BST Section Behaving Weird

I donot know anything about vbulletin tables, but a way to implement relevancy would be to break down the post into two sections

1. Title
2. Post content

Next we can assign a certain amount of relevancy weight to each section, say an integer amount. For example

1. Title : 5 points relevancy to each occurrence, capped at maximum frequency of 2. Which means if somebody tries to game it by stuffing the title with keywords, it will not help.

2. Content: 2 points relevancy to each occurrence, capped at maximum frequency of 4.

A variation to provide weight to root word variants or related terms can also be implemented, but will significantly tax the server.

Points from other post characteristics such as number of replies to the thread, itrader of the original poster can also be taken into account.

A sample sql query might look like this

select post_title, post_content sum(points) from (select post_title, post_content, 5 as points from post_table where post_title like '%<keyword>%' limit 2 union select post_title, post_content, 2 as points from post_table where post_content like '%<keyword>%' limit 4) search_set group by post_title, post_content order by points desc;


This is what came from the top of my head, but it can be refined upon.

 

I agree, this kind of queries will grind the hard disk heads to powder. Not worth it.

 

You are starting to think? I am convinced with the idea to take the entire BST section down.

My primary reason to come to DP is to participate in some kind of knowledgeable and healthy discussions. If BST section is compromising this value of DP, then IMHO BSL should be taken down. Or lets start charging... my 2c

 

Perhaps theres a better way to implement a BST section within the whole site, ie: stay away from forum threads, something that could be bot/ deny .htaccess . Some kind of auction system pruned weekly, after all most sales/trades are completed within 2 days. A donation button, or a set fee (deposit system) to make a for sale thread would not go un-missed, and or could help fund a customer script at a later date.

 

I am one of the sellers that has been greatly affected by this change. Now my BST threads go to page 2 within 24hrs of being posted. My sites are selling for half as much as they used to. I understand the need to control spam and bumping but there must be another solution. I see some pretty good ideas on this thread already. I think it should be that the op's replies do not bump his own thread but everyone else's do. Or you could charge a $5 fee that enables thread bumping for that thread. Or you could make a separate auction section that is not forum based. I know you can change the sort order in settings but the problem is most people dont know that because it's only mentioned in these threads that talk about it. If everyone changed the sort order it wouldnt be a problem but 95% including me will not.

 

Please charge us for selling. Charging users to open threads in the BST section will reduce the spams by more than 90%. Think about that......

My $ 0.02

 

If 3% of people die from car accidents, should driving be banned?

That is quite the same case here. I like the fact that Spammers and thread bumpers will get slapped by this new rule, but actually honest service providers are slapped in the face even harder.

I can see most honest Service Providers' threads located on the 60th-500th page. I bet these threads would not even get 10 views a day.

Any of these solutions would definitely be much better in my opinion:

1) Adding an antibump vbulletein module
2) Hiring more moderators in the BST section
3) A monthly/annual fee for posting in the BST
4) Threads expire in a month

 

Please tell me you are going to make it a paid forum and allow paid bumps

 

How will paid bumps help?

 

Ok, i will wait for vb v4 then

 

In theory this sounds great.

But in practice all the adjustments made to the BST section have seemed to make it a melting pot of fly-by-night scammers, which really isn't good for anyone.

As it is now, it's impossible for reputable sellers to establish an honest reputation for what their offering. Of course iTraders does half of it, but what people really want to know when someone posts a thread is "Is this offer a good deal?"

But for the most part what we have is a slew of new sellers with little feedback. It definitely isn't a sellers market, but it's not a buyers market either. Nobody is buying anything from these people. There used to be a lot of healthy competition which drove the prices down. Now I don't see many sellers with feedback over 30.

If DP wanted to foster a healthy marketplace I'm not entirely sure this was the best approach.

However, if DP wanted to lighten the moderator load and not have to worry about what goes on there all the time, then great this is the best way to go about it.

My thoughts exactly.

This was the exact problem I ran across last night. I spent an hour trolling through the BST looking for at least a handful of good link building offers for a few sites I have but I couldn't find ANYONE I would feel comfortable trusting a $100 order with.

This process for me used to take just 10 minutes. The good deals were prominently displayed (as they should).

 

I don't know why noobs keep on saying this: (The Myths)

Myth 1: Users from certain countries serve NO purpose
Users from countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Africa serve no purpose here on DP just because they do not click on Adsense ads & that the average adsense click for them is too low as compared to the US, UK, EU users. It is a big nooby thought. Do you think any serious business can survive without outsourcing? The answer is a big NO. No, it can't. And Indians, Pakistanis and Asians in particular form a big part of the workforce that provides cheap outsourcing services only to make the US, UK, Australian, EU guys richer so that they can have more money to spend & thus a bigger adsense click is justified for them. I don't know why the guys who probably havn't ever made more than $500 in affiliate marketing say these things. These guys are just for FUN or doing certain tasks that are in no way related to affiliate marketing/running reputable websites.

Myth 2: BST Section should be removed
I have seen some guys saying that the BST section should be removed. Come on noob, what do you think this place is? Well, it is a webmaster forum. And do you think a webmaster can make money without buying or selling anything? If you do, then I think you are wasting your precious time here. I do not find any reason why you should stay here & keep making such posts. You seem more like an "alien" to internet marketing.

No one is perfect. We do need various types of services like design, programming, seo, writing, etc. That is why the forum owners have continued the BST forum here. If you think you have all these skills, you are not a human being. You are "something else" OR you are a "jack of all trades", worth nothing. You can't hope tgood money doing everything yourself. You HAVE TO specialise in something and keep on doing only that. Rest all, you can outsource & DP is a good place for that. You don't have to go to elance or guru for those little jobs that you can easily get done here.

