Over the weekend, the advertising forums will be changing from a discussion type of forum to a "post only" type of forum.

I believe that this will result in a fairer approach that will allow more hosting companies to participate effectively. You will be able to edit and supplement you post, but no replies will be allowed.

The advertising froums, in their present form, seem to favor high volume hosts with lots of interest in their offers. This makes it harder for smaller hosts with few replies to stay on page one very long.

The policy of one post every five days will initially be changed to one post every ten days. I will evaluate what the impact of the ten day window is and re-evaluate the policy after about a month or two.

The goal is to give as many hosts as possible "first page" visibility for as long as possible.

There will be two to three top places in the advertising forums that will be used for "pay for placement" options. This advertising opportunity will be available in May after changes have been made to the top advertising banner.

UPDATE: 4-16-02

We have implemented softing of ad forums based upon date of original posting and are allowing replies in a all ad sections. There will be a few ad forums that will be added to make it easier to distinguish shared, dedicated, and colo.

Thanks for your understanding,

Robert Marsh
Headsurfer

I love the "pay for placement" option :)

Sounds fair.

Especially the "one post every ten days" policy.

Nice to see that headsurfer is taking an interest in making things better at WHT. ;)

:cool:

Good idea, but I dont think that one company should be able to monopolize the few top ad spots.

I think these should be cycled effectivly and not favor just the $$ or one company with deep pockets

Joe

While it does sound fair, there are a few issues.

It will be much more difficult to get information about the host's offer with this new guideline. Yes, PMs and emails, but people will just continiously ask the same questions, and you can't base your questions on the answers from someone else's.

Even if they can reply with information one every 5 days, this is years considering the fast pased nature of some of these transactions.

I also agree with JBIZ718, a few companies should not be able to monopolize the advertisement board just because they can afford to do so. In a way, this contradicts the "fairness" you're trying to create by limiting postings.

The posts will be editable, just no responses will be allowed. So, get a question, update your offer and info.

As far as the top "pay for placement", I believe it's totally fair. I'm putting into place a system that allows more hosts the opportunity for "page 1" placement. Selling the top spots keeps the bulk of the advertising in the advertising forums while still allowing the ability to recoop costs.

There has got to be some advertising. This levels the playing field tremendously since there will no longer be (after this month) HUGE banners at the top of the page.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer

Im not disagreein with you HS.

But there has to be some fairness to those ad spots.

As i said here:
I think these should be cycled effectivly and not favor just the $$ or one company with deep pockets .

There will be specific companies that will monopolize those spots and thats not fair. I think you will have more then enough companies who want top spots and should cycle those per week or to some extent so everyone has a chance

Joe

Originally posted by JBIZ718
Im not disagreein with you HS.

But there has to be some fairness to those ad spots.

As i said here:
I think these should be cycled effectivly and not favor just the $$ or one company with deep pockets .

There will be specific companies that will monopolize those spots and thats not fair. I think you will have more then enough companies who want top spots and should cycle those per week or to some extent so everyone has a chance

Joe

I agree. Maybe allow a company to have the top spot for a month, but only once in a 3 months cycle?

Matt

I agree with most of the new plan, finally all the damn thread crapping will stop (you know who you are!!). The guys who post dozens of replies in a thread, who have no intention of buying, but rather are competitors and waiting for the "wrong answer" to embarass or make fun of the hosting company.

<I deleted off topic questions/comments>

As for rates, so now the biggest or top 5 hosting guys can buy the top spots, correct? Will Rackshack be buying one of those spots?

Matt/Joe - just like any other business/profit run company, fairness doesn't matter. Those with the biggest checking accounts willing to pay the most $$ will get the top spots. Why should they let Po-dunk Hosting company get the top spot for $200 bucks this month, when they can sell it to the big-boys for thousands each month?

After all, this (WHT) is now part of a business that is in business to make money. The "freeness" and sense of community went out the window when someone laid-down OVER 30 large to buy this place.

