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Suggestion Petition to revise the 'likes' system or remove it

Discussion in 'Support & Feedback' started by evershawn, Mar 20, 2013.

  1. #1
    I would like to start a petition to hopefully appeal to the powers that be on DP that perhaps the 'likes' system was not the most intelligent thing they've ever implemented and could be potentially doing more harm that good.

    Please sign this thread with a reply if you agree.

    I'm sure there are many people that have stories and issues about how the new likes system is unfair for old members and perhaps new members alike. I personally feel that it is especially unfair for long time members to have to go through trying to get people to 'like' some content they're posting in the general forums in order to just be able to participate as they always have.

    In my case, I am a long time market place buyer, seller and trader. I had plenty of positive iTrader rating (which apparently means diddly squat now) and that was my only stomping ground. Suddenly I am unable to participate there until I have posted some content that at least 3 'full' members can appreciate enough to give me these likes I so badly need just to resume participating as I have for so many years (since 2006 to be exact).

    Not all of us are chatty forum bugs with tons of free time to go around posting guides, tech support or what ever else garners likes..... I myself am a busy entrepreneur that runs multiple lines of business (as I'm sure many market place guys are). Last thing I want to do is run around in forums I have no interest in participating in pretending that I'm something I have no desire to be. I do honest and legitimate transactions, never had any issues or quarrels. Am I any less qualified or valued as a member because of that?

    I feel this forum is a great resource for it's market place and information on various things. The last thing I want is to see it lose popularity because of one poorly thought out feature decision. It's my duty as a patron to write this petition since I feel strongly about this.

    This post and petition was made to be helpful. Please reply if you agree with me and sign it with your acknowledgement if you'd like to inspire some change.

    Thanks,

    -Evershawn
     
    Solved! View solution.
    evershawn, Mar 20, 2013 IP
    wonay likes this.
  2. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #2
    digitalpoint, Mar 20, 2013 IP
  3. evershawn

    evershawn Banned

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    #3
    I get that you own the forum and you can do what you want. Humor me here. You must care about what your members want, after all this is just a pile of PHP by vbulletin without them, right?

    Let's hear what people have to say. Am I not making a decent point about the market place oriented members as opposed to the chatty forum bugs that come here to discuss life, how to build their website or some other long drawn out discussion that plays far more in to a 'likes' system than a market place type member?

    Last I checked the market place section dwarfed any other section by quite a lot. Are you trying to downsize?

    I suggest that you implement a secondary option that's more oriented to traders and doing legitimate business. I don't want to see people just opt to go over to one of the many other forums and say "the hell with dp and it's likes". I like the site, I like most of the things about the way it operates and I am just hoping that perhaps we can appeal to you here and coerse you in to re-thinking the decision to base everything on someone getting 3 likes.. It's just too much to ask of some people and you WILL lose some if not a lot of legitimate guys because of it. Is it really worth it to detour a few spammers? Is it really the only option you could think of?

    Why is a trader rating suddenly worthless? For people that manipulate the trader rating system wouldn't it be FAR easier to manipulate the likes system? Why not make everyone get 3 trader ratings before they can be chatty bugs in the general forums? See how this is sort of one sided and only suitable for certain types of DP members? Not everyone comes here for the same thing.
     
    evershawn, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  4. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #4
    It's just been discussed to death already is all... not sure people want to talk about it for the hundredth time to be honest. But if people want to talk about it once again, I guess that's fine by me.

    Absolutely yes. Quality over quantity... which the new system has worked out better than we had hoped. Less sale threads, but more things being sold, more bids and for a higher average price. Overall quality of things being sold is up.

