Is It Me? Or Is It That Warrior Forum Has Changed?

It may have slowed down just a bit, but you can still find a wealth of information on this forum and a great community of people.

I feel all the questions are answered provided they have not been answered previously

but yes few questions are repeated and have already been answered way too many times

Chyanit

Its not you. Its warriorforum. Things are changing but WF is still a great forum.

The quality of "questions" has changed a great deal.

I just use it for amusement and out of habit, I think.

i am not a newbie but certainly appreciate answers from WF

maybe a system like yahoo answer can be implemented here to encourage question and answer session

tq

The forum got bought out and immediately the new owners somehow started attracting traffic from third world countries. The forum went way downhill when this happened.

It's the forum changed. It changes you too.

WF has changed. From 5.45 million visitors in October '15 to 3.5 million in March '16. I think Brent and salegurus highlight a dominant factor, the quality of questions, but I think a drop of almost 2 million visitors in only a handful of months is likely due to a great many other factors. This is almost a 36% decline in traffic, and were it my forum, this would be cause for concern. Having briefly scanned through the Suggestion Forum, I see no sign of WF decision-makers, whom you would expect to be taking strong measures to harness local knowledge for the betterment of their forum. I'm in no way "dissing" WF, or its owners, but traffic is clearly down and, as is evidenced from this thread alone, some members seem disenchanted. I do like WF, and this is the reason I devote part of my Sunday to bringing up these points; I work hard and have little time to spare. What you need, I think, is immediate and ongoing communication between WF decision-makers (not moderators) and the members of WF. Open, productive communication. Were this my forum, that would be my first step. You have a wealth of knowledge and intelligence to draw upon, and that includes the newbies, that can be tapped to improve WF. Discover the problems. Digest the good ideas. Improve WF. I'm no stranger to IM forums. I say WF is worth helping. But the owners must encourage and accept that help.

- Tom

I suppose change is inevitable really but has anyone else noticed how the amount of spam has increased?

Logged in this morning to see some very strange religious type posts, couldn't make out a word!

In fact I've seen some very peculiar threads on here all last week, keep reporting them as I suppose many other Warriors do but they keep appearing.

Might be an argument here for restricting new member posts so they need admin approval for the first 1?

Standing by for incoming...

Jon

I've met plenty of good people on the Warrior forum and often discuss ideas and other things elsewhere via Skype or different forums etc just because there is an increasing clutter of in many cases meaningless comments as if someone just wants to get a post count.

If you dug deeper you would find the people who offer helpful advice or start meaningful posts have a far higher word count per post than those who put no effort into asking a question or replying.

The most disappointing part of visiting the forum is the loss of great contributors over the years. the people who really made a difference.

Many are still here but they probably are cringing at the level of some of the discussions and just decide to not participate.

Take the copywriting sub forum for example.

In the past you had many top copywriters discussing and sharing ideas.

In many of the sub-forums the individuals who formed the "tree of knowledge" that supported the forum have gradually moved away.

Is it the mods fault?

Hopefully the transitions the forum is undergoing is cyclical and some of the solid contributors of the past will return and new intellectuals who are practicing what they preach will emerge.

It is a bit like some of the fire events that have decimated many forests.

In the past there was some re-growth and the old growth recovered.

Now it seems as if the old growth has been wiped out along with the genetics to reproduce it and it has been replaced with weeds that are taking hold and multiplying.

Best regards,

Ozi

For the longest time, WF seemed an unhappy place to me so I avoided it.

Then, it seemed unhappier LOL....so I skipped it. You've a few genuine, loving folks here. But beyond them, many exchanges become impersonal, and sometimes downright rude.

Still a goldmine of information here but while digging, put on your poop kickers

Ryan

I've noticed a few questions that got NO answers recently. Without fail, three years ago those questions would have been deleted in minutes as "spam".

I'll point out the obvious - you are part of the problem. If you don't like how others are answering questions here....hang around and do some answering yourself!

