New Webmaster Forum: Everyone is NOT welcome to post :)

There's a new forum for professional webmasters in my signature. It's about the managing of internet businesses, buying profitable websites, making money from websites you own.

It's only two days old but it's taken off well and has already attracted some very interesting discussion from several expert webmasters, business brokers and organisations like Flippa.com.

Everyone is welcome to browse but the quality of discussion is high: "fluff posts" and "me too" posts are ruthlessly deleted. Check it out.

Your views?

 

Hm, I checked it, but I couldn't find any interesting discussions there?

 

The page layout/design makes my head hurt. It will greatly aid you in your goal of keeping the contributor count low.

ATM seems to consist of only a couple of fluff posts, and some inflated post counts (same posts in multiple categories).


good luck

EDIT: looks much better from the link in your signature, the link in your post goes to a different section of the site?

 

is NOT welcome?

 

goliath, good point about the link in the post, I must make the default page the forum entry page rather than the page vb sets as the home page.

LOL, pretty much anybody who's anybody in the site buying/site selling business is already registered within the first week - a lot of serious professionals - and the level of discussion is massively higher than most threads here in DP! The biggest website buyers, sellers and other market players - like Flippa managers & Sitepoint mods - are all there and actively talking

A few threads have even been deleted for no reason other than they do not meet the quality required for the professional discussions we have.

Sorry you missed all the good stuff.

Thanks for your opinion on the layout. You may be right. I shall put that out there for member feedback. The layout is not much changed from the new vBulletin 4.0.

President, spot on! I was hoping to attract only those who could make sensible, knowledgeable contributions or ask intelligent questions. People who make hundreds of "me too" posts to drive up their post count are certainly not welcome

 

First thing first, you have to get rid of that default vbulletin design.

pour in good content as much as can with consistent marketing.

 

Absolutely (on the design). We are going to involve the members in any changes and in choosing a new style. But for the moment we're happy to just let the good content keep building up.

Unfortunately, we can't take your suggestion for consistent marketing as marketing may involve getting the wrong type of members. If you have any suggestion for marketing that would reach the right audience, please suggest it. We are looking for people who have either a keen knowledge of or a keen interest in the buying or selling of websites. More important than their level of knowledge is their ability to engage in and stimulate interesting discussion.

The marketing budget is circa $10,000 (excluding the $2,400 offered in prizes for quality posts).

 

the design isn't that attractive and the topics can also be found here or in any webmasters forum lol..
i will probably delete everything i'm i were to implement such rules

 

I've no idea what that means. You would lose everything on your forum if you were to implement those rules?

People who want noise can you go to the other forums This forum so far has professionals and buyers and sellers of websites in the six and seven figures (the hello world posts in the introduction area should give you an idea of the member base) and the feedback from them has been very encouraging.

I would urge anyone who doesn't see value in the forum to NOT register. No hard feelings.

 

I'm not impressed to see your forum and i don't like to do post there. Not a good forum design as well.

 

It seems too good to be true! But unfortunately, it is not! I hope that it will be in the future if you really intend to spend $10000 on marketing of your forum!

 

There's an expression, horses for courses i.e. not every forum suits everybody.

I support the new forum, but I'm glad it's selective and that people who don't feel they can match the quality of the chat there aren't signing up to post.

 

I must say, the layout alone is enough to keep me away. It's so content-sparse, with only 5 topics per page? I like to be able to survey a large number of topics quickly to see which ones are worth popping open in new tabs. Otherwise I feel like I am wasting my time clicking through page after page of indices.

 

Hopefully it picks up, but I dont think it will compete with DP. Not for the time being anyway, just lacks the sheer numbers of members

 

Ah, you're used to locations where there is a lot of noise and very little signal. Fair enough.

Yikes! I don't want it to ever become like DP.

And I don't want it to "pick up" as you put in. It's only one week old and I'd be quite happy if it continued at the existing speed forever. Just out of curiousity, are you the same nequity who pretended to know something about valuing websites in this thread? Most of the people experienced in this kind of stuff who called you out in that thread and explained where you were wrong are on the new forum.

 

Your somewhat condescending reply presupposes that I am going to be interested in everything people are discussing.

Even in a forum that is 100% signal, not all of it is going to be interesting to me - or to any other individual.

Therefore, good interface design will make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they actually do want to read.

 

Actually, I have no dispute with you there, I agree that a good interface helps visitors. I agree that mine is the default vBulletin.