    There is a secondary option... premium membership as mentioned here: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/help/established

    It's not suddenly worthless, the migration away from iTrader started 2 1/2 years ago: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/transition-away-from-itrader.1942652/

    There was a *giant* message at the top of the page anytime you left someone iTrader telling you this (literally it was huge, impossible to miss). It was announced long ago so people had plenty of time to gain feedback ratings on the new system (which was around before that announcement).

    iTrader wasn't just "turned off", it was replaced with Instant Pay, which is a much better system.
     
    digitalpoint, Mar 21, 2013 IP
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  5. evershawn

    evershawn Banned

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    #5
    As I said, I really came here for one purpose, I don't sift through or typically pay attention to general threads. I guess I wasn't aware that this was more of a monetary move than a filtering initiative. With those price points to buy premium membership, that speaks for itself. So much for a 'free' market place on DP now I guess. Now it's either donate tech support for a while or pay exorbitant membership fees. Bummer... Either way I guess having us look at and click on ads just wasn't cutting it for profitability.

    If you get more money out of the site now like this, it makes more business sense for you. It's just too bad it's swayed so far away from what DP originally was back when I joined. I guess everyone needs to make a buck in this shit economy, I don't blame you.

    With how time consuming and difficult it seems it can be to get likes, I'm sure you'll get plenty of people to pay those fee's too. I do predict a massive drop off in users though, just from experience in the space.

    Cheers.
     
    evershawn, Mar 21, 2013 IP
    indyonline likes this.
  6. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #6
    If it was about money, the bar for needing 3 likes would have been set exponentially higher... Like 100 or something.

    Buy/Sell/Trade was never intended as anything other than a benefit for contributing users (that's why it used to have a wait of 2 weeks after registering). The only thing that has changed is we have a better way of measuring who's a contributing member now. Personally, I'd be fine just disabling Buy/Sell/Trade completely... it's the cause of 90% of our problems, 99% of the scammers/spammers for absolutely zero benefit to this site (not like we charge people a listing fee or make any money from it). Again... Buy/Sell/Trade was never, EVER (at any point) intended for anyone other than as a benefit to good users of the site.

    Like you, I also predicted a drop in traffic/users, but we've actually seen *more* since the change (it seems the high quality users are slowly coming back as the low quality users who never really gave any sort of benefit to the site end up leaving). See this thread for stats on the months after the change vs. the month prior.

    https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/one-month-after-switching-from-vbulletin-to-xenforo.2637721/
     
    digitalpoint, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  7. evershawn

    evershawn Banned

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    #7
    I do appreciate the insight and taking the time to explain it. I suppose your metrics back the idea that you've made a lot of positive changes for the greater good in terms of quality.

    I still however think that old members in good standing should not be subject to measures that were designed to filter out (from everything I can tell) mostly new low quality members. I doubt I'll change your mind about anything and I probably could have wrote a few helpful guides for people that may have accumulated some likes for the amount of time I've spent trying to appeal this but I guess I'm just stubborn like that :)

    I actually just want DP to stay the large market place that it has been and it's not as much about getting 3 likes myself but what my experience and logic felt would be the result on the greater populous. If you have metrics that suggest it's actually having a positive effect on every metric that's 'good' for the site, then more power to it.
     
    evershawn, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  8. malky66

    malky66 Acclaimed Member

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    #8
    @evershawn, instead of wasting your time starting pointless threads like this that everyone knows will make no difference whatsoever, you could have been just going round making some sort of contribution and gaining the likes you so desperately need.
    You say yourself, you could have created "a few helpful guides" so why didn't you..???
    is it because you are a selfish ignoramous who thinks you have a divine right to be here and make free money without making any sort of contribution whatsoever..or do you just like to throw your toys out your pram and make an idiot of yourself in public..???
     
    malky66, Mar 21, 2013 IP
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  9. Spoiltdiva

    Spoiltdiva Acclaimed Member

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    #9
    @evershawn
    You've managed to bag a like already, now just 2 more and you're in. Why bother fighting a battle that you cannot win? In the marketplace if your clients have made changes, do you resist? Or would you demonstrate an ability to evolve with them? DP has evolved like it or not.
    You're squandering your time, energy and writing talents. And frankly speaking you're beginning to get a tad boring.:(
     