It's wht.COM not wht.ORG ;-)

tjk

Originally posted by TomK
I agree with most of the new plan, finally all the damn thread crapping will stop (you know who you are!!). The guys who post dozens of replies in a thread, who have no intention of buying, but rather are competitors and waiting for the "wrong answer" to embarass or make fun of the hosting company.

Question on this comment though:

"As far as the top "pay for placement", I believe it's totally fair. I'm putting into place a system that allows more hosts the opportunity for "page 1" placement. Selling the top spots keeps the bulk of the advertising in the advertising forums while still allowing the ability to recoop costs. "

What cost? Servers and bandwidth are donated, or has that changed? Mod's are not paid, is that changing?

As for rates, so now the biggest or top 5 hosting guys can buy the top spots, correct? Will Rackshack be buying one of those spots?

tjk

I'm sure Roberts wants to recoup some of that 6 figure sum he paid for WHT ;)

Lets not get into a RS debate on what they do or whats free or not.

The main question is about the ad placements how there done, and managed.

Lets see if we can keep that on topic. The rest has been covered in about every other thread Ive read.

Also maybe you havent read Roberts Post but this is going to remain a fair community or it wont be a community very long. WHT has always been a business, Matt was making nothing but profit off us for many months. The business fact has not changed at all


Joe

I don't recall headsurfer asking a question; or for our opinions.
His announcement should probably had been a closed sticky.

Just my humble opinion.

Cycling the posts so that any hosting company has a chance to showup whenever the message was posted, one month or two months ago. You can add a <marquee>.......</marquee> to loop their posts/messages at the top of your main page.

BTW, I am just a regular user looking for a space to host my high traffic website.

Well put, Tom.
I agree with the first and second part of your post.

Here's what I think:
-with the current system, I am not sure that only the big boys get all the attention; I disagree with Robert asserting that "Big hosts = lots of interest"; I believe that small hosts who come up with a great offer can have their thread bump again and again, and it's deserved;
-regarding the top three posts available for paid advertising, isn't it exactly about the big boys getting all the attention?

Regards,
-Chris,

Originally posted by TomK
I agree with most of the new plan, finally all the damn thread crapping will stop (you know who you are!!). The guys who post dozens of replies in a thread, who have no intention of buying, but rather are competitors and waiting for the "wrong answer" to embarass or make fun of the hosting company.

<I deleted off topic questions/comments>

As for rates, so now the biggest or top 5 hosting guys can buy the top spots, correct? Will Rackshack be buying one of those spots?

Matt/Joe - just like any other business/profit run company, fairness doesn't matter. Those with the biggest checking accounts willing to pay the most $$ will get the top spots. Why should they let Po-dunk Hosting company get the top spot for $200 bucks this month, when they can sell it to the big-boys for thousands each month?

After all, this (WHT) is now part of a business that is in business to make money. The "freeness" and sense of community went out the window when someone laid-down OVER 30 large to buy this place.

It's wht.COM not wht.ORG ;-)

tjk

Fact is. The new owner of this board will do what they want regardless of what anyone has to say. I know that WHT was to me an independant source of information from both those that were soliciting business, as well as those that wanted to offer up fair warning about a poor experience.

Unfortunately with the ownership change to a major server hosting company that has had more than a few questionable posts about them on this forum, I can't see how this place will offer anyone a non-biased view of the web hosting industry anymore.

RS bought this forum for a purpose, and it wasn't to loose money.

Time to look for another board, as this one will only favor those that have the money to spend, while only providing a biased view of the web hosting industry as a result.:smash:

I agree with headsurfer's ideas, but just have one comment. Please make the top spots that are paid a non-auction, set price type deal. Otherwise, it will end up like google, with the hosts with the deepest pockets monopolizing the ads week after week with the smaller hosts never being able to use the advertising without shelling out more than it would cost for a server heh.

