What's happening with BHW?

[ArmpitFunk]

I don't, and I get the feeling that you abandoned the topic and started throwing random punches, so if you have a point you want to make (and it sounds like you do), go for it.

I made my point. You ignored it. This is just like the Threads is better than Twitter crap. If you're a stan, fine. you cape for BHW. Not everybody here does. Period.

 

[roydan]

I made my point. You ignored it. This is just like the Threads is better than Twitter crap. If you're a stan, fine. you cape for BHW. Not everybody here does. Period.

I still, to this moment, didn't understand your previous comment.
You call it ignoring? Fine.

 

[CreativeDaddy]

BHW can't introduce rules that reduces their own profitability

As people say, first this is a forum, secondly a marketplace.

It started as a forum, with damien dave, a forum about sharing information with value, a place where people can learn with each other experiences but nowadays does not look like it, it's sales everywhere and shitlists on a daily basis.

So priorities have been changed that's it? Does the forum common interest about sharing IM value should not be above financial interests?

The implementation of a reliable payment service for marketplace sales is the only thing it will now differenciate bhw from other big online forums. The trust factor which misses in IM business, mostly in online marketplaces.

 

[Techpreneur]

I think a big part of the problem is bhw has not updated at anywhere close to the pace of the problems it now needs to solve. Basically it is pretty much the same as it was when i joined.

The problem with that is from a tech point of view not a single piece of tech i used when i joined 10 years ago works well anymore, i had to update it all, most multiple times, since then.

The mythical marketplace 2.0 update has been coming for years, but isnt here.

Until the tech is updated bhw just isnt built to deal with the issues most are experiencing, so cannot solve the problems of now, anymore than an elite sportsman of 30 is not an elite sportsman at 40.

BHW's organic traffic has reduced by up to 50%, as per Semrush reports. So, I guess BHW is reluctant to take a serious step toward upgrading the overall website. Or, something else prevents them from giving any updates.


BHW is completely occupied by spammy link sellers, and hence the buyers are losing trust in the platform.

 

[flprocess]

I never heard of anyone being scammed online until I reached BHW and saw the dispute resolution forum. C'mon, give us a break...

 

[NirvanaWolf]

So priorities have been changed that's it? Does the forum common interest about sharing IM value should not be above financial interests?

BHW has always been a platform with user generated content. As old users move on and newer ones are added to the platform, the value people get from content shared by others may fluctuate as well. Happens to the biggest social media platforms too. That is not in BHW's control.
Every website owner's priority is to make money. BHW is no different, can't blame them.

shitlists on a daily basis

I visit the sub-forum occasionally and I don't think there are a ton of shitlists on a daily basis. If you compare the active userbase and the number of active shitlists, the ratio is not too bad.

I'm with you when you say escrow is needed for bigger transactions. I hope they speed up marketplace 2.0

 

[Exxtra]

Yes I do not agree with that forum policy because online business with upfront payments need a trustworthy factor to be considered legit and have a good overall sucess rate.
Anyone can buy a subscription, start a sales thread with vicious result by buying them for a third-party, then when approved attracting costumers with great prices (ofc lmao) when vicious sellers tend to grab as much clients and value as possible bofore shitlists start to appear (sartre case between others).

Wow, you're expecting "guaranteed results" and you think that paying upfront is some kind of privilege. You sound like a child. The services offered on BHW are subject to your own discernment. You have that, right? No? Then you should stick to playing video games.

Online business can only have overall success for both parts if there is a escrow service which translates into that "trustworthy factor" or if the parts are well know members with some kind of respect value which I understand forum ranks kinda, in a way, provide that except some cases like sartre or tommy which had the maximum rank available and still got shitlisted and banned.

If both parties to the contract agree to use an escrow, great, but you're not going to be forcing that on everyone. Plenty of business occurs on BHW where nobody gets scammed, yet you want to hold up a few isolated incidents as if they are the norm?

Something needs to be done and the 2.0 Marketplace yes will somehow solve that with hold payments until results are showed, however it will not fix other things and I feel that regular users and promitent service buyers, each day it passes, feel that bhw is not as trustworthy as before with all this stuff.

BHW is just the medium. They do not affect the trustworthiness of an offer or individual in any way. They can only attest to what they experience, and their experience doesn't mean everyone will have the same.

The only way I see this getting better, is by aplying safety measures in terms of marketplace sales threads, increase the sales thread value or whatever, true sellers will not bother because they know the service is good but by increasing the price implement more features to check the service quality and legitimacy and by increasing accounts trustworthy factors for free and paid ranks.