And yes, If you still think that there is no reason why BST should exist and that BST serves no purpose, I would say "There is no reason for DP to exist and that DP serves no purpose". Please don't think of me as being rude, I love this forum & have never tried to go against the rules. Still, i see oversmart noobs(with high post counts) making false assumptions and baseless arguments that really make me pull my hair.

Again, I have more to say but I don't think I will. Better to post at jacky8forum where I can be sure that no one is going to "infract" me or ban me even for useful / justified actions.

Thanks for reading,
jacky8

 

Actually one of the people who suggested taking down the BST section is Shawn aka digitalpoint, who obviously isn't a noob.

There is no reason why a webmaster forum needs a BST section. The forum is great to discuss making websites and doing business on the web, but as webmasters don't we all have our own web sites where the real money making is done? Having a sale section for forum members is a bonus and a privilege that can be taken away, not a business model. And, as Shawn has pointed out, only a small fraction of DP users are doing business in BST anyway.

Read these posts:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=12210652&postcount=56
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=12210986&postcount=58
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=12211521&postcount=62
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=12211726&postcount=65

 

Yes the hundreds of premium members would surely love to continue/renew their subscription if BST is closed....

 

@Nonny: If you had taken the time to read the posts you mentioned above, you could clearly see that Shawn did not ever talk about any plans to close down the BST forums.

Collaborations, outsourcing & sharing talents are the things why people are here regardless of whether they give out itraders or not.

Consider this:
Many major sections outside the BST are also about buying/selling. An example is the Affiliate programs section. All people there are talking about their products/services on major affiliate networks. So that is actually about buying & selling online. Nonny, I think you would recommend closing down that section too!

There is NO forum section (except the general chat & other sections under the last column titled "The Digitalpoint") that does not have an element of buying/selling/trading either directly or indirectly. As funkymario said here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=12211086&postcount=59, the same members that are there at the BST now, will be seen posting elsewhere in another couple of minutes.

If you still think that users from India, phillipines, pak, indonesia, russia aren't useful to this forum, You are WRONG.

Not only DP, consider the real freelance marketplaces like Guru, Elance, Getafreelancer, etc. People from these countries have a big gathering at these places & are there to work for cheap and help all others make money in some way. Come on, face the truth.

 

Actually I'm pretty sure Shawn has mentioned - maybe jokingly - shutting down BST. But I've definitely seen other members who are definitely not noobs bring it up.

But discussing the ins and outs of buying/selling doesn't mean that there has to be buying and selling too. I would never suggest shutting that part of the forum down, since that's a part of being a webmaster. Actually I wasn't actually suggesting that BST be shut down at all, I was just responding to your rant about it only being noobs who thought that was a good idea.

I do think that the BST section attracts people to the forum who see it as primarily a classifieds platform rather than a place to discuss webmaster-related topics, and I personally think that attitude should be discouraged. I think BST is a bonus for being a DP member, but it shouldn't be the primary reason for having an account here.

So you believe the argument that all those BST users are just spammers in waiting, so better to have a place for them to sell?

I never said that. I think it's great to have discussions with people from all over the world. But what does that has nothing to do with whether there is a BST forum or not.

 

Honestly, you are trying to say about something about which you don't know enough. Your are trying to dwell into a topic that interests you but you haven't yet dipped your feet into it.
I would say that you don't really seem to have a website dealing with online marketing/recommending products/affiliate promotions.

There is a huge difference between classifieds and the DP marketplace if you know what i am saying. There is a reputation system and a system to see the previous activity of sellers & buyers. It is much more advanced & different than the classifieds sites.

When did i say that? There is no point of myself making long posts if i ever said that. Don't mind but this again shows that you have no idea of what you are talking about.

You can't really control how people think about something. People may want different things for different reasons.

Like I may like a girl just for how good she is, no matter whether she looks good or not, whether she has a good figure & big b***s or not
Others may like a girl just for spending a night with her & dump her the very next day.

The same is true for why people come to DP. You know, there can be lots of possibilities. You can't really control why people come here. There can be different reasons. Hope its clear enough?

People may come to offer their expert services, their talents to other members in return for money & they may hire others for tasks they have no knowledge about. Then they may also hop on to other sub-forums for discussion purposes.
Some people may just come here for discussions & get to use the BST part as a bonus.
Some members may carry on buying/selling/promotions in their own "unique ways" at sub-forums other than BST (for example in copywriting & affiliate programs sub forums) Yes, it is TRUE.

It depends. You can't control how people think, what they like & so on...

 

You are right, the website in my sig is not like that. But what does that matter? All I'm saying is that DP is primarily a place for discussing webmaster-related topics, including, but not limited to, marketing, affiliate programs, web design, forum management, etc. None of those discussions require people selling stuff to other forum members.

I know that, and you know that, but I've gotten the impression that some people who sign up here and quickly make 25 crappy posts to be able to post in BST don't know that.

I misinterpreted your comment here:

to mean that those people would head over to other parts of the forum to sell their stuff. Sorry I misread that (I'd just reported a bunch of sales posts in other parts of the forum from under-25-post members).

But that actually supports my main point: BST is a supplement to the rest of the forum, not the primary part of it. If it were gone, the discussions in the rest of the forum would still go on.

I totally agree with that. Of course people come here for different reasons and with different interestes. But as Shawn has pointed out only about 10% of active DP members are active in BST. If it were gone, most members here wouldn't be affected by it.

As you pointed out, there are already sites on the web for freelancer services, just as there are classified ad sites, many sites selling ebooks and affiliate products, domain flipping sites, content-selling sites, etc. etc. If BST were gone, all those other sites would remain for buyers and sellers.

I'm not arguing that BST should be removed, just to be clear. I'm just saying that the people who use it shouldn't take it for granted.