True enough, pobox. :unhappy:

If i have to be honest i think there is no reason for these rules,i beleive people should be able to reply with any questions they have,its so much more formal :)

Yes, Pattox.
HS can argue that hosts are allowed to modify their post; but in this case possible clients won't be notified that the post was modified.

Both formats have positive and negative points. You won't be able to have everything either way. From a moderator perspective, at least 1/2 of all reports seem to be from the free ad forums. The problems with the current system are:


bumped posts
popular posts that have to be locked or they'd stay up at the top for weeks or more
competitor commenting/bashing
general bashing and/or OT conversation


-etc., and all of this keeps threads at the top that should have dropped a long time ago. A controversy will cause a thread to remain on the front page, or in the top 5 spots, for... forever...

No replies also has drawbacks, but it eliminates all the problems above. It also gives everyone timed slot placement. Obviously, people won't be able to discuss the offer, ask questions publicly, etc. Some of this has been helpful in the past (both to clarify something and to bring up valid concerns about an offer, etc.)

As I said, you won't be able to have everything either way.

There has been some good points raised which have covered different angles and views, with chicken being correct in that whichever way, there will be a gain and a loss.

Due to this board now being owned and managed by a hosting related entity, no chance of credible ambiguity in fairness can truly be held as fact, proven time and time again when one player controls a vehicle like this within an industry. This doesnt just cover the public arena, rather the behind the scenes mechanics and politics of such means, beyond how equitable or fair the presentation wants to be portrayed.

If this was to still target the "community" aspect within the online arena, then segregating the advertising as is utilised now with banners at the top, accompanied with large fees would be equitable. Secondary level would be the forum advertising offers, and posts made would be on merit of their contents with a no reply system in place. It isnt just the responsibility of the consumer to ask questions but the advertiser to give enough information to satisfy basic curiosity.

Alternatively, removing the top banner ads and utilising the supposed new system, with changes that made it a true level playing field...by the use of accounts that meant ALL businesses that posted advertising posts paid a small fee per posting priviledge for a set duration of time.

This board is definately at the crossroads right now, and will see either some good, with some bad effects or bad, with further bad effects. This situation in either deviation taken will alienate some or many, and quite simply put, is something known as opportunity cost.

I'm sure someone will point out that my idea is flawed and stupid, but here goes..

I thought, perhaps, a software/script modification can be done on the advertising part (if this is not a feature). This modification/feature would make all posts in the advertising forums stay in the same place, regardless of follow-up posts. For example, a post would not move up because someone posted a reply to it.

This way, replies will not affect the position or attention of a post, but the user can still communicate with the vendor.

Assuming you want feedback - hmmm, tough call, I have gained so much valuable info on hosts from reading through the threads here and viewing the client/prospect-host interaction go on. But I guess this sort of discussion will just revert to the main forums again. Yes there is flaming and bashing and bitching, but in amongst it is some good stuff that would never rise to the surface otherwise. Often discussion here gets to the bottom of investigating some of the outragous claims hosts make - a kind of "keep the bastards honest" approach. Really, it is this sort of information that makes WHT so valuable. There are plenty of places you can go to find webhost ads. It's the discourse that follows that helps prospects evaluate and judge what is on offer. Sure it gets bitchy but you got to take the good with the bad.

So, with the new rules, if I want to post:

"Unlimited Bandwidth, HD space, IPs, everything - $2 per month" then that's OK is it? That's a valid offer? No more discussion?

There are so many shonky bedroom based hosts born every day. Why should they be allowed to get away with advertising their doomed-to-fail or blantent lies offers without some scrutiny from the forums?

Hmm, I can understand the desire to cut down on the heat generated in this forum and give people a fairer go, but I wonder whether the new rules might not be a good deal for the customer/prospect. I know that the locked thread approach is what is used over at www.geekvillage.com in their advertising forum (for which you have to pay a modest c. $10) so it is just like a classified ad. Actually, I recommended a while ago, that Matt should charge for placing offers. I don't think $10 is unreasonable at all. But now that headsurfer ownes the joint, I retract that recommendation :D

Anyway, ... :)

<<Removed: Completely OT>>

A controversy will cause a thread to remain on the front page, or in the top 5 spots, for... forever...