We've had quite enough of idiots trying to impede normal people from life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under the guise of "safety". Sorry. Hard pass. Learn to be responsible for your actions and educate yourself about assumed risk. It is not anybody else's job or duty to provide for your safety (unless they agreed to for some reason).

My 2 cents.

Ah yes, the most misquoted Biblical verse in history...where the poor woman whose tithe of two coins represented the entirety of her wordly wealth, thereby showing her devotion and faith through a lack of fixation on materialism... while other people with far more wealth shunned and scoffed at the idea of parting with anything at all, let alone everything. "Two cents" never meant sharing a dumb opinion that nobody asked for.

Ye it would help if they added a escrow payment option only so that everyone on the forum has to pay by escrow, as its the only real safest way to pay for stuff.

Wow, these nutters...he goes from "it's an option" to "everyone must use escrow to pay". Just go to bed, kid. If you don't feel safe here, maybe give the furry forums a try.

 

[awesomewebsites]

BHW's organic traffic has reduced by up to 50%, as per Semrush reports.

That might be temporary. It can regain or increase on next Google update in 1-2 months.

 

[Techpreneur]

That might be temporary. It can regain or increase on next Google update in 1-2 months.

I'm talking about the changes in the last 2 years. it is losing traffic gradually every month.

 

[awesomewebsites]

I'm talking about the changes in the last 2 years. it is losing traffic gradually every month.View attachment 267510

Hard to digest. It can be inaccurate.

 

[roydan]

Wow, you're expecting "guaranteed results" and you think that paying upfront is some kind of privilege. You sound like a child. The services offered on BHW are subject to your own discernment. You have that, right? No? Then you should stick to playing video games.

We've had quite enough of idiots trying to impede normal people from life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under the guise of "safety". Sorry. Hard pass. Learn to be responsible for your actions and educate yourself about assumed risk. It is not anybody else's job or duty to provide for your safety (unless they agreed to for some reason).

Ah yes, the most misquoted Biblical verse in history...where the poor woman whose tithe of two coins represented the entirety of her wordly wealth, thereby showing her devotion and faith through a lack of fixation on materialism... while other people with far more wealth shunned and scoffed at the idea of parting with anything at all, let alone everything. "Two cents" never meant sharing a dumb opinion that nobody asked for.

Wow, these nutters...he goes from "it's an option" to "everyone must use escrow to pay". Just go to bed, kid. If you don't feel safe here, maybe give the furry forums a try.

This thread, I believe, was posted to voice some concerns and to discuss them.

Not only your comment discourages the discussion, which was the thread's entire point in the first place, it is also violent and ignorant.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Techpreneur]

Hard to digest. It can be inaccurate.

It's the reality. The numbers can be inaccurate but the graph flow is correct.

 

[CreativeDaddy]

This thread, I believe, was posted to voice some concerns and to discuss them.

Not only your comment discourages the discussion, which was the thread's entire point in the first place, it is also violent and ignorant.

Just my 2 cents.

This. Thank you @roydan

 

[umbreno]

This thread, I believe, was posted to voice some concerns and to discuss them.

Not only your comment discourages the discussion, which was the thread's entire point in the first place, it is also violent and ignorant.

Just my 2 cents.

Considering how passive aggressive your own posts often come across in their sarcastic, patronising and condescending tones, I am surprised you feel this way lol

 

[roydan]

Considering how passive aggressive your own posts often come across in their sarcastic, patronising and condescending tones, I am surprised you feel this way lol

You can say many things about me, but if I ever came across as passive aggressive, it was not intended.
If I've ever been violent, feel free to call me out or report the comments, I'd appreciate it.

Despite these, I'm a human, too, and I have my days...

 

[umbreno]

You can say many things about me, but if I ever came across as passive aggressive, it was not intended.
If I've ever been violent, feel free to call me out or report the comments, I'd appreciate it.

Despite these, I'm a human, too, and I have my days...

Ok maybe I reads into it too much! My bad

 

[Diamond Damien]

Recently I've been watching so many shitlists which create some mediatism for a few days and than looks like everyone just forgets about it.

No one's talking about sartre anymore and all the people who got fucked who the hell even promoted that guy to Exec anyway, or when crypto boomed and old accounts (bought bhw accounts in third-parties) starting appearing from everywhere with people doing stuff they cant like selling discord dm services after security update for crypto/nft users here or when instagram algo updated and services start appearing or those active sales threads with inflated responses which are more than obvious and still active god knows why.

