Digital Point Restructuring

Why not start hiring some more hands to help out?

 

Probably he doesnt need.

 

Aha hey Shawn,I'm for hire!

 

I think DP is exceptional in many ways and means a lot to a lot of people.
Its quite obvious that many people have come to depend on DigitalPoint in many ways.
Its amazing that just a couple of words from Shawn and everybody's mind goes flying off into their own directions and the advice/theories come pouring out.

Just my phone ringing needlessly 20 times a day would be a hell for me.

 

Probably, there any many others who want to help Shawn in this

not just you alone...

 

well now that i read the whole thread i can post lol

i dont think you should make it fully paid. if you want to be a sitepoint copy with the BST section , then go for it. If you say you dont need the money i dont see why you would do that so maybe thats not it.

restructure? behind the scenes? staff wise? what? maybe you need more moderators or a few admins to help out and take some stress off your back.

who knows what your going to do but ide keep it free if i were you. give us an update since theres so many loyal members here asking for it.

 

Thanks to the person who red rep'd me for my post in this thread .

 

I take issue with the idea of removing the buy sell and trade forums along with the switching to a premium in order to be a member here. My income is only from the internet at this point because I am either over-qualified or under-qualified for every job I have applied to in this current city, seeing that I can fix computers, and do the essential geek jobs but lack a certificate.

Thus right now DP has helped me keep on my college payments through being hired to write content, and because of that I can continue working toward getting an associates in applied computer sciences. If Digital Point were to go to a paid system, where it was a monthly fee (as one power put it at 99 dollars a month) I would thus be unable to afford it, or have a reliable source of income. Thereby, another means of economic survival would be cut, and I would go elsewhere - and I would probably have to drop out of college again until I was either able to move somewhere else or find some kind of job that will hire me without having a lovely degree - not to mention the hampering of my World Domination schemes.

Basically putting a fee per month on membership would be the same as putting a tax on income - thus DP would have its very own income tax system, meaning people will have less to spend and less will be bought and traded. You may think "Oh so what, just the poorer people will be left out." Well all those people who bid on sites for 20-80 dollars, or hire content at those ranges will also be cut out. Add it up and you've blasted a sizable chunk out of this little micro economy. Eventually people will lose confidence in the site as trade drops and less bids are issued on items, until finally it is a site that has just the big dogs - meaning only the big trades will be happening. At such a high fee of nearly 100 dollars, well, essentially the forum will be free from spam, yes, but it will also be free from users.

 

Asking a fee for DP membership, or only for BST area will not solve the problem. A scammer will surely pay the fee, even if it is high ($50 lets say), because we will surely earn much more...

In my opinion, the solution for the forums is to increase the number of moderators, and to rank them in "normal" moderators and Supermoderators, which to verify the activity of the "normal" moderators.

 

Shawn, isnt it the time to get rid of posts like the one below?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=332314

I dont think creating dramas like this is the purpose of Digital Point.

 

Well said. It is a completely useless section. From what I heard, that section was started to remove such discussions from the General Chat area. I strongly think it should be completely removed from DP.

 

While it may seem useless, I would be willing to bet that a good majority of the traffic to DP is from P/R...

 

The reason we have a P&R section is so that people don't post P&R threads in the other sections.

We did not always have a P&R section. It was created to quarantine those discussions away from everything else.

It's a leper colony.

 

Why should we post about P&R? It is a webmaster forum here.

 

I think webmasters are allowed to have religion and like to talk politics with other people in a similar line of work. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I've never visited the P&R unless it has been through a link such as the one above.

I think in my introduction to DP someone warned me to stay away from it and so I have...lol

 

True, but people tend to post just about anything anywhere at times... The social interaction born within an internet discussion hits a wide range of topics, and I cannot tell you how much business I have done as a result of people I meet in the P/R.

The P/R is kinda like being on the golf course. You're certainly not getting any work done, but you are making a connection to people on a certain level that eventually ends up benefiting you in some way down the road.

How many times have you had a serious discussion on one particular topic, only to find yourself talking about something else along the way?

As an example. The sales people I deal with; people I buy stuff from, will shoot the shit, ask things like, how is your wife, your kid, etc... Talk about the weather/sports, anything... We still talk business, and still get things accomplished. The point is, that social interaction and discussion that each person shares of themselves builds a trust, a friendship/relationship that makes doing business a lot more pleasurable.

The point of P/R, is to keep that kind of clutter out of more topic specific areas, so those that don't enjoy these types of discussions, do not have to hear it.

Those that do, can venture in and out of P/R any time they want.

That said, I am straying off the original topic myself.

 

I am not saying we should not have P&R forum here. Having a forum does not mean we should post what ever we want. Posts like the one I posted above does no good to DP in general.

 

That's the worst of all possible worlds. That means that we would have a P&R forum that required heavy moderation. The mods would either quit immediately or stick around until suicidal depression sat in.

We tried no P&R forums. That didn't work. The current system works best, even if some people would like to apply censorship to others.

 

Isn't this thread way off topic now?

Shawn just said he was making a few changes and everything went bananas.....

 

Lol yep!

Shawn didn't even say if he was doing to anything to DP Forum itself

Doesn't our minds do wonders?....