You said it. There are a few things that could help... A good model to look at would be a forum like webhostingtalk.com. They've got a great model in place that keeps the crap posts way down. When looking specifically in the buy/sell/trade areas of this forum, little things like, having to have a minimum of 100 posts to even see those areas would certainly help. Also and elimination of things like, FREE or LIFETIME... Or, UNLIMITED, which is the worst IMO... The abuse of Titles using different characters and HTML elements in the title of a thread should be eliminated too. There are probably a lot of little things like this that could be implemented easily and quickly and would likely kill about 50% of the crap. I hear you on the domain names though. There are people that will sell a domain name that is a day old. That's just lame.
I imagine your post word by word. I wish I can feel that atmosphere... But still, this present condition is hard to avoid. DP is famous now, many people come and join every hour, every minute. Confusing...
The prices are often relative to the economy of a country. If you live in a rich country your prices are bound to be higher than others. PM me URL type posts are on their way out. Just because a PR2 link is of no value to you, it may be of value to many - such as people wanting a specific related backlink. better?
Yeap I would agree that WHT is quite a good model to follow, one of its advantages is that all the rules and regulations are in one place /rules.php. The Do's and Don'ts are much clearly defined which makes it easier for members to know what can be done and what cannot be done. The forums have guidelines on what is the nature of the forums and what is to be posted there. In this way, it is less prone to errors both by mods and members when giving/receiving infractions. Pity that I wasn't here much earlier, cant really do a comparison but the time when I was here till now, frankly speaking a lot had been improved, the banning of currency exchange, VCCs, Social Bookmark exchanges etc does help kept DP much cleaner, at least compared to the initial times when I was here.
Sometimes those short random posts (like the ones I'm constantly doing) are just the result of boredom. I click the "new posts" button, find a thread title that interests me, read a little, and post a little blurb about it. Then I either obsessively refresh or move on... Not for my sig exposure, but because I have nothing better to do.
And I don't think there is anything wrong with that... After all, DP become popular because of that freedom.
If you're bored, why not take up a hobby...? It'd be more fun than just posting short-liner after short-liner, no?
Hobbies are expensive, and I don't intend to waste my money on them. Besides, I like posting on DP, otherwise I wouldn't do it. I'd just leave the forum if it didn't interest me.
Yeah, I have an account there also, but never used it that much. Although we have a number of dedicated servers, hosting isn't really our main business so it's of peripheral interest for us. That said, it does seem to be a well-run board. Right now, for true usefulness and professionalness, I think Cre8asite is head and shoulders ahead of many out there.
I'm sure I have an account there as well. Checking it out. One forum I have been on lately is http://forums.seo.com Not that active, but some very knowledgable people on there.
That's a new one on me. With a domain name like that, they ought to be getting a few more posts than they are!
Yeah, that was the reason I gave it a chance. Buffalo interviewed the guy in charge of the forums on Search Feature. One thing I like is that there is zero tolerance for meaningless posts. Even when someone makes a "thank you" post they get reminded that that's what the thank you button is for. 3 years ago I would have called it over moderation but seeing what DP has turned into, I can truly appreciate it.
Yes, difficult to get the balance right and not seem to heavy-handed but I'd sooner one or two people get a slight ticking off and the integrity of the board is retained than have everyone post as they please and things go downhill... if it's a normally good poster that gets pulled up, they'll be understanding usually and appreciate the reasoning.
The Thank You button is one of the features I like about that forum. Very neat and cuts down on useless posts, though I hope they do have a "PM Sent" button too Would love to see the Thank You button here in DP though, that will really cut down on those extremely polite posters.
im sure this will get slated but do you think a paid subscription section would work I suppose a bit like shitepoint where people sell things at much higher value