Ok, duh, but isn’t that the ENTIRE point behind a forum? Regardless of whether or not it is an ad or not, who really gives a flying F@&$ if a thread gets bumped? If the Mods see it happening a lot, lock the thread, the same person keeps doing it, boot him. This whole thing about bumping to me is really stupid. So someone puts an offer up, a few people comment about it and it stays up on the forum....so what? Someone die in India for that or something?

And as for a controversial thread staying at the top, obviously there is a reason for it! People WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT! DUH! Refer back to my first sentence here.....the whole point of a freaking forum? Go ahead and ban the never-ending thread, and watch your never-ending flow of traffic become a trickle.

I understand headsurfer wanting to make some cash off this, all the power to him, doesn’t matter anyway, we will all scroll past the oh-so-annoying big-time player company ads at the top and scroll down to the real deals from smaller guys, go ahead charge $500 for the spot, no one will care.

<<Removed: Completely OT>>

Originally posted by JBIZ718
Im not disagreein with you HS.

But there has to be some fairness to those ad spots.

As i said here:
I think these should be cycled effectivly and not favor just the $$ or one company with deep pockets .

There will be specific companies that will monopolize those spots and thats not fair. I think you will have more then enough companies who want top spots and should cycle those per week or to some extent so everyone has a chance

Joe

I totally agree with you Joe. I am going to be starting a company and cant afford the top spots. The special offers forum will turn into a "Whoever can pay the most money" forum.

Originally posted by snikle
Ok, duh, but isn’t that the ENTIRE point behind a forum? Regardless of whether or not it is an ad or not, who really gives a flying F@&$ if a thread gets bumped? If the Mods see it happening a lot, lock the thread, the same person keeps doing it, boot him. This whole thing about bumping to me is really stupid. So someone puts an offer up, a few people comment about it and it stays up on the forum....so what? Someone die in India for that or something?
Understand that I agree fully with what you are saying. As I said, there are pluses and minuses to both. Bumping and bashing for no reason, in these free ad forums, accounts for a great deal of what we have to deal with. If there was a way to rid the forum of these problems, it would surely be worth considering.

And as for a controversial thread staying at the top, obviously there is a reason for it! People WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT! DUH! Refer back to my first sentence here.....the whole point of a freaking forum? Go ahead and ban the never-ending thread, and watch your never-ending flow of traffic become a trickle.
Before you went off the deep end... yes, I think everyone agrees again. A popular thread stays near the top for a reason.

Originally posted by dbzgod
I totally agree with you Joe. I am going to be starting a company and cant afford the top spots. The special offers forum will turn into a "Whoever can pay the most money" forum.
So you'll be #3 in the list and you didn't pay to be there. Google uses the exact same model. Keep in mind the ad forums are a little extra that was given to members to help them 'get the word out' and connect the commercial members of the forum with members looking for hosting. It was never meant to *be* the forum.

One thing I don't understand is that people seem somewhat unappreciative of the ad forums and of other free sources of advertising. When new hosting directory pops up, host seem to take a 'not another one!' approach, instead of a 'you mean you are going to try to drive traffic to your site and give me a free listing with my plans and links?!' -point being, there will be a benefit to you no matter what. Try to see the good and not always the bad.

There is bad, as I said, we know that.

I don't really mind those "big banners" at the top (the "big" part of it)

I just find it monotonous seeing the same banner up there every time I post. I think I've seen the ensim one about 100 times in the past day. The banners are actually fun to read... for a while.

As for other parts of HS's plan, I think they are sound.

There will be two to three top places in the advertising forums that will be used for "pay for placement" options.

That's very fair - who would not like to earn some money with such a forum :) - what about the rates - are/will they be public anywhere?

John

Maybe allow a company to have the top spot for a month, but only once in a 3 months cycle?

