This is what robert marsh wrote...............

The ad forums on WHT have now been sorted by thread start date as opposed to most recent reply.

For the moment, replies have been allowed to continue. If there is an issue in the future, this could change.

Currently, you may post an ad every 5 days in each applicable ad forum at no charge.

You will see the ad forum broken down into three forums shortly: Shared Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and Colocation.

There will eventually be the opportunity to pay for a "sticky" position at the top of the forum on a weekly basis, no more than two weeks in any one month. The acceptance of requests for these positions will be at my personal and absolute discretion. There will be a maximum of two stick ads in any one advertising forum.

Ad rates and opportunities will be posted in this spot as they are finalized. (This week or next)

I have read through what seemed liked hundreds of suggestions and complaints on the proposals and the above represent, in my personal opinion, the best balancing of all interests.

Robert Marsh
Headsurfer

I knew this place would go to hell when RS took over what he is doing is BULL

All RS wants is to get a much money as they can that is why they bought this site because it is a advertising "Gold Mine"
That is my opionon

Anyone agree?

That's business friend, what exactly is it that is wrong with what he is doing in that regard? This place isn't meant to be a free advertising venue as far as I recall but a place to share in friendly[sic] conversation and to learn and teach one another.

Edit >> Blah, I didn't even notice the original posters name, otherwise I would have just ignored this one. Sorry for taking up valuable disk space and your bandwidth for reading it.

Headsurfer put up those rules after reading and our suggestions and complaints. Are you calling us (members of WHT) greedy?

I personally do not think that the paid sticky ads are a good idea....it will "commercialize" the community. There will be about 10-11 companies with enough big bucks to sway HS's mind about who gets the spots, leaving little companies like me without a chance of advertising here....

The effects will be worsened if the HUGE ad that currently sits at the top of the forums isn't removed.

IMO, the advertising forums should remain the way they were but with stricter rules, like the following:

1) In the requests forum, a "Check us out at xxx.com", or "I've sent you a PM/email" post made by a host should equate to 1 warning for the first offense, and a temporary ban for a second offense.
2) Replies older than 30 days in the requests forum should be deleted and the thread closed. This will eliminate the problem of new hosts spamming the forums.
3) starters of posts in the requests forums should post a "i've found my host" message so that what i described in #1 and #2 doesn't happen.

In the special offers forum, only sales questions should be asked, posts that contain only comments like "wow what a good offer" should be deleted. This will keep a specific thread from keeping that top spot in that forum...

My suggestions would take considerably more work from both the mods and the members, but I think in the end it will make WHT more popular and will make the community a better place to visit every day...

BTW, if you need another mod, I spend like 12+ hours here.....ya...I'm addicted ;)

"leaving little companies like me without a chance of advertising here.... "

How is that so when there are only 2 out of 40 spots taken?

What I meant was that smaller companies may not be able to purchase a sticky ad if bigger companies with more $$$ purchase them first. threads/offers that are nonsticky will drop down far below than those that are sticky and will not be viewed as often....

WHT has become a business and its owners will want to do what it takes to make WHT popular and financially successful.

People will learn to not just look at the top two-three threads.... No wait they already did...

As for WHTSucks, I'm guessing your calculations are very far off.... Contrary to popular believe this place is not a advertising gold mine. I've worked with advertising numerous times and right now it's going very poorly.

If the rumors are true (about the 5 digit price HS paid for WHT) then he'll never make that money back... He might have expected that though....

Thank god he bought the forum, he's one of the few who would keep it fair.

People will learn to not just look at the top two-three threads.... No wait they already did...

Never said that people will look at just the top two or three threads...I'm saying that the top two or three will get far more views than nonsticky offers as new offers are posted every day, meaning the old ones get dropped off to the bottom of the page....

Your post was not there when i was reading the thread... :)

But, you know what... it's okay... those who have the best service/price will create enough "buzz" to be talked about in the other more widely viewed forums on WHT.

It is true that the advertisers will get more views but it's life...

Originally posted by web_res
Your post was not there when i was reading the thread... :)

But, you know what... it's okay... those who have the best service/price will create enough "buzz" to be talked about other more widely viewed forums on WHT.

very true which is why paid advertising shoudn't exist in a community like WHT.....i've put up with that huge ad up top...i can't put up with stickies in addition to that

See, when you run content sites... thats the one that bugs you. In reality I'm not much of a webhost but i do run content sites that gets hundreds of thousands of visitors per month (hits being in the millions :))

But advertising has really just died... for my niche i get above average rates but thats still not a lot. Across the board prices have declined greatly (were talking about factors of ten here, this is why content sites are going crazy to meet up to half their old revenues with larger more invasive and more frequent rates).

BTW, forums are at the bottom of the ladder... But well moderated forums like this one aren't in the same category but it's far from being a gold mine.

We all knew it had to come one day. I mean, nothing is free forever right? :eek:

Overall i think we should not react so negatively to the change, but instead wait and see how it works out.

If it's not so great. I am sure headsurfer will listen to what WHT members have to say and adjust the section accordingly.

;) i would hope

Just a note that this person just intended on trolling. Re-registered (obviously a current member but too much of a coward to post under their name), then posted this, then changed email address to garbage address, which kills access (user would need to reconfirm and reactivate).

I have no problems with people having an optinon on something, however if you do have an opinion, feel free to post it and don't be an idiot about it.

Edit: Just noticed this sounds kinda flame like. I didn't mean it to be, the point was that you can say what you want and have an opinion about a policy, etc., without worrying about what we think (or at least what I think anyhow).

I didn't mean to be quite so negative above, it just reminded me of 3rd graders who run up to another kid, call them a name, and then run off. Whatever...

my main problem is its really bad that its sorte in such a manner..tis confusing an quite ugly....

thats my only suggestion...

get rid of that bad sorting

Have the rates been posted yet?

________________________
Keith

Originally posted by akashd
very true which is why paid advertising shoudn't exist in a community like WHT.....i've put up with that huge ad up top...i can't put up with stickies in addition to that

... Akash, no one has said you *HAVE* to participate on WHT... You can take your posts elsewhere. I personally am glad that Matt was able to take care of his financial obligations as mentioned in his 'site for sale post' ($ from selling site) , and I think that the community here is in great shape.

And... Chicken, you rule. :D

Hey.. You can't please everyone!

Why should HS try and please those who can't be pleased?

I think HS is doing a good job.

-Kyle's Wife

Originally posted by mrlarter
my main problem is its really bad that its sorte in such a manner..tis confusing an quite ugly....

thats my only suggestion...

get rid of that bad sorting

You can still view the advertising forums with their old sort method (order by last reply) by clicking on the Last Reply title at the top of the last column.