That's what happen when brand new members can start sales threads or apply for freelancer jobs because they pay a subscription for it.

Everyday I see this brand new members who spam introduction threads to acquire minimum requirements for subscription or just buy marketplace to bypass that like some proxy businesses I've seen around for example.

Yes I do not agree with that forum policy because online business with upfront payments need a trustworthy factor to be considered legit and have a good overall sucess rate.
Anyone can buy a subscription, start a sales thread with vicious result by buying them for a third-party, then when approved attracting costumers with great prices (ofc lmao) when vicious sellers tend to grab as much clients and value as possible bofore shitlists start to appear (sartre case between others).

Online business can only have overall success for both parts if there is a escrow service which translates into that "trustworthy factor" or if the parts are well know members with some kind of respect value which I understand forum ranks kinda, in a way, provide that except some cases like sartre or tommy which had the maximum rank available and still got shitlisted and banned.

Something needs to be done and the 2.0 Marketplace yes will somehow solve that with hold payments until results are showed, however it will not fix other things and I feel that regular users and promitent service buyers, each day it passes, feel that bhw is not as trustworthy as before with all this stuff.

The only way I see this getting better, is by aplying safety measures in terms of marketplace sales threads, increase the sales thread value or whatever, true sellers will not bother because they know the service is good but by increasing the price implement more features to check the service quality and legitimacy and by increasing accounts trustworthy factors for free and paid ranks.

"Oh but it will decrease BHW profitability and bla bla bla" will it? No. And if you think it will apply a fee/royality for each sale in each service in 2.0 marketplace upon escrow service. More services dont equal to more profitability, you need to streamline, adjust the way the service and payments are delivered. We need quality not quantity.

My 2 cents.

We're starting to move away from the OP's point, I'll comment on the rest later but wanted to reply to this opening post specifically.

Thanks for your 2 cents - (in the usual ie non-biblical sense)

To reply to your points inorder. Considering the number of transactions and services listed on the forum the Dispute Resolution section (formerly shitlist) has about 20 new threads created over the last 2 months. https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/dispute-resolution.31/?order=post_date&direction=desc that's roughly 1 every 3 days based on the activity in the marketplace. That hardly justifies a "so many threads in the Dispute resolution" concern and yes whilst the occasional bad actor does get through we're constantly working on our criteria to ensure there is harmony in the marketplace so you can rest assured that all services are tested before entering the marketplace. Where a service can't deliver as advertised anymore they are shut down as soon as we're alerted to this fact, we also secret shop to make sure services are delivered. I'm happy to say the vast majority of those we review and re-review pass with flying colours.

Brand new members can't "just start sales threads" - as per the above they are reviewed, but through a stronger lense (hence the higher price of entry for Marketplace seller v's Jr. VIP.
Jr. VIP is easier to review because we can read their history of posts and engagement around the forum as can any potential buyer. Where their posts are all bumps or "Welcome" but haven't been reported via the report button then we remove those and they get a warning for post-count inflation. It's actually fairly hard to list a product on our marketplace and this is by design. We end up rejecting circa 45% of threads (as of this post) for not complying with our process as listed here https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-black-hat-world-marketplace-rules.1295700/

Where you want that extra level of "trustworthy factor" there are existing services like escrow.com which will allow you to do that currently.

I won't go into specifics of the 2 individuals but you can see the ban reasons of any engaged member listed against their profiles.

We believe all of the above, including our reviews of services before they are set live, our process behind dispute resolutions and our moderation within the community as a whole gives rise to a strong place to engage in digital marketing discussions and purchase all the required tools for your digital marketing desires.
All this will be enhanced on MP2 but that's the future, I wanted to deal with this in the now.

Profitability comes with doing the right thing. We're not going to be brought down by the loss of 1 marketplace seller account or a $30 listing fee. It's about being consistent and transparent which within the terms listed above I'm confident we can say we do the right thing and when there is an issue we learn from it. The vast majority of the marketplace community delivers great products at competitive rates. With MP 2 we'll only get better.

More to come.

 

[Diamond Damien]

Ye it would help if they added a escrow payment option only so that everyone on the forum has to pay by escrow, as its the only real safest way to pay for stuff.

We'd never implement a system that made everyone pay via escrow - that wouldn't be logical, it's about user choice. But a man in the middle / escrow style service needs a platform like MP2 before it can be implemented. It's a chicken and egg situation (clearly the chicken - otherwise, where did the egg come from?), you need the infrastructure before you can do the nice things.

