows the culture here better than anyone. It will take the new mods years to learn all that, if they even have that much time. If you ask me, you would have been wise to ask him to stay on before you bought the forum.

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By the way, most people post things without searching for an answer because it is viewed as easier and quicker (which might not work out that way in reality), or because the search function did not return any great results. It is like everything today, a sign of the times, faster, easier, try and take the easy way out - I think that is why we have fast food restaurants. I'll bet many people post and leave to go to Subway, Macdonalds, Denny's, Swiss Chalet, Tim Horton's, Starbucks, or wherever, hoping to come back when they want expecting a few answers to be readily available. Wait a minute - that sounds like a good idea - but, before I go ...

Not that I have as much experience as the rest of you, but I have been here a while. Wouldn't making the whole forum a paid forum at $10 a month, or whatever, work ? Or, assign a good initiation fee to be a member and then $5.00 a month to stay here - wouldn't that reduce the abuse or silly posts (I must admit some of them might have been from me over the years) on the forum? Would that increase revenue for the owners ? Not sure.

Yes, it would reduce the number of members for a while, but would it be worth it ? Just saying ...

Firstly, thanks to all for contributing to this discussion. We can assure that we're listening and are committed to improving the forum while maintaining the good parts. We regularly go through the suggestion forum, PM's and support tickets and take note of what is being said.

To introduce myself, I'm an administrator of the forum and sit next to Alaister. Prior to this, I've been a member of the Warrior community for around 4 years and so can appreciate the community's desire to change and can appreciate the history and gravity of most issues presented in threads. I'll be working closely with the team to implement suggestions and make sure issues are being addressed.

In regards to all of the suggestions presented here, I'll go through them. I've noticed a few recurring items, particularly around the War Room, the WSO section, moderation in general, the bugs. We're working on these as we speak.

We're very keen to weed out these people as well. We're going through a few different options and will move quickly on this. This is an ongoing battle with community forums, but we're in a position to handle this.

We take this very seriously. Most of this the community never sees. We will work harder on what we do behind the scenes to prevent this from occurring again.

I truly appreciate this. Thanks for this Paul.

PLR is definitely not something we want in the War Room. The War Room is designed to be THE PLACE for people to find unrestricted, high quality information that can be downloaded/viewed at any time. We're going to moderate this more heavily and start singling out poor offers. Some offers (and some sellers) have already been deleted from the War Room months ago because of the low quality.

Completely agree.

Thank you for this and I understand what you mean. The community moderation for the forum has always been excellent. We're working on this.

The WSO marketplace is something we're working on fixing for some time. This is a high priority for us. Over the last few weeks we've been enforcing some of the new rules privately, particularly around income claims and thread bumps. The new rules aim to return the WSO marketplace to its former glory and we're looking forward to releasing these.

100% agree. Great suggestions and something we will do.

You're also welcome to PM me or use the support ticket system and that will reach us as well. Whichever way we hear from you, we value your observations. We receive a lot of requests, so just bear with us if it takes a few days to get back to you. We do read everything.

Consider it done.

We're across with how much the community helps us and we truly appreciate this.

We're excited about the new WSO rules. Completely agree that we need to fix these. We're privately rolling out some new rules, particularly around income claims and thread bumps. I apologize for the delay while we sort out things behind the scenes to make this happen. We see this is a very high priority and are looking forward to releasing.

Excellent suggestion. Consider Al & I the face.

Personally, I think this one may be more a symptom of a larger problem with low quality offers. I believe the new rules will help improve this.

I apologize for the delay. We're looking at this right now (literally). We will work on being more transparent so you don't feel like the suggestion has been lost or forgotten.

I understand and we want this to be a community, not a guru newsletter. We're working on our email campaigns. Thanks for this feedback.

Excellent idea. We could make it similar to WAMA where it is a live discussion and Q&A.

I agree. This is something we have been working on. The War Room should be a place for the best offers for free. Many products are quite good, but we will tighten this up.