As a regular DP user myself I couldn't do without being able to survey the long listings. So you may have a point there. There are 20 to the page now (example)

Thank you for your feedback.

I posted a thread similar to this in a closed professional forum and the feedback was on content direction, moderation privileges, lack of the statutory privacy policy etc. Here I've had copycat posts enthusastically stating the bleeding obvious. And much of it is about how pretty the site is ...or isn't.

 

Well really. You started a thread with a directly combative title. You then provided a link to a page that wasn't representative of the site you wanted feedback on. So there was a little confusion with your campaign at step one.

Once that was clarified and I got to the forum, I see that it is, in fact, set up to overwork a small amount of content. Whether you're personally fond of clicking through long lists without scrolling, or scrolling through long lists without clicking, five posts per form page is a clear statement about how hard you intend to work your ad service. It doesn't matter what you say, what you do sends a message that is heard over any words.

And speaking of your actions being misaligned with your statements, talking about having a $10k marketing budget for a default vbulletin forum is pretty silly. Drop a few dollars on a decent makeover so that your site impresses on the user not just the nature, but the quality of conversation you want the site to represent. Not "OK I threw it out here, come on guys and fill it up". At the moment you seem very petty and boastful, and not professional at all.

It's not about prettiness, really. It's about creating a comfortable and professional environment which supports and sustains the level of discourse you're so eager to encourage. It's about usability, and enticing the sort of individual you want to participate in your site.

First impression, c for effort. Would be a d, but it's not a default free script. In the normal course of my day I wouldn't bother to look twice at it unless I had a specific interest in an existing topic. I rarely bother signing into a forum who's owner doesn't care enough to so much as skin it with something appropriate.

And then again here you are with your high blown rhetoric about the quality of the discussion. You do realize that you've been nothing but offensive in this thread, right? It's one thing to say you want a high signal to noise forum. We love the noise, so as long as you seem to be on some sort of high horse, you're just going to get picked at. There's a lot of signal for you in this thread.

You seem on the one hand to be proud of your knowledge of DP forums, and on the other hand digusted with what goes on here. If you can't find what you need here, why are you here advertising your forum? Are you just looking for drama?

DP is what it is, we're here because we like it. If you want advice from DP users, fine. If not, don't ask for advice and then bitch about what you get.

If you want your forum to grow faster than you can personally entice users one by one based on your personal charisma (you really seem to be lacking a sense of what's politic) than you'll learn to read through the "noise" and understand the "signal" that says your presentation is so poor that no one is sticking around to assess the quality of conversation.

You have some basic priorities to address if you want this to be a successful venture over the long term. Hanging around in other forums sniping at the members who aren't patting you on the back isn't making YOUR forum any better, either.

 

There won't ever be an ad service. But that's useful feedback insofar as it opens up what the typical readership may surmise.

I've no idea where you're seeing that. It's not the default vB template. Are you going by what people have said in this thread or did you actually visit the example link in my last post? Some sections have more posts than others; are you talking about sections that haven't build up enough posts/threads yet? Or are you seeing something different to what I see when I login?

Ah, I've addressed that. I agree with you and SmallPotatores on useability and about comfortable and professional environment. I'm all for useability improvements but not necessarily changing the look just to demonstrate I've got enough to spend on a skin. I'm now sounding the members out in private and in public on changes to the look and functionality(which I've pointed out early on in the thread).

Me too. But I stand by what I said about not wanting my site to become like DP. That needed saying because some posters seem to think that I'm looking for advice on becoming another DP. I like this forum because there are a lot of members here whom I've worked with, lot of members whose advice I seek. But I do also see a lot of idiotic, pointless, postcount drivel that gets in the way. YMMV and it may bother you less. It doesn't mean there aren't nuggets of gold around.

This may sound "combative" to you but I see that as a good thing. Not that you wouldn't bother to sign up, but that the casual visitor isn't tempted to register unless he has a specific and ongoing interest in a particular subject the forum covers.

I thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the time you've taken, really I do. And this feedback is a big improvement over "It seems too good to be true! But unfortunately, it is not! I hope that it will be in the future if you really intend to spend $10000 on marketing of your forum!"

And apoligies about the initial link to the homepage rather than directly to the forums.

 

http://experienced-people.net/forums/list.php/category/44-Buying-A-Website

After clicking around some more I see that there are multiple views of the same content, and there is another view that provides a more concise overview. But my eye was drawn first to the "categories" link at the left of the page because that's where one normally finds the list of forum topics.