As Tom pointed out - and as I pointed out recently - traffic here is 1/3 what it was...often "active member" numbers are 25% what they were 2 years ago.

The focus and purpose of the forum has changed. That change is most visible to those who don't visit often and totally invisible to those who joined recently.

IMO, the people who own the forum and the people who are members of the forum have very different priorities.

The people that own the forum are here to make money for their company.

The people that are members are here to make money for themselves and not Freelancer.

Freelancer has other properties and interests besides the Warrior Forum and I personally believe they bought the forum as a way to feed their other interests, own a high traffic/ranking web property, and do direct advertising to their new "instant" subscriber database of WF members.

While they state that this forum is ". . . dedicated to providing an online community and a place to meet, discuss and ask about questions, topics and trends related to internet marketing. . ." that goal is simply not supported except as a lower priority to their profit motive.

As evidence of this assertion,

• Look at how many of the member suggestions for a better forum have ever been implemented
• Look at how the incessant spam continues throughout the various sections of the forum
• Look at the changes here since ownership change, which are vastly cosmetic but not addressing the core problems
• Look at how the mods are chosen - no experience with the forum, no experience in online business, for the most part
• Look at the first page of the Main Forum. Count the number of threads offered by those with less than a year experience on the forum vs. those with a year or more - the numbers may surprise you. (Nothing wrong with being a newbie, it's just that the majority of the threads here are started by those without experience and the overriding theme is "help me"). There is much more to marketing than always talking about "getting started."
• Look at the subject line of most of the threads - they are simply not conducive to marketing discussions that will help most people

• People wanting help with their own specific "support" issues
• People having no clue where to begin
• People asking questions which are thinly veiled attempts to promote their own sites or business
• People who are failing and wondering why

• Look at the threads and the number of times the same thing gets asked over and over again. I have suggested before on several occasions that a database of solid answers to repetitive questions be established - something better than a search function of old threads - but no attempt has ever been made to organize the best information here. It would cut down on repetitive threads by a huge margin. Is it any wonder that long-time members sometimes seem to have little patience for new threads that are really the same old questions that get asked many times every month?

Yes, this forum has changed. Yes, the owners have purchased it and have every right to run it as they see fit. What I see here is the profit motive driving what is happening to the Warrior Forum and the forum members not having the same priorities. You can either endure the lingering problems or leave (which sadly, many of the best contributing members have done).

Just my opinion, of course.

Steve

There has been a change, for sure, and it undeniably became noticeable with the ownership change. But, I would argue that the traffic drop off is a bit more involved than that, and invovles other factors. Consider the Gartner Hype Cycle for digital technologies (like all of this IM stuff):

Attachment 23975

Perhaps ownership change coincided with (or took place during) IM heading towards a Big Assed Trough of Disillusionment period? Ya know, after Google Animal Slaps and Shoemoney AdSense checks going bye-bye, article directory Slaps - (say goodbye to a lot of WF posts, cause writers like to write - definitely more 'freelance' writers here four years ago, and I have seen some flat-out WRONG info spouted, over and over, by these experts with xx,xxx posts), FTC and WSO policy changes, Windows Closing (this is a BIG one - windows like AdWords telling affiliates to F Off in 2010, etc.).

Here's the deal - the Easy Money got scooped up. Now, you need to either invest money or a LOT of time. Oh yea, you also need to be more THOUGHTFUL about it all, and there is more competition, and that competition has gotten RICHER, and you need to be BETTER at it all.

And people are figuring this out and walking away from it, unlike four plus years ago.

Point being, forum sale or not, I have been seeing the HYPE die for a few years, and think that is an element involved in regards to 'what happened to the WF since Freelancer took over and all of the Indians showed up'. Most of you just can't see the forest for the trees on the issue. And yea, the WHOLE thing is BRAND NEW to a lot of them, INCLUDING the internet, forum etiquette, etc. And a lot of them are working with some OLD information, eh? Information that was plastered all over the net, years ago, by all of those WF 'experts' that have abandoned the place. Lol.