We see it as feedback, and for that we're truly appreciative. Thank you for taking the time to relay this to us. You're welcome to PM me with any other feedback.

3 people have suggested this, I think it is a great idea and something we'll start doing.

This is concerning that they would even pass through the moderation process. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and we're going to take action on this.

Absolutely. Sorry about the delay. Whenever it is brought up, we investigate, it is quite complex, but we have recorded the many issues are looking at the causes behind the scenes. One of the items that we're working on right now.

We have begun moderating more heavily based on some things I saw a few weeks ago. 80% of spam such as "JV Opportunities" are deleted instantly from the War Room, but we will work on the remaining 20%. Absolutely appreciate you reporting those PLR products and we're going to improve the moderation process so they never see the light of day.
Thank you for the detail you've gone into here. We are making major changes to the marketplace. These are taking longer than we anticipated behind the scenes to implement. But this is a high priority for us and is something we have been working on for some time now.

Absolutely agree and will act on this feedback.

We hear you and appreciate everyone's time in providing their honest feedback. From here, I have a large list of things we'll be doing. Bear with us as we make these changes, community feedback is something we value highly. As mentioned, I'm an administrator here on the forum and so you're welcome to private message with suggestions, post into the suggestion forum or submit a support ticket. Whichever way you contact us, we can assure you that we'll hear what you have to say.

Daniel,

If you guys actually take serious action on the income claims and promises of specific results, you'll do more good with that one thing than almost anything else you can do here as far as the sales sections.

That would be a huge step, which I think a lot of us would applaud loudly.


Paul

Nice to "meet" you Daniel. Looking forward to the future with a little bit more hope now after your post and the meetup that was mentioned.

Coming from corporate America I know that things have to be worked out in a different way than when it was just a one man show making all the decisions and I know that sometimes it's slow.

One of the biggest things that would help the general feeling is to stay in touch regularly/daily. Be here and contributing. In the past we've gotten "we're working on it", "we'll look into it", "sounds good" followed by silence for weeks and no apparent movement on the suggestions which is followed by negativity/hopelessness/giving up on our part.

I would much rather someone tell me I'm crazy and my suggestion sucks and you refuse to do it and threaten to kick me out if I bring it up again rather than the false hope that it's being worked on (but it's not really) and avoidance of the issues.

Mark

In your defense, it can be very difficult to identify pirated material. A one or two mod perspective can't possibly know all the products "out there" for sale. This is one area where the members, with their thousands of eyeballs, can help a great deal.

In fact, you might want to consider funneling reports from the sales threads into a separate report queue, or have them marked differently from regular reports, so they don't get lost amongst the less important reports. The faster these are handled the better. It's too easy for important reports to sit at the end of the queue behind less important reports while the mods work their way through them.

Just getting rid of income claims would do wonders for the place, on many levels.

Nice to meet you, Daniel. Your details responses were appreciated.

Nice to meet you all as well. I'm looking forward to working closely with everyone moving forward.

Completely agree. We're going to be more in touch having a more visible presence here.

Interesting suggestion that we're going to talk some more about.

Kay,

Yep. Has been for years. I suspect the older accounts with War Room memberships went up quite a lot in market value recently.


Paul

Daniel,

I've reported a new WSO, just approved today, that is by someone that was banned for a previous WSO wherein it was brought out that what he was selling was stolen. Not sure if it was proven or not but there was no conclusion to the thread except that the owner of the stolen product said it was stolen. The seller never came back to answer the accusations.

The WSO is still up so I can only assume the mods haven't looked at it yet - hope it's not being let through on purpose.

I think part of your new processes and procedures needs to be a better/harder look at how banning happens and when unbanning happens. For example, someone that is thought to be a fraud should have more of a ban than a 2 week vacation, don't you think? In fact, why would they be allowed to return at all?

Of course they can always just change usernames but when it's the same username as before it kind of makes a fella wonder how it fell through the cracks.

