Competing Sites

The staff over at "Forum X" are interesting - I particularly love how the administrator rides the "Who's Online?" page...

 

Thanks for taking the time to outline some of our positives, Tom. I appreciate it.
While you're at it, are there any negatives you can think of?

 

I've got no policy on competing forums other then no blatant advertising. We also try to keep the bashing of our competitors to a minimum too. It always happens though someone will get PO'ed on another board and come to our board and complain about it, then everyone jumps in. Often times that same person gets PO'ed on our board and goes to the other board to gripe about us.

 

I have no problem with a competitor linking to their forum in their sig, and I expect the same courtesy. But I don't permit them to make an obvious post inviting our members to come register at their site.

That's just plain rude.

 

Okay, here's a scenario for those of you who don't mind competitor links: You go to a forum and try to add a link to your signature - but the URL is rendered as anotherboard.com or IdontThinkso.com. What do you do in that case? Would you still allow them to advertise their site on your forum (in their signature)?

 

I'd probably drop them a polite PM that I think it's unfair and ask them to reconsider their policy. If they won't or are jerks about it I just won't allow the owners or staff from that forum to link to the site from mine.. but other members shouldn't get caught up in the feud, IMHO.

 

That's what you think. - I used to be a moderator, so I know the low down. See, what he does is open to tabs, have Who's Online at one and browse the forum on the other. This way, he makes people think he's just watching who's online whilst he's really reading new posts, etc.

Sometimes you can catch him if you look at "Who's Viewing this thread."

No problem..

Some negatives, hmm - a little slow, but you have a legit reason as to why; I hate coming on to read like 1,000,000 posts -:doh:-:rofl:- but that's good, ad yeah, that's all I can think of.

I'm sure if I actually looked around for negatives, I'd have a long list, but there aren't many that are noticeable.

Plus, I'm more of a new member, more or less.

 

Finally the mystery has been solved. For so long I have watched this and pondered to myself why he feels it is that necessary to use the Who's Online page to make it appear he is always online.


Anyway, I usually don't mind links to the obvious competitors (the very, very large leading forums), but I won't allow links to privately owned forums of the same niche.

 

I pulled it out of Howie. :lol:

I used to ask all the time too, before I became a moderator. Then when I got behind closed doors, I kept asking and asking until he answered me. :spin:

 

Not that it's relevant in any way at all, but I along with many others I know have been banned from there a good 7 or 8 times. You know, the white page of nothing... that's what you get to look at when banned. And there was never a good reason for it, either.

 

I must say myself, I used the "Hell Ban" often as did Howie, and all of the other [active] moderators.

We filed at least 20-40 infractions a day, if not more.

Who would ever think such at a webmaster forum?! :o

 

So you're one of them, huh? I see how it is...

*Puts you in miserable users group.* :devil:

 

I am a former moderator, I resigned after getting fed up with all the drama there and me always getting in the middle of the drama with my voice of word.

I thought webmaster forums were more or less professional, *ahem* reminds me of a teen forum sometimes...

 

I do that Who's Online trick as well - I almost always have WOL open in a separate tab all by its lonesome. :unhunh:

And I think we've had enough talk about *ahem*. I know I started it, but let's cut it out before it gets too late. It's not like me to do this anyways.

 

*chants* I know who yer talkin' about, I know who yer talkin' about....



</end chanting>

 

I allow my members to put the url of their forum/site in their signature but nowhere else.

 

I may as well start it too...

Capish, sir.

:lol:

Good for you indeed.

 

I get between 10 and 20 hits per day from a signature link.

 

I allow and even encourage it, though at this point I no longer really have competition. Mostly just people who have decided that I am some sort of evil imperial overlord and must be resisted.

My only rule about it is, if you're going to advertise on my site, advertise us on yours. Fair's fair.

The thing about it is - seriously, what are you afraid of? You don't build member loyalty by hiding things from them, you build member loyalty by proving that you are the best and reinforcing that feeling - you want to be the sort of forum where, if you got bigger than TAZ and you did a link exchange, you would be the one with a net gain in membership.

 

...also, don't wordfilter acronyms. What if someone wanted to have a random chat about their favorite Warner Brother's Toon? It makes it difficult to talk about. You don't want to stop people talking about it, you want to drag it into a dark alley, mug it and rifle through its pockets for loose ideas.

Plus, breaking a link is easy. Preventing all possibly combinationss of a phrase is nigh impossible.