As far as the spam threads in foreign alphabets, well those have been here as long as I have. Buying a forum is a risky proposition. I personally watched a very established and active forum (since the late 90's) die a few years ago with ownership change. And it wasn't a slow death - thousands of active users gone within a month or two, and the forum completely DEAD.

The funny thing is, if all of these 'missed' experts really knew what they were doing (weren't full of Hype and BS, and selling hype and BS in WSOs and sigs)), there should have been plenty of you WHINERS who have been here for years and years that should have made enough money to buy this place yourself, and keep it 'True and Right'.

Lol. But, none of you complainers did, because all of these people that are now 'missed' were active participants of that Hype Cycle, and now we are headed for rock bottom, and were BEFORE OWNERSHIP CHANGE - Freelancer didn't sink the ship. They bought a ship that was starting to sink. A point many of you are oblivious to in this whole conversation ...

I think it has changed and I was thinking that the reason is because there are so many categories now which might seem overwhelming to some. Having said that, I had two issues recently that I did TONS of research online trying to find the solution and couldn't. Finally I turned to this forum and two very kind people went out of their way to give me the solutions. :-)

It's true that warrior forum used to be better moderated. Today there are some threads that shouldn't live 10 minutes let alone be here to stay, but other than that this forum is still a great resource for anyone who wants to earn money by using Internet. The problem is that there is so much advice here and its' very hard to tell the truth from a lie. It's not easy to recognize the right answers here. I'd say 80% of answers here are bad advice but 20% is really helpful. Of course, we can discuss about the percentages...

I remember reading somewhere that the number of people starting their own businesses has exploded in recent years. That, plus the feeling that you 'should' contribute is maybe leading to lower quality as people force themselves to share ideas, even if they're not fully formed...?

I might be guilty of this (this is my first post!): I've been a lurker for a while, but recently started to feel that I should start to contribute a bit given the knowledge I've gained from this forum - but I read threads and think "how can I add to this discussion, everyone has already said everything?". Although this thread is the exception - wow, so meta.

Because there are really questions that aren't real questions at all.
A lot of people here especially newbies looking for help when they can just google it instead.

in my opinion WF is a good place for tons of things

I believe many of Warriors have been waiting for this change. Everyone likes something new, so the update of WF was totally great idea, I think

Not a lot has changed as people are still starting Threads to talk about whether other people have seen these changes. That's been going on for years so nothing has changed about that

I doubt the traffic drop to the main forum is actually down that much at all. Changes to wso rules changed and that changed how much traffic is being pushed to wso sales pages. Traffic to the wso sales pages counted as wf traffic and that is way off.

That being said, the people in the main forum have changed a lot over the years. And as always, with the new owners came a pretty significant change among active fourum members deciding that was as good a time as any to pull back from the forum.

The forum is representative of the bigger how to make money online market. The barrier to entry is basically zero now a days and that means any one can start an IM business. It's not surprising then that the questions are not as in depth and well thought out as they were a few years (or decades ago) as some of us remember back when you had to invest more time, money, energy, and effort just to get started.

Didn't the War Room used to cost $40? Now it's $97 per year. Have they added any value to justify the price increase?

we cannot put squeeze page directly here in siggy ? ermm

Yes, it is. You can see it on wayback machine.

You may be surprised if you look up similar days (tuesday in april) for one and two years ago and compare. Big changes and not only in the paid ad sections.

The traffic comparison timeline figures may be interesting, as is speculating whether this is a unidirectional trend (= dive) or just a cycle. But what puzzles me is the figures at the bottom of the homepage saying that only a small proportion of users are members and the majority are "guests". So folk are here looking, but they don't join? They don't post? What are they looking for then, and why is there such a big resistance for these folk towards becoming members? (I must be missing something here) It's no big deal, just puzzles me, is all :-)

A few days ago, in reply to an email from WF, I made some of the exact same suggestions that are listed in this thread.