It might also be a good check when approving WSOs to take a quick look at previous WSOs. That can be done fairly quickly by looking at the last couple pages of comments - not the first where there is ALWAYS praise and goodness.

Mark

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Unbelievable. About the same time I posted the above the WSO went off line - perhaps due to my report on the little red triangle.

However, now it's back? You did your research and found no guilt and everything is hunky dory?

If there is a non issue here then you need to discuss it in the original WSO where the accusations of stealing came out.

Without saying you did an investigation and then allowing this person to continue sends what message?

No matter how new a mod is, it doesn't take much to see the problem here. This isn't that hard: there are accusations of theft. Until they are resolved this user shouldn't be posting here. But I guess the admin has spoken so apparently I'm wrong in this.

Mark

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Russ,Amen.

Even if you have those rules in place, you need to have mods who are able to enforce them and trusted to make the decisions. That is not the impression I'm getting from various comments here.

Any system that allows for judgement calls, which a manual moderation approach always does, will be subject to slippery slope arguments. If the mods are consistent, there won't be many people who go over the edge accidentally.

There are some things that should simply be cliffs. Faked screenshots and income claims, failure to honor a posted refund policy, not delivering what was promised, selling or trading customer email lists... Those should all be cliff-dropping offenses, with no appeal.

If you unban people who were removed for those kinds of reasons, you are telling the world that the rules exist as a CYA "nod nod, wink wink" measure, and not to protect the members.

I hope that's not what's happening.


Paul

Mike,

I will repeat for your benefit: I have never had anything to do with paid ads here, other than acting on reports. I didn't make the policies, and I didn't approve the ads. I had exactly no control over that process other than to suggest policy changes, which were sometimes accepted and other times not.

No amount of repeating the same untruths will change those basic facts.


Paul

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Mike, I agree that a lot of what is being blamed on FL started before. For example, income claims have been a longstanding "feature" of the forum. No one denies that.

Let's be fair here to both sides.

Paul has told me, when I have been very critical in the past, that he has long been against income claims as well as any ads that violated the TOS of other sites. Both suggestions were overridden by previous management for their own reasons. In the WSO rules, Paul added the bit about spamming other sites in the WSO rules which would eliminate some of the TOS breakers.

Yes he decided to continue being a mod. You seem to think everyone is against FL but it seems some are against Paul. So what's the difference? Paul continued and now there are some that continue too. Let's don't vilify one and not the other. One big difference is that the current mods and admin get paid - as in money you can buy bread and milk with - while Paul was a volunteer and while he may have had some reputation or credibility "income" they are two very different things.

Also comparing years (before) and months (now) is irrelevant when FL knew what they were buying and bought it willingly. Some were members here before and they certainly during the long term of negotiations could see what was happening - good and bad. They decided they liked it enough to pay millions.

Also, most of the ones complaining now have complained loudly for years about the income claims and other things. Some of us have been extremely critical of Paul and previous mods and management many times. So if you are talking about the community in the sense of the frequent long term users, most are against the WSO shenanigans that have gone on in the past and present.

I think there is also something to be said for previously there was NO rule about income claims but now according to the new management there IS and they are cracking down. Look at the first few pages of the WSO section with those glasses on.

Previously it was "wrong" but there was nobody in charge (really in charge) against it so nothing happened obviously. Now it is "wrong" and is acknowledged as wrong by admin yet there is no action. Big difference.

Mark

It is true that the problems being discussed have been festering long before FL acquired the forums. However it does seem there's less of a handle on it then before and I think that adds to the ongoing frustration that people are expressing.

Mike,

I addressed a specific statement you made which was not true. Here's another: I was not the admin of this forum. Ever. I was the public face of the mod team, 4 of whom had, as far as I understand it, exactly the same access and authority I had.

And none of us were in charge. We were all quite clear that was Allen's purview.