Agree!

John

What will be the price for 'pay for top placement' going to be?
Just more or less... ;)

thx

Originally posted by dside443
I'm sure someone will point out that my idea is flawed and stupid, but here goes..

I thought, perhaps, a software/script modification can be done on the advertising part (if this is not a feature). This modification/feature would make all posts in the advertising forums stay in the same place, regardless of follow-up posts. For example, a post would not move up because someone posted a reply to it.

This way, replies will not affect the position or attention of a post, but the user can still communicate with the vendor.

Exactly what I was thinking. If you want to follow a middle path, that's the way to go. This is a small SQL change. Instead of showing the thread list in order of the replies, if it is changed in order of thread start time: it will serve both purposes.

All threads will remain where they need to and it will also allow free discussion on the offers.

And if anyone does not want replies in their offers, they can purchase the sticky spot on the top :) No replies in sticky posts.

Originally posted by Chicken
When new hosting directory pops up, host seem to take a 'not another one!' approach, instead of a 'you mean you are going to try to drive traffic to your site and give me a free listing with my plans and links?!'

Chicken, I won't write a long post about this because I would be totally OT, but I don't think you can use this analogy: a new hosting directory means having to spend more time adding our plans to *this one too* and more annoying, since most offer a clients testimony section, chances are it will be empty because our clients were kind enough to write about us on on 'x' directories, which also means delution: there's only a few testimonies on each directory; not really helping anyone either, since a potential customer is supposed to browse ALL these directories to see the big picture.

Maby we could just make bumping and bashing in the ad forums against the rules, since as you pointed out Chicken, are the only main problems with the current system....

It is against the rules, however it is difficult to control.

Chris, I'd reply but you're right it is OT and I'll send you an email about it instead.

Originally posted by DPerley
<<Removed: Completely OT>>

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-------------------------------------------------
Just so that we are crystal clear on this point, what part of the rules did I break?

DPerley

If I remember correctly:
Participants may not use the Forum to solicit users for any project or purpose external to the Forum; public, private, or commercial.

Most importantly our userbase is not a resource to be "mined" by individuals, groups, or businesses, for profit or not for profit.
We usually toss the entire post, which is what I should have done. If memory serves me correctly, those was the ones though.

i dont get it. Instead of pretending its a forum, why not just link to a 'classified ads' section? That would allow much better control of postings, paid advertisements etc.

<sarcasm> I love commercialization. </sarcasm>

Well I am reminded of Thoreau's lovable words of wisdom in his masterpiece Walden:

"Trade taints everything it touches, even if you trade in Divine Messages"

[It is proof of my backwardness re WHT that I know of RS buying WHT only now!]

It would be very difficult for RackShack to have an unbiased approach to WHT when God knows how many servers are traded here. And I do not know if Robert's intention is to be unbiased either! :)

There are forums, there are forums and then there are directories. But in my opinion Matt had a wonderful business model that allowed him to keep the forum unbiased and still make money [and I am assuming he made money from the ads]

You are all commenting on the modalities of implementing a change that RS desires, but I am worried about the motive behind the proposed change

It is early days to comment yet, but if other godfathers [who make offers we cant refuse] are effectively stymied from getting mileage from the ad forums, WHT may well morphose into a selective ad tool for some companies.

Cheers
Balaji

The Ad forums are FREE advertising..... I think that we should all be glad they will continue to exist in any form... If this was my board there would not be any free advertising... but that's another story.

Just about all template/logo makers, domain name sellers and web hosts that use the free ad forums to hawk their goods are in the business to make money! Why should profit oriented entrepreneurs get a free ride?

It seems to me that auctioning the top spots is about the most "fair" (not sure fair is the right word) way to run the paid ad posts. Highest bidder gets the spot for xxx days/weeks/months. Maybe each spot has a different length of time... ie: top spot=1 month, second spot=2 weeks, third spot=1 week.

I hope they make a **sticky** announcement when/if this does take effect. :confused:
this thread will soon be buried.