1. How about engaging the guests with (A, B, C)
2. How about installing a knowledge base of questions answered by legitimate old-timers, offering them site exposure in return?
3. A free monthly seminar would be nice, presented by a panel or experienced IM'ers, maybe ones with a WSO, in return for exposure and recognition.

Like that.

Yes, the forum has changed from the good ol' Allen Says wild west days when discussions were snap, crackle, pop, with everyone trying to post over one another, sharing ideas and problems and whatever. It was a lot more fun back then, when we all had to do everything ourselves, learning the hard way.

Newbies? Well of course the forum is full of newbies. If the forum only had us old folks, it would be heading for the retirement home and IM'ers would have all shifted to Facebook, needlework, and grandkids.

More and more people are joining the Internet every day. The "too much work crowd" has always been there, it's just that there are more of 'em now. Same with the grumps who only post to put people down or those write who posts that say absolutely nothing and contribute nothing.

IMO, the forum simply isn't engaging or challenging anymore. You don't have to be on your toes or quick-witted, and there are no rapid fire discussions about anything. It's become post - move on; post - move on. Plod, plod, plod.

We are the only ones who can change that, you know.

- Annie

In my time here (not as long as some other folks) the forum has felt more or less the same. I like it

i miss those days you know .... john reese ...corey rudl ...affiliate project X ... hehe ..to name a few

The Warrior Forum is still great to me. Honestly, sometimes i learn a thing or two from a brand new member who's been all over the internet looking for riches. In the process i might stumble upon a resource they mention, and it may help to automate my business.

As I recall Freelancer basically sacked the great moderators who gave their time and experience to the old forum for FREE. People like Paul Myers and Pearson Brown are sadly missed.

So true....and Thomas on the help desk is missed, too.

I spend most of my time in The War Room now. It seems like the main forum is loaded with people who put up threads and then expect experienced marketers to take them by the hand and lay out an entire business plan for them (which they probably would not follow anyway).

Also, it seems like every time I log in I constantly see all of the same questions asked over and over again. If people would use the search function, they would probably be able to find tons of answers to their questions. Instead it must be easier to start a new thread, either that they read some outdated ebook that preaches forum posting just to get traffic to their sigs.

I still believe this is a great forum, and I'm not dissing it. It just seems that it has pretty much become newbie central. If you are an experienced marketer with any kind of experience under your belt, you won't learn too much new unless you belong to The War Room. There are still lots of experienced and successful marketers sharing some great stuff in there.

One thing that will remain a constant from when freelancer took over, and that is.

Threads like this will not be read by, paid attention to, responded to, or in any way cared about by freelancer. Just like all the great, and simple, ideas put forth in the suggestion forum.

al

Well in my opinion: It's because not everyone on these forums who, isn't a newbie, wants to answer questions all day long. I think most of the people here, who have been around awhile, have already answered the questions that most "newbies" have asked.

The Warrior Forum, while it still has many of the same things that it used to have, has fundamentally changed. At the core of the forum was it's founder, Allen Says, who had his share of fanatical followers as well as his detractors, but at the end of the day he had created a very large internet marketing community that had segmented into a lot of little groups.

And the very soul of the forum was and is the members who participate in this forum, and that "core" group of people have, for the most part, moved on (for a wide variety of reasons). There are lots of reasons why the forum has changed and big one is the new ownership. At least with Allen Says and the moderators like Paul Myers and Thomas behind the help desk (and way too many others behind the scenes to mention adequately here) I always felt like they were looking out for the community, even though they sometimes received a lot of negative feedback for doing so.

With the new owners, I don't get that sense at all. It's a publicly traded corporation now and the bottom line, numbers, and profitability matter. Not that it never mattered to Allen Says, it did, but Allen tried his best to make the forum about the members, not just about the bottomline. The way Freelancer treated the existing moderators was beyond disrespectful and that only signaled the beginning of what's slowly becoming the decline of this forum.

