Poll - Should we allow multiple Deals threads?

Commercial announcements and deals should only be allowed for the developers and the companies selling the libraries and software plugins. Not for affiliates and not for people who want to comment them.
The announcements should be locked threads and only the original OP should have the administration rights to comment or update them.
People who want to give some constructive criticism or just start a conversation about it should open a new thread.
Without including any affiliate links! Double threads for discussion should be merged or deleted by the mods or admin.

By the way, @playz123 is right.
How does Mike handle to manage such a complex forum and develop VI´s at the same time?
I´m deeply impressed!

chillbot said:

Sure are a lot of new rules around here.

If you're adding rules anyway I would like to be called "Mr. Chillbot" or "Mr. Bot" from now on. I feel it's a sign of respect.

EDIT: also accepting "sir".

EDIT: debating accepting "señor" as well.

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i second this motion

I wonder if it would make sense to just shut off comments on deal announcements by paying advertisers while leaving on the ability to "like" the post. My forum admin experience is limited to phpBB but XenForo is quite similar, and this is doable in phpBB.

Polkasound said:

I think dzilizzi has a good point about paying advertisers having a dedicated place to post their product announcements without having to deal with negative criticism, but I think simply making it a rule, hoping people abide by it, and trying to enforce it, is impractical.

My ideas aren't going to work for everyone, but if VI-C were my forum, this is how I would streamline it:

• "Commercial Announcements" would be changed to Paid Commercial Announcements, and it would be a publicly visible, moderator-approved sub-forum for paying advertisers only. After a developer or retailer submits a post, a VI-C moderator receives the post, verifies it came from a paying advertiser, publishes it, and immediately locks the thread so that nothing can be posted after it. Paid Commercial Announcements would be strictly a one-way conduit of information.

• "Commercial Announcements Tier 2" would be changed to Free Commercial Announcements. Though blocked from public view, it would be free to use by all developers and retailers, and would also remain open for feedback/discussion by the membership.

• Tiers 1 and 2 of "DEALS, DEALS, DEALS!" would be consolidated into just one DEALS, DEALS, DEALS! sub-forum, blocked from public view, which would be free for everyone to use, whether they're developers, retailers, affiliates, or regular forum members. The whole purpose of this sub-forum would be to serve as an ultra-convenient, one-stop shopping sub-forum for members.

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I think this might be a winner, and would have the happy side effect of a paid commercial area in which the most current deals are always on top, because there is no bumping.

But one possible problem: Would the static nature of the paid commercial forum make it less attractive for the more popular developers who are constantly getting bumped back to the top, sometimes for months or even years after the announcement has become dated?

Quasar said:

Would the static nature of the paid commercial forum make it less attractive for the more popular developers who are constantly getting bumped back to the top

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They way I see it is like this... advertisers are paying for banner exposure. Giving advertisers their own, locked, commercial sub-forum viewable by the public would be a privilege. A bonus. The lack of thread-bumping would even the playing field for all advertisers who take advantage of that privilege. If that's not good enough for some advertisers, they can up their exposure by buying more banners, or they can take their business elsewhere.

Polkasound said:

They way I see it is like this... advertisers are paying for banner exposure. Giving advertisers their own, locked, commercial sub-forum viewable by the public would be a privilege. A bonus. The lack of thread-bumping would even the playing field for all advertisers who take advantage of that privilege. If that's not good enough for some advertisers, they can up their exposure by buying more banners, or they can take their business elsewhere.

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And they can always post in your free-for-all Deal, Deals, Deals! section as well (which, sans tiers, wouldn't shame the paying devs with 2nd tier status). Yes, I think Mike ought to give your idea serious consideration. By far the best I've read yet.

Quasar said:

But one possible problem: Would the static nature of the paid commercial forum make it less attractive for the more popular developers who are constantly getting bumped back to the top, sometimes for months or even years after the announcement has become dated?

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Yes, that would make it much less attractive. If threads in Commercial Announcements died after one post, I suspect we'd see a lot more fake members posting in Sample Talk to get conversations started there instead.

Plus, I think it's healthy to have discussion about a release. This is a forum, after all. What better place to ask how long the intro pricing lasts, or whether a library includes schlargando samples?

Also, long threads tend to be about products that warrant it, which is helpful to the casual visitor. If they see a thread that has gone on for lots of pages, they know there must be something significant there. If they see a thread with no responses, they can assume it's probably a less significant release. There are exceptions, of course, but it's mostly true.