I agree with this idea by dside443.

Give the post an ample time to remain on the first page while still allowing responses. No problem with bumping in this case to "up" your post. The rule on posting new thread only allowed after 5 or 10 or whatever number of days should also be observed.

:)


Originally posted by dside443
I'm sure someone will point out that my idea is flawed and stupid, but here goes..

I thought, perhaps, a software/script modification can be done on the advertising part (if this is not a feature). This modification/feature would make all posts in the advertising forums stay in the same place, regardless of follow-up posts. For example, a post would not move up because someone posted a reply to it.

This way, replies will not affect the position or attention of a post, but the user can still communicate with the vendor.

Originally posted by .::DefCon::.
What will be the price for 'pay for top placement' going to be?
Just more or less... ;)

thx

If we all know Headsurfer correctly, it'll be $399 :D

I am all for the changes announced by robert.

Out of interest, if the worry is about people bumping up posts, why not just do a tiny edit in the forum code to have threads in this forum sorted by the start thread date as opposed to the last reply date? That would solve that problem. Sure you are left with the problem of people bashing each other but i would think that risk is enough to put up with for the benefit of being able to ask publically questions about the offer.

[bad me, didn't see page 3 and didn't realise this has been suggested]

Originally posted by padders
Out of interest, if the worry is about people bumping up posts, why not just do a tiny edit in the forum code to have threads in this forum sorted by the start thread date as opposed to the last reply date? That would solve that problem. Sure you are left with the problem of people bashing each other but i would think that risk is enough to put up with for the benefit of being able to ask publically questions about the offer.

I've heard this mentioned before, not just here but on other forums as well. What is the procedure for that?

thanx, DPerley

Not entirley sure, but a brief look suggests that doing something like:

if ($forumid == 4) {

$sortfield = "sql_field_name_for_date";

}

and that should actually do it if you put that at the top of forumdisplay.php

thanx, I'll run it by the hacks at vb.org. There is a thread running there about it.

DPerley

Hey, I've noticed that I can no longer post replies in the Hosting Requests section of the forum, so I guess sweeping changes have already started take place in the forum.

Does anybody know when changes to the special offers section will take place and if there's been any definate decisions on whether posts will be readonly or if they'll be sorted by start date?

I don't want to post an offer, be overpowered by more popular threads and then have to wait 10 days before I can post again :stickout

Originally posted by padders
Out of interest, if the worry is about people bumping up posts, why not just do a tiny edit in the forum code to have threads in this forum sorted by the start thread date as opposed to the last reply date?
I'd have to agree with this idea too... Can we have some official opinion on this from headsurfer or Chicken? I realise it won't stop some of the bitchy replies, but it will eliminate the bump issue thus giving everyone a fair share of the first page, which seems to be the big problem, and it will also give everyone the chance to ask questions and be notified when new information has been posted etc...

Absolutely. I agree that the best solution is to order by first post date. I'm a complete newbie at this board, but the thing that attracted me the most and caused me to come back many times was this advertising section, and one of the main reasons I found it valuable is because of the extra info/questions posted after the initial advertisement. There are people on this board who know the right questions to ask (multi-homed? uptime guarantee? Cogent? database size limit? ) that I wouldn't neccesarily have thought of asking, and seeing them ask these questions is really a valuable learning experience -- in the future I now feel much more able to evaluate the quality of a web hoster's offer.

If replying to advertisements is disabled, I and probably many others will miss out on what is definitely a positive aspect of the forum.

Thanks,
Matt

Well, my opinion (which counts for very very littel) is that it would be a good thing to try. That doesn't mean it will be tried, nor does it mean that anything tried now won't be reversed/modified to further try to make the forum more user friendly, and owner friendly of course.

While some threads seem to be no reply, I can't say that I fully understand the no-reply thing, as it seems some aren't no reply. Not sure if this is a bug, or the other threads were grandfathered in, or what the deal is, but ti seems something is amuck. Have to figure out why, or if nothing is wrong and I'm just tired and seeing things...

