Well if this forum didn't exist, Sitepoint would be the forum I called "home". Either way, just because their business model is different certainly doesn't make them "bad".
That's bad. Surely it was enough to charge a fee in the other forums, but not Looking To Hire. Most people there are advertising for quick low paying jobs and no one will bother spending $10. I know of several other forums offering the same "service" as sitepoint do in their forums, for free. There is no need to use sitepoint anymore.
The great thing about the internet is that for every site that charges for their service there will be another 10 sites that do it for free.
That reminds me of a funny story from the twilight zone. Admins get sucked into the zone to discuss issues and if they are on the wrong side of the issue, they get banned. Viva La DP Forums!
Anyone know KEral PAttel i heard something about him what exactly did he do. Someone said he got about 100 people banned from google adsense, Is this true?
It may well be to the annoyance of many members but SitePoint is quietly sweeping away the lower end of the financial bell curve with that fees-broom.
They really do know how to piss people off. Just because they saw that alot of people were using that forum (paid posts, etc.) they just had to be greedy and make everyone pay.. LOL, why don't we all work on a team effort to help promote DigitalPoint's Buy/Sell/Trade area, because as far as I know, SitePoint's main attraction is the "Sell Your Site" section... besides that, SitePoint is nothing compared to DigitalPoint (IMHO) Going to be linking to DP wherever I go now!
ahh that sucks. but i dont really look for hire since im a designer myself but i did get a little pissed when they put it on the Sell Your Template part
Thank you for all the feedback & comments. I think the change forces people to be a little bit smarter about what jobs they post. Rather than offering small jobs, people can build lists of contractors/freelancers that they can call on in the future. Rather than wasting time recruiting 5 people for 5 small jobs, they can offer one larger job and waste less time sorting through credentials, giving instructions, and answering questions from 5-10 potential workers for each $5, $10 or $20 job, etc. The other MarketPlace Forums have done well beyond our expectations, and as a result, tens of hundreds or hundreds of thousands of dollars per month change hands because of people connecting through our forums. As a bonus, the average transaction value has shot through the roof and many Web Developers have begun working "smarter": * selling 3 templates at once rather than one * listing more developed websites rather than turnkey sites * listing groups of domain names rather than littering our forums with the same ads over and over again * asking realistic prices because they are committed to getting a sale * quickly answering questions from members to avoid loosing a sale and much, much more... I expect similar changes to occur in the Looking to Hire Forum over the next 6-12 months.