Hi all, I am considering setting up an invitation only web forum, similar to Digital Point and Site Point, except that it would be a completely enclosed community. To be honest I am sick of the amount of spam, idiots, scammers and people who can barely speak english around public webmaster forums. Setting up a private forum would get rid of these things. We would be able to share tactics and advice, help each other, etc etc - but without the scammers and the people looking for a quick buck. I would also keep it strictly to people who can speak fluent English. It would be a tight-knit community where we all know each other; in huge forums like Digital Point and Site Point, there is not much of a sense of community due to the sheer amount of members - you have no idea who half of the people on here are. I would limit the members to something like 100. If you are interested or think this would be a good idea, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks.
I've just checked out some of your posts Kingdom, and you're exactly the type of person I would like to see in the community. Fluent English and helpful. If there is a good bit of interest (20ish people) then I will definitely set this up.
I'd like to be a part of it, and I think you should make it completely closed including to SE's so we can talk about things we might not want to talk about with Google watching.
Definitely. It would be invisible to the SE's so that we don't attract unwanted attention (from people) and so that we can discuss virtually everything. It'd be a great place for joint ventures etc too - we could start a few sites from within the community...
There need to be a place where there is confidentiality, an organized community, to learn sole arts for the webmaster.
To be honest this sounds like a great plan I would certainly be interested in joining such a forum If you would have me that is!
Im interested. To be honest i was thinking of tying up with some pretty experienced guys so we could discuss tactics and share ideas and maybe meet up even. No offence but some of the idiotic posts and moronic ramblings your afflicted to on dp wouldnt be missed by me.
Not such a bad idea but whats is going to be the requirements of such a forum to gain access, how exactly are you going to get members if it is a potentially private forum. I know you would get some from here but there will come a time when the flow of members would stop. On another note i would be interested contributing.
There would probably only be 20-30 initial members from this forum (people who have fluent english and are friendly/helpful) - after that, the only way to get in is if an existing member allows them in to the community up to a cap of around 100 members...
I think it is a good idea, but limiting the members to 100 seems a bit too constricting. Maybe you could make it invitation only but review their posts and their maturity, before they get access. By the way Rimki, I would love to be a part of the new forum.
Ah well, why not! Sure, I'll set up a forum. Even if we're only 5 to start with, I'm sure over the week lots of people will be interested... I'm going to try and find a domain and then I'll decide on forum software (probably Vanilla for it's simplicity) and then I'll PM those who have mentioned being interested so far. It's quite late in the UK so this probably wont be done 'till tomorrow night, so if more are interested feel free to post your thoughts/suggestions about this
If you don't search for experts only, i m in. I am not an expert (yet) I suppose in this forum we will most develop marketing strategies than posting for sites. I think 100 members is a small number, but you don't need to set a spesific number of members. If we find someone has the "qualifications" we can add him, no matter if the number is 100 or 200. I suppose there will not be many people that will to post ideas and strategies, most post their links. Iapetos
I was supposing the same thing but there is a slight difference , a private community for "illuminati" like a secret brotherhood who would respect laws and respect each other
I think 100 is a bit low, the more people we can get, the more ideas we can explore; to a point of course. Personally I think you should allow about 500-1,000 people following th guidelines you've set out. Regardless, I'd like to be a part of such a community.
You could also set up a landing page for the forums for people to apply if they want access after you get all the initial invites from here and other webmaster forums.
Good luck! It's hard to start a public webmaster forum now so i think it would be even harded doing a private one.
The reason I mentioned such a low number (100) was so that the sense of community was not lost. If there are too many members, you loose track of who is who, and people just become faceless. I think a low cap to start off with would be good, and then every so often open up to another few hundred, etc etc...
Would be great but Ive seen in the past with other private forums that interest dwindles when theres only a few posters. It borders on the greyish to black hat-ed-ness :0) But would be interested ...