I've gotten a lot of value from WHT.
It is perfectly proper for the owners to make some proift off of it too - however they see fit.

It is so odd to see posters trying to tell the owners how to run their own business! And telling them how to be "fair" with adverstising as if they were some sort of stakeholder.

The nature of the internet is that "good" properties will get bought up.

If you think you can do a better job..start your own site. An alternative to ads, which many have compained about is a subscription site. Would you pay for that? I don't mind a few ads.

I believe the recent action to change this to post only is a more than reasonable tip of the hat to "fairness". They could have gone to total pay for listings.
'
The fact that so many things have been free on the internet has been great..but surely you realize this is coming to an end as it costs money to run a site like this.

As always, you have the choice to use WHT or not.


Deja

I think you miss the point a little, deja.

The users are by far the most valuable part of any community like this. I don't think anybody would deny headsurfer and the people at Rackshack the opportunity to make back the money they have invested in the forum, and I really don't see that this particular issue has anything to do with profits or otherwise.

We're simply suggesting an alternative to the concept proposed by headsurfer, that some of us seem to agree would be worth trying. If he doesn't wish to try the alternative, that is completely his call as the owner and as you say it's up to us whether we come back or not.

But does that mean we shouldn't suggest things that may make this a better place? I know if I was the new owner, I'd be looking to the users for their input.

There is a big difference between suggesting ideas and "telling the owners how to run their business"!

We're looking at the ordering by date issue now. I prefer this method, personally, as it achieves my goals at the same time bowing to a little community pressure to keep the ability to post replies.

If we can get the ordering issue and get the right code and answers, we'll SERIOULSY consider just ordering by original post date and leaving it at that.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Originally posted by headsurfer
We're looking at the ordering by date issue now. I prefer this method, personally, as it achieves my goals at the same time bowing to a little community pressure to keep the ability to post replies.

If we can get the ordering issue and get the right code and answers, we'll SERIOULSY consider just ordering by original post date and leaving it at that.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

You could look into this thread. I haven't been able to try it out, but it might work here for you and us of course.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37200

DPerley
-------------------------------------------------
(maybe Chicken will think I'm a good egg now)

Here's the specific post in the thread DPerley posted, for your convenience.

Here you go:

1-Edit forumdisplay.php, find:
-- cut --
switch ($sortfield) {
case 'title':
case 'lastpost':
case 'replycount':
case 'views':
case 'postusername':
case 'voteavg':
break;

default:
$sortfield='lastpost';
}
-- cut --

2- After that add:
-- cut --
$sortfield = "dateline";
-- cut --

This will sort all threads in all forums according to the first message date and user's sort field choice is cancelled.

if you want this feature for a specific forum (eg #4), use this instead:
-- cut --
if ($forumid == 4) {$sortfield = "dateline";}
-- cut --

For 4 and 5 and 6 use this:
-- cut ---
if (($forumid == 4) OR ($forumid == 5) OR ($forumid == 6)) {$sortfield = "dateline";}
-- cut --

This is tested and working..

We have implemented sorting of ad forums based upon date and are allowing replies in a all ad sections. There will be a few ad forums that will be added to make it easier to distinguish shared, dedicated, and colo.

Robert Marsh
Headsurfer

Originally posted by headsurfer
We have implemented softing of ad forums based upon date and are allowing replies in a all ad sections. There will be a few ad forums that will be added to make it easier to distinguish shared, dedicated, and colo.

Robert Marsh
Headsurfer

I must admit, you made a good move ;) keep it up


Kind Regards
Imran

Originally posted by headsurfer
[B]The policy of one post every five days will initially be changed to one post every ten days. I will evaluate what the impact of the ten day window is and re-evaluate the policy after about a month or two.

Robert, is this in force now?

Cheers

Gary

Yeah, it's working great! vBulletin rules :stickout

Cheers :beer: