Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : WHT Announcements, Feedback and Questions : Requests Replies

[porcupine]

Why is it we can now reply to threads in the special offers section, but not requests. I don't know about anyone else, but i kind of liked, and disliked the ability to reply in there, and here's why:

What is good about it:

- Kept me from making multiple offers to the same people (when it was disabled before, i accidentally did that once or twice, with different prices too, that was a big oops )
- You can tell those idiots looking for dedicated servers for $50/mo to get a clue, instead of leaving them hanging
- Competetors compete against each other on there

Whats not good:
- Idiot newbies post really stupid replies, and bad offers (this is a very generalized statement, but im sure some of you have seen them)
- Competetors compete (good/bad, some people just go overboard in the requests forum to get a customer it seems)


I'm sure theres many other points, but why not set it up like the special offers section now? I mean it didn't have to be locked like that in the first place considering noones hogging a page for requests, and users can submit as many as they want as often as they want......

[fractiousws]

Yeah, I have noticed this too. Why was it turned back?

[porcupine]

i dno, i assume it was done when special offers was made no replies, but look at the trouble that stirred up (and with good reason). I dont see why in the first place requests was touched though (esp considering as far as i've ever seen, theres never been a problem with people in the requests section). I think if people can't reply to the requests, it will end up hurting the forum, i've alreayd noticed a LOT less people posting since the changes, i mean i used to get like 40 "someone has replied to your thread" emails, now i get about ... 5 a day.

[fractiousws]

Notice the bigger cpmpanys are against the no reply. Because they make a great offer and it stays at the top for days. Then when someone elses post goes ahead of theres quincidently someone ends up post "Man this is a great offer" or something like that and there they are, at the top again. I am not saying that smaller companys can't offer something good, just that even if they do they never get a chance to be seen.

[porcupine]

Originally posted by fractiousws
Notice the bigger cpmpanys are against the no reply. Because they make a great offer and it stays at the top for days. Then when someone elses post goes ahead of theres quincidently someone ends up post "Man this is a great offer" or something like that and there they are, at the top again. I am not saying that smaller companys can't offer something good, just that even if they do they never get a chance to be seen.

Yeh, thats why you can reply in special offers now, but it sorts by thread date, not latest post, thats what im saying should be done in the REQUESTS forum now, aka people looking for services. Heck, they coulda left that one alone as it was even, i didn't really think it was ever abused, can we get a mod opinion on this?

[alwaysweb]

I completely agree with porcupine here. Before continuing, I want to say we really appreciate the free advertising we've received from exposure on WHT, and for that we are really grateful.

But, we would love to see the requests folder allowing for the posting of replies again. I haven't ever seen any problems nor even noticed anyone complaining about host threads/requests staying on the top for a while, you sure this has been a problem? (I guess only the moderators would know...)

I think a LOT of WHT's visitors were interested in scouting the requests folder, checking out replied offers, etc. I also enjoyed seeing what other hosts were offering, and seeing how much we can beat 'em by, haha!

I also think its going to hurt WHT too as a lot of new customers are not connecting with many ideal web hosts who could handle the needs of their site, while helping grow the hosts customer base at the same time... And, although our site is well promoted and established, we noticely a drop in both traffic and signups when the replies were disabled.

To answer fracious about little hosts not being seen, we were once (and probably could still be considered) a little host... Did you not see some of the thread view counts on most every thread in the requests folder? Even though larger threads = larger views (obviously), every thread even for smaller hosts gets exposure no matter which way you approach it.

So, if the special offers forum sorts by thread date now, isn't it an easy fix to apply the same sorting modification to the requests folder then turn it on? :-)

[porcupine]

i take it considerign no mods have even replied to this or commented that this idea is being rejected/ignored....

[Chicken]

There's only one person (that I know of) that would make this change.

[porcupine]

has he read this thread? will he implament this? Also whats with the recent downtime? about 3 times today i've hadta come back later cuz webhosting talk was either "sorry the server is busy" or totally unresponsive/dead, whats up with that, did the server get moved to rackshack or something crazy?