Polkasound said:

They way I see it is like this... advertisers are paying for banner exposure. Giving advertisers their own, locked, commercial sub-forum viewable by the public would be a privilege. A bonus.

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It's the other way around. Almost all developers are here to get their products discussed in threads. Even the developers who "aren't here" have surrogates who post for them. Ads are secondary.

That's why I did the two tier system for Announcements and Deals. It incentivized the ads.

I think schlargando and legato deserve their own section.

Mike Greene said:

It's the other way around. Almost all developers are here to get their products discussed in threads.

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That wouldn't change. Nobody would be preventing discussions of advertised products to take place in Sample-Talk (or whichever appropriate sub-forum would apply).

Mike Greene said:

If threads in Commercial Announcements died after one post, I suspect we'd see a lot more fake members posting in Sample Talk to get conversations started there instead.

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Conversations about the advertised products? Well, isn't that the purpose of Sample-Talk? No matter who is doing the posting, the whole point of locking each thread in Paid Commercial Announcements would be to: 1. Automatically protect the advertisement from unflattering feedback. 2. Get conversations about the products started in Sample-Talk (or whichever appropriate sub-forum would apply).

The way things are now, you've got new members having to read about tiers, you're having to monitor feedback in commercial announcements to make sure it doesn't cross a "negativity threshold", you're moving tier 1 threads into tier 2 sub-forums, etc., and all of this work is for the sake of catering to advertisers. If you like it that way, that's great, and I'm sure your advertisers are especially appreciative. But at what point do you feel your advertisers are getting enough for their money?

Right now, your advertisers are getting banner exposure, advertising in commercial announcements, and publicity from discussion of their products. As a former forum administrator, I see ways to streamline VI-C for both the membership's and moderators' benefit by changing a few words, removing a few restrictions, and merging sub-forums. The streamlining wouldn't exactly pander to advertisers, but neither would it inhibit their exposure. They'd still be getting banner exposure, advertising in commercial announcements, and publicity from discussion of their products.

While I do appreciate the intentions, I think this is what's known as "a solution in search of a problem." Don't get me wrong, there are still a number of things I want to do, but the Commercial Announcements and Deals forums are doing what they need to do. Best of all, they pretty much run themselves.

We don't need to monitor Commercial Announcements for negativity. We do get reported posts from time to time, but those are rarely in Commercial Announcements. It really isn't a problem. Years ago, when there was only Sample Talk and no separate Commercial Announcements section ... that's when we had problems.

I don't think the Tiers are much of a problem, either. I suppose a new member might wonder why there are two (if he even notices, since most people use Latest Posts), but I don't think it's something he's going to lose sleep over. If he doesn't want to use Latest Posts and he wants to check for Announcements or Deals, he'll just ... check both tiers. Simple.

None of this stuff is a problem on my end and I'm actually really happy with how things are right now. I'm definitely not looking to make any sweeping changes. I do want to find a slicker way to display the two tiers, and I have Claudio and André working on that, but even if they can't find a better way, I'm fine. The two-tier system has already been very successful at waking up advertisers to pay for an ad, so I would need a very compelling reason to change that back.

Sounds good. I just remember a few days or weeks back, you said something about the forum pulling you away from Realitone, so I was just thinking of ways to cut down administration time. If you're happy, the moderators are happy, the advertisers are happy, and the members are happy, then nothing needs to change.

I'm not sure if it's the way I remember it, but for every minute your spend dealing with things that are visible to the members/guests of your forum, you spend an hour dealing with spammers (and sometimes 8 hours).

Just an idea..might be rubbish but.

How about having two new threads. One for smaller indipendant sellers (or anyone) where new form topics have a lifecycle before self deleting. You could set it to be "shown" for 7 days (or something) from the initial post, people can comment etc.. then after 7 days self deletion.

Then the other thread can be for approved developers, who are the only ones able to create new threads about their products. Unapproved members can only post comment to those threads.

MarcusD said:

Just an idea..might be rubbish but.

How about having two new threads. One for smaller indipendant sellers (or anyone) where new form topics have a lifecycle before self deleting. You could set it to be "shown" for 7 days (or something) from the initial post, people can comment etc.. then after 7 days self deletion.

Then the other thread can be for approved developers, who are the only ones able to create new threads about their products. Unapproved members can only post comment to those threads.

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That would be a bunch of work. I don't like work.

The current way has its flaws, but it's working pretty well and it's been especially effective at getting non-advertisers to take notice, so I'm going to leave things as is for a while.