    Spoiltdiva, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  10. globalflex

    globalflex Well-Known Member

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    #10
    I have used this site for creating contest and paid out hundreds of dollars here... now I can not because you have to have likes??? What is this all about? I can see filtering signatures but stopping people from starting a contest thread so the community of developers and graphic artist are kept from making some money? I would think Paying Out members would be a Positive not something that has sent me back to square one after being a member for years.
     
    globalflex, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  11. malky66

    malky66 Acclaimed Member

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    #11

    Another one who's just pissed off because they lost their FREE marketplace...like Shawn has said, Buy/Sell/Trade was never intended as anything other than a benefit for CONTRIBUTING users, just think yourself lucky you have been able to use it and make money from it for free for the last 4 years or so...as a quick look at your post history shows you have contributed diddly squat......:rolleyes:
     
    malky66, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  12. globalflex

    globalflex Well-Known Member

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    #12
    Yes paying people for service pales in comparison to the wisdom you are choosing to share
     
    globalflex, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  13. GMF

    GMF Well-Known Member

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    #13
    Had the urge to create something

    [​IMG]
     
    GMF, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  14. #14
    wow...
    [​IMG]
     
    indyonline, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  15. globalflex

    globalflex Well-Known Member

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    #15
    WOW such wisdom... I could Brown Nose people and they will Like me! Oh Goody! I can be liked on DP!
     
    globalflex, Mar 21, 2013 IP
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  16. evershawn

    evershawn Banned

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    #16

    malky66,

    My post was meant to be helpful and I was merely stating my opinion or what I felt was obvious. I don't play fan boy for anyone and I have a lot of experience in this space myself. I like DP and I don't make money from DP but I have made a few connections in the market place. I've mostly been a buyer here so I guess in your eyes that's not contributory. I'm guessing your opinion is that only guys that post guides and offer support are of any value. I think I've adequately covered this topic in my posts so I'll just reference you there rather than draw it out any further in this reply.

    Not sure why you're upset or resorting to name calling, that just makes you look like a hypocrite that thinks they have the divine right to persecute others for stating their opinion. Pretty much everything you've stated about me was covered in my previous post, thanks for reiterating it... I'm also guessing you don't really have a solid understanding of how a business model like this works nor the impact that major changes to it can have. I can understand how you don't really understand my advice or my concerns for Shawn. Again, the post here was meant to be helpful and not a flame. I wanted to garner other open minded opinions and see what others felt the impact was.

    If you feel the need to reply again, do us all a favor and take your chill pills first. If you can't be mature or contribute something new and without emotion, say it on the inside. You'll be doing yourself a big favor.

    P.S. I've also been here for quite a few many more years than you have. So consider that I may know some things about DP's history that you're not aware of.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2013
    evershawn, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  17. indyonline

    indyonline Prominent Member

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    #17
    lol =)
     
    indyonline, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  18. globalflex

    globalflex Well-Known Member

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    #18
    evershawn... it seems malky enjoys Bearing His Ass in public... that would be my interpretation of the avatar
     
    globalflex, Mar 21, 2013 IP
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  19. evershawn

    evershawn Banned

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    #19

    Oh crap! I thought the guy just had a thick beard! That is in fact a bears ass. Thanks for pointing that out. Wow, too many things just make too much sense with regard to his post etiquette and his avatar. Either way both qualify as what he would be metaphorically speaking out of. Freaky!
     
    evershawn, Mar 21, 2013 IP
  20. merlin77

    merlin77 Active Member

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    #20
    Rules are rules, we are just guests here. My feelings on matters like this are always the same, if you don't like the rules go start your own forum and do whatever you like.

    I'll tell you what I don't like, is that evershawn now has his 3 likes and he's contributed absolutely nothing, just complained about the system (nothing personal evershawn) and he will go off selling his wares and still do nothing. I have tried to help people whether they are new or established members. Trying to give them answers that solve their questions or pointing them to in the right direction with articles and such. I can't even post in the subforum that I know most about, which is the affiliate marketing forum. That is disheartening to me.
     
    merlin77, Mar 21, 2013 IP