I have critiqued some decisions by the new management, but I have never claimed all the problems are the result of their actions. I've been very specific in my critiques. I've also been rather consistently and publicly supportive of the new mods and many of the new policies.

There have always been problems here. They existed before I joined, and they've come and gone for the entire time since. Some significant trends started years ago, and will continue no matter what FL does. That doesn't mean they can't be adjusted for, but that takes awareness I'm not seeing at the moment.

The "English as a poor second language" problem has been creeping up on us for at least 2, and probably more like 3, years. There is a way to minimize that (we've done it before), but it's ugly and messy and unpleasant. Plus, it takes more mods than we had for a long time, and they have to be people who speak English as their primary language to even begin to do it right.

It also takes an active and engaged group of senior members. That's fast becoming a challenge for the kind of effort it would take to fix it.

As far as WSOs...

I pushed for, and for a while got, a rule forbidding offers that involved breaking the TOS of other sites. When that was removed, I got a similar (if differently worded) rule forbidding offers that involved spamming blogs, forums, and social sites. I harped on the need to abolish income claims and promises of specific results in ads here for years. That was one of the very first things I suggested to Alaister.

A lot of sellers hated me because I enforced the rules. A lot of buyers (and more than a few trolls) hated me because I deleted comments that violated the "you have to own the product to review it and you can't attack people and call it a review" rules.

You can make all the BS claims you like about deleting negative reviews, but I never removed even one that didn't violate those rules. And it's not hard to see the proof that we didn't just delete negative comments willy nilly, as there are many, many threads replete with bad reviews.

You keep talking about scams, but I only remember you ever reporting one. I left that up to someone with more SEO knowledge than I had, which I thought was appropriate. Beyond that, you're talking a lot now for someone who did nothing to help with it before.


Paul

Mike,

"Public face" means I was the one who talked about why decisions were made and explained policy. It also means I listened - a lot - to people who disagreed with those policies. There are people in this thread who can attest to that.

What "public face" does not mean is "Person who made policy."

I had a lot of influence and leeway in some areas, to be sure. In others, I went to Allen, every time. WSO policy was always up to him, as was anything else that involved sales here. I had nothing to do with the forum's finances, and left them out of my decisions entirely.

There were plenty of threads in main discussion talking about moderation in negative tones. Much more strongly than some of the current threads. And some of the people in this thread participated in them. As long as they were kept civil, they were allowed.

The fact that you didn't see them means nothing more than... you didn't see them.

And yes, I was VERY supportive of what the forum was accomplishing. A lot of people have built businesses over the years based on what they learned here and who they connected with here. Including some of the same people who are cheerfully bashing it now.

That doesn't mean I didn't see the flaws, or that I denied them. I also didn't use them as an excuse to deny the many good things going on here, or pretend there aren't good and bad sides to any community this big.

Yes, I focused on the good. I also spent a lot of my time weeding out as much of the bad as I could. You're arm-chair quarterbacking, which is pretty useless come Monday morning.

Oh... as far as staying away from the WSO section... Ask any of the folks who get my newsletter when I last promoted an offer there. Or consider that I haven't run one myself for a paid product in years.The WSO rules are pretty clear that reporting problems is encouraged. It was also acted on, when the problems could be substantiated.

And implications notwithstanding, I still had nothing to do with any paid offers being approved here. Your belief that I had any control over that section other than responding to reports is simply wrong.


Paul

What is bad, actually as bad as anything we are discussing, is that some of us are stuck in the past (pro and con) instead of talking about the current and future.

It doesn't really matter, at this point, what Paul did or didn't do before - he has no more say about things (from a "position" standpoint) than anyone in this thread NOW.

It doesn't really matter, at this point, what Allen did or didn't do before - he has no more say about things because he sold the place.

It doesn't really matter what someone's attitude was before but what it is now. This is a new setup, a new deal, a new family, a new company and a lot of the old stuff just doesn't matter anymore.

Stop living in the past and let's talk about the current and future. The forum is what it is today for whatever reason.

Those making suggestions that old mods were bad in somehow allowing the scamming or wronging of people in the old forum and for continuing to participate in a forum full of scammers are still here themselves.

Those bashing FL that didn't bash the old WF are just as wrong especially when most of the problems are the same. I for one, was pro WF before - warts and all - and am pro WF run by FL - warts and all but in both cases I criticized, complained, and suggested and still do that the needed changes be made to protect and build something I value.

Those sticking up for new management while deriding old management - again when the problems are the same for the most part are wrong. If X was wrong before then X is still wrong. If Allen and them didn't stop X before they were wrong. If FL doesn't stop X now they are wrong. Period.

For example, how long exactly would it take to cut out any income claims if that was deemed to be a problem for Allen? About 30 seconds - long enough to write an email to Paul and other mods and say from today on this will stop. But he didn't. How long would it take now? About the same 30 seconds. But they aren't. Yes there are other decisions and things to consider in play but it's the same 30 seconds. The fact that Allen didn't pull the plug for 15 years doesn't give FL a free ride just because it's been merely months. 30 seconds is 30 seconds. Again, you have to look at WHY they WERE and ARE allowed to see why it is or isn't happening.

It's like the $20 WSO listing fee and lifting of the requirement that someone had to be a WR member. How long did that take to implement? That was extremely fast work on FL's part which proves that they can do things quickly when they want to. Why did Allen NOT do that over the years and instead increased the fees? Again a difference in the "why."

What I'm trying to say is the divorce (for lack of a better word) is final. We need to focus on the new marriage, building it up, preserving it, keeping our spouse happy, doing what we can to make this one last and be better than the last one. Forever talking about the first marriage (the good and bad) really doesn't help much in the current marriage because the new spouse has their own personality, baggage, beliefs, etc.

For this reason I started a new thread Has Freelancer Done ANYTHING Good... that you can post how YOU would change things. (I swear that I posted it in the OT section but somehow it is now in the Suggestion section - maybe I clicked the wrong thing.)

Give it a shot. For the sake of the CURRENT situation. Yes learn and grow from the PAST but focus on the future.

Mark

I think the problem is that everyday there are going to be new people to the forum that have never made money online & don't realize that they should spend an hour searching previous posts to see if anyone else has asked it before (usually have). I was in the same boat when I 1st joined & still continue to learn something new everyday just from reading posts that have been made on here. Would be kind of cool if you were redirected to a previous post if it has already been made in the last 90 days though

It's funny. I was thinking exactly of college courses I've taken and note that none of them ever conveyed either a written or spoken income claim when reading over the course catalog from the college about the courses. People expect and hope to get a better job if they are well educated, and I've heard some claim about job placement after college, but many of them actually have job placement services at the college to assist their graduates in finding jobs.

Suzanne,

Daniel was referring to one very specific thing. The number of visitors shown on the front page is equal to (if memory serves) the number of people who have landed on the site in the last X time period, minus the registered members who actively logged out.

At one point I believe that X was 4 hours. If X were cut to 2 hours, as an example, the average number appearing on the front page could be cut by a large chunk, with no decrease in actual traffic.

This sort of thing is also why I don't pay much attention to Alexa rank. If enough sites are growing, you could be growing more slowly and still lose ranking. Or, if the field in which the site in question sits is tight enough, a little growth by some and a small drop in traffic for the site you're tracking could mean a decrease of hundreds in ranking.

Or, if the ratio of people who visit with the Alexa toolbar installed changes, the rank will change without any significant correlation to actual visitor trends.

Numbers have contexts, which can change.


Paul

Suzanne,And that's all Daniel said.

And yes, they might well have reasons for reducing the timeouts. For one, it could prevent or reduce significant misinterpretation by banner advertisers about how often their ads were being displayed relative to overall visitor numbers.