Im new one here ( i have one account 5 years ago but i forgot mail or password .. was nobie then ... with a few post .. im a newbie now ). I dont know if need a escrow or something like that ... im pretty sure need a little bit of strict rules ... 4 people try to scam me already ( one clickadu administrator - one china bullshit software - one wich i buy something 400usd and another try to ripme off for free ) and another who wanna pay in advance... but i check and i see 2-3-4-5 post and its ok for me to know i dont pay upfront and i only buy from jr.vip.
Will be very hard too put escrow here ... most of the service are 3rd parties , example smm panels , pbn and seo package most of them are resellers. maybe at design and hire freelancer will be ok. i dont know its my opinion anyway BTW was greate yesterday its grate today and will be tomorrow.
This is the world ... with good or bad its ours...

Thanks for your kind words and welcome back. I don't see any dispute threads from your account if you've been scammed via a seller on the forum please do let us know here https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/dispute-resolution.31/ so we can assist in getting your money back or removing those members from the forum.

ye thats why you use escrow as well as its safer as well which the forums hasnt bothered to do for some reason

We've always left that to the professionals such as escrow.com there is and has been for some time clear demand for an inhouse escrow service. Whilst there are significant legal requirements to overcome it's something that we're keen to implement in MP2.

Is it? Because does not look like it.

To answer your points that haven't already been covered above.

1. Yes I'd say we're a forum first - why? well lets start with threads -
As of this morning
Rest of the forum = 1,208,883
Marketplace = 11,754

Then looking at posts.
Rest of the forum = 11,226,666 (yep that's over 11 million) ref
Marketplace = 3,213,500
*Don't forget that's excluding all the spam and junk we clean out on a daily basis.

Then support - the vast majority of our newbie guides, which are created based on support tickets relate to the forum not the marketplace.

So clearly the majority of engagement is outside of the marketplace. Looks like a forum first to me.
Stats ref the bottom of the forums page https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/

That's why I refered applying a fee (automatic) upon each purchase using escrow, fee to the forum to cover that aditional manpower.

We're looking at the most cost-effective way to run our Escrow whilst maintaining the best service for the customer.

Improve the sales thread approval by implementing a more strict policy.

We have strict enough policies already - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-black-hat-world-marketplace-rules.1295700/
Based on the above stats, 20 disputes from thousands of transactions over the last couple of months, I'd say we're about right on the balance. Alway happy to hear idea for defined improvements.

I'm talking about the majority of payments, cash. For crypto idk how escrow works or if its even implemented but we need to guide this first through the majority of currency and then adapt alternative ones to it.

Covered under escrow above.

 

[Diamond Damien]

Answering questions that aren't already covered in the thread by other users and correcting some assumptions.

No I don’t think sellers here would appreciate Rigorus KYC and payment method checks given the nature of a lot of the products and services - Won’t work
Escrow - Already explained above. Won’t work.
‘Verify sales threads authenticity’ - I thought they do this already

This will be optional - if you want to buy from a merchant who's been approved for escrow then you can. If you don't mind then you have that option. We're all about creating more choices.

We already covered our sales thread review process your can read more about that here https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-black-hat-world-marketplace-rules.1295700/

Well looks like "the process" does not work properly does it boss.

Just saying it's obvious that something must be improved because a platform with this size should not have such regular cases of scammers.

I don't feel confortable anymore buying from sales threads here and much more promitent buyers are in the same situation, it should be a controled environment and it's not.

Really, don't want to be that guy because I'm here to add value to this forum but something is not right.

As mentioned above "the process" does work. 20 disputes over the last 2 months from tens of thousands of sales. I'd say that's a win - but always room for improvement - more details are available in my post above.

The place will never see its heyday like it had back in the early 2010s. Fact is, the marketplace should close completely. Between the convoluted rules and the fact that since I've come back to BHW (which my old account was deleted for inactivity but I got my name back) I've gotten most of my services on Fiverr or via Telegram groups. SMM panels by googling. This obsession with crypto regardless that most Americans can't use it via exchanges or alt payments like Payeer is enough for me to just slum in the Twitter forums and ignore the rest. I've had 8 straight WTB threads closed within 10 minutes of posting.

I can take my business elsewhere with less rules and better results.