It's a decline that goes beyond the numbers, though those are declining too. There was a time when Marlon Sanders, Mike Filsaime, Jonathan Mizel, John Reese, and many other marketers used to come here and give some great advice on how to get traffic or how to brand or how to build a funnel. But as often happens when a community gets really big, the haters would show up and gang up on them and it became almost pointless for them to invest their energies in posting here. Some would argue that the decline of the forum started when the forum simply just got too big. It's a sound argument, one that I'm not sure I really have an opinion on at this point.

But having been a member here for a long time I've seen a lot of changes and the one I'm seeing transpiring before my very eyes is the biggest one yet. Change is inevitable and I'm not sure if this current change is a good one. Speaking only for myself, I used to come back to the Warrior Forum because of the founder, Allen Says, the core group of people that I met here (most of them have moved on) and the business networking contacts and friends that I made here, and since most of them are now gone, I have found myself spending a lot less time here. Many of those friendships have moved on to Skype or private Facebook groups where we talk privately among ourselves.

There are still a lot of newbies that come to this forum, looking for help, and it's good to see there are still some good members sticking around aiming to help them. That is good to see. I still drop by from time-to-time to impart some hard-earned wisdom.

I've helped my share of marketers start and run their own successful forums and looking at the current state of this forum is making me wonder what ever happened to the proactive moderating? What happened to the admin who used to interact with community here almost on a daily basis? Did they disappear? At least at the outset, it appeared that the new owners really wanted to make this community stronger. The CEO met with a few of the community members, the main Admin would participate in threads and would encourage people to make suggestions.

I don't see any of that happening anymore. What has changed?

This place has certainly changed and after watching on the sidelines for the past couple of years, I don't think it's for the better. I don't for one minute think Freelancer has this community's best interests at heart and nothing they've done in the past 6 months convinces me otherwise.

RoD

For your viewing pleasure, the frustration mounts

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ey-online.html

al

I want to follow up on something I said. I take Alexa with a grain of salt, as I don't participate, and I am all over the Web, everyday. But it obviously has some validity and accuracy. These are graphs for global ranking of two sites: here, and Digital Point. Two sites with the same type of content, and the same types of visitors:

Attachment 23988

Attachment 23989

Did Freelancer buy and 'screw up' Digital Point, too? Because the same drop seems to be happening to them, too I am not saying the ownership change doesn't have some direct relation to traffic drop off (and a spike in ESL folks), but there is obviously MORE to the story, obviously, so quit cryin' and blaming Freelancer because you can't make as much money peddling crap in yer sig, WSO changes, etc.

Who knows Freelancer's real intent. Maybe they saw this drop off in 'interest' too, including on their freelance sites, and were merely consolidating associated stuff, like the WF, to counteract the drop off in interest and resulting financial implications.

A drop off that is DIRECTLY related to people figuring out that most of the MMO garbage is precisely that, and the actual 'easy' money that did exist was pretty much done being scooped up 3-4 years ago ...

If you compare Chris Fox's graphs with the one below, the drop-off starts to make sense. When things are going well, fewer people are looking for extra money. When things are bad, people look for extra cash. The unemployment chart for the US below is almost the complete inverse of IM traffic to those two sites Chris mentioned:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Statistics.svg

Would explain the overall change in the demographics/locations of the site visitors as well.

There forum has changed a lot, there is more spam and more "noise" in general.

The forum is a shell of it's former self. There was a time when thousands of people would be in the WSO browsing, literally when I first joined I remember this one guy from England who was selling rehashed PLR ebooks for 7 bucks and sell 100 of them in like 20 minutes..LOL.. Those days are gone.

Aside from the fact that the new owners pushed many members away, this forum was slowly going downhill before the ownership change, I think the change just accelerated it. Alot of marketers won't even come back here just because of the trolls and haters, bashing etc..

One big thing nobody has mentioned is I'm sure Facebook groups have absorbed some of the traffic this forum used to get. No doubt about that...

this is the same, lots of people come in and say IM is crap and doesnt work.

Then you try to post something informative and get your nuts chopped off.

LOL.

So no....nothing has changed around here. LOL