I have no idea if that setting has been changed, but it's one of the things I think of when I mention that there are variables we don't know enough about to speak on with confidence.


Paul

I've been thinking about a recurring complaint which I know is only one of many but is still significant. That is blaming new users for asking questions or for how they are asking questions.

If the demographics have changed, wouldn't it make sense that the previous "how can I make $50 a day" threads have changed to "how can I make $5 a day" or at least be lower amounts?

Also, a new user doesn't know what to ask. They get here, in one way or another, wanting to fulfill their dream of providing for their family, getting out of debt, etc.

To some people $5 a day IS a big deal when living conditions and exchange rates are taken into account.

About the $1 a day thing - I've seen in many posts the exact advice or the idea to earn a dollar first before you try to earn 20. So why is that wrong now when someone asks? If I can't earn $1 then I can't earn $20 but if I can earn $1 then my potential may be unlimited. Again, why is that wrong?

I get irritated too but in many cases I think we are too hard on newcomers. Yes they should use the search button. Yes they should find their own way. Yes they should have some semblance of a clue. But everybody has to start somewhere. Are we saying that that place to start isn't here?

Mark

The forum may have some minor problems, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It is the best internet marketing site in the world and has been very fortunate to have such experienced marketers like yourselves promoting it and enhancing it for so many years.

Just read the new WSO rules. #(s) 17-20 are very significant and I hope they are enforced.

I also like Rule #22: Offers on First Page
Sellers may only have 3 threads on the first page of any given section. All offers must be unique.
if it also applies to the subsection that I advertise in Other Website Products & Services

Daniel/Freelancer admin: can you clarify whether or not Rule #22 also applies to Other Website Products & Services

I am just tossing this question out there to play devil's advocate - but if things are so bad on here, then why do people continue to use it? There are other alternatives out there or do you view this as the case of pick your battles?

@discrat - To add to your point, I think if the value is still there then it is a worthwhile time investment, even if you have to wade through some of the nonsense in order to get the information you are looking for. I mean there are plenty of diamonds in the rough that are still worth their weight in gold .

Sometimes its just that one post or idea you can pick up that shifts your business in a new direction or adds a new source of revenue.

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So that session timeout thing. What they do ... change it to 10 hrs or something?

This afternoon, there were no numbers on the front page and it said 1 member viewing and 0 guests. Now it says 202353 (1958 members and 200395 guests) .... Right

Main Internet Marketing Discussion Forum (14158 Viewing)
Warrior Special Offers (18370 Viewing)
Freemarket.com Discussion (51 Viewing)
The War Room (71 Viewing)
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Social Media (879 Viewing)
Conversion Rate Optimization (55 Viewing)
Offline Marketing (3251 Viewing)
Mobile Marketing (505 Viewing)
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eCommerce Sites, Wholesaling & Drop Shipping (576 Viewing)
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Internet Marketing Product Reviews & Ratings (2825 Viewing)
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Test Forum (0 Viewing)
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Off Topic Forum (3778 Viewing)
Suggestion Forum (70 Viewing)
Local Meetups, Mastermind Groups and Warrior Events (213 Viewing
Warrior Forum News (561 Viewing)

I'd like to welcome all 3778 to the Off Topic forum. lol.

It's possible the problems this morning were the result of a DDoS, which would explain the disruption and the huge number of non-logged in visitors. That's happened before. It was a fairly common cause of the loss of syncing of the indexes, as I understand it.


Paul

Whatever caused it, the syncing stopped at just before 10 AM eastern, and went on until around 4 PM.

DoS attacks were more common than we talked about, for obvious reasons. No sense giving the idiots ideas.


Paul

Come to think of it, it's also possible those numbers just showed everyone who'd loaded a page (or even all page loads) for the roughly 6 hours the thing was borked. Might not be anything more sinister than that.


Paul

Thanks Paul & Suzanne. We are investigating this as we speak, along with some issues that other members have mentioned in other threads.

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