You are of course welcome to your opinion - we all have them, just wanted to give you some facts.
1. We have far more of everything (user engagement, post, threads, traffic, viewers etc etc) now than we had back in 2010. Given the number of options there are now vs 2010, I'm proud of this community. But I'm going to say that... I have the data.
2. We don't delete accounts for inactivity.
3. We close threads that don't follow our terms https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/rules-posting-in-want-to-buy.951771/ we have over 56,000 threads in there and 176,000 posts so enough people appear to be able to manage it.
4. Finally - most Americans can do this https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinba...arted-with-coinbase/create-a-coinbase-account

BHW is a business and is a place of business for others. Suggestions like removing the marketplace completely are absurd to say the least.
Apart from escrow for bigger transactions there is practically nothing more that can be done to mitigate the risks of scammers. BHW can't introduce rules that reduces their own profitability.
Scammers lurk on every large platform and everything in the end comes down to your own due diligence. BHW rules are robust as they are and I don't think any other IM forum takes care or even tries to take care of their members like BHW does.
Some people are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that BHW is technically an independent company that aims to maximize their profit. Any member being here is a voluntary act on their part. Other tech companies take all their decisions unilaterally. We are at least given a chance to be heard.
OP had genuine points of concern, but the replies turned this thread into a wall of unreasonable shit posting.

I hope I've answered your questions in my previous post on this thread satisfactorily. To note, we're not about profit for profit's sake. The community must come first, as without the community there is no profit. We'd never put all our eggs in one basket so we're not reliant on any one company for our payroll which keeps us independent (use the search to see my previous posts on this topic). These come from lessons learnt with a previous company long long ago, to ensure your independence and integrity don't tie yourself into one revenue source.

I think a big part of the problem is bhw has not updated at anywhere close to the pace of the problems it now needs to solve. Basically it is pretty much the same as it was when i joined.

The problem with that is from a tech point of view not a single piece of tech i used when i joined 10 years ago works well anymore, i had to update it all, most multiple times, since then.

The mythical marketplace 2.0 update has been coming for years, but isnt here.

Until the tech is updated bhw just isnt built to deal with the issues most are experiencing, so cannot solve the problems of now, anymore than an elite sportsman of 30 is not an elite sportsman at 40.

Going to have to counter you here @GringoMonkey - far from not being updated since 2013 (your join date) we roll out new functionality and back-end mod tools extremely frequently. You can see some of them here https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/change-log-behind-the-scenes-at-bhw.1268318/ but the majority don't impact the day-to-day user experience. Many more forums https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/ and millions of additional posts still keep us relevant.

MP 2 has been discussed for a while (not to be confused with BHW2.0 which came out mid 2020) , we tried many avenues, we now have a working in-house beta. If you're interested in joining the beta then drop me a pm with a link to your marketplace thread you'd like to see in MP2 and I'll add you to the list.

I'd not take Mike Tyson on at 57, 40 or 30 years old. Sometimes the greats are just unbeatable as long as they paddle their own canoe.

 

[Diamond Damien]

BHW's organic traffic has reduced by up to 50%, as per Semrush reports. So, I guess BHW is reluctant to take a serious step toward upgrading the overall website. Or, something else prevents them from giving any updates.


BHW is completely occupied by spammy link sellers, and hence the buyers are losing trust in the platform.

So inaccurate it hurts, and yet Google (whose analytics we've permitted on the forum since day 1) and our in-house numbers say otherwise... When questioning this discrepancy with SEMRush you just get pushed here to this nice vague statement. https://www.semrush.com/kb/998-wher...ts own machine,our databases remains the same.

According to the same tool, we're based in Australia (we're in the UK) and we were founded years before I was born... as with all these tools that don't have access to your real data, you pays ya money ya takes your choice, they aren't gospel.

BHW has always been a platform with user generated content. As old users move on and newer ones are added to the platform, the value people get from content shared by others may fluctuate as well. Happens to the biggest social media platforms too. That is not in BHW's control.
Every website owner's priority is to make money. BHW is no different, can't blame them.


I visit the sub-forum occasionally and I don't think there are a ton of shitlists on a daily basis. If you compare the active userbase and the number of active shitlists, the ratio is not too bad.

I'm with you when you say escrow is needed for bigger transactions. I hope they speed up marketplace 2.0

Covered on the profiteering post above.

I hope I've answered your questions in my previous post on this thread satisfactorily. To note, we're not about profit for profit's sake. The community must come first, as without the community there is no profit. We'd never put all our eggs in one basket so we're not reliant on any one company for our payroll which keeps us independent (use the search to see my previous posts on this topic). These come from lessons learnt with a previous company long long ago, to ensure your independence and integrity don't tie yourself into one revenue source.

Thanks for all the feedback in these posts - where inaccuracies or incorrect assumptions creep in we like to correct them where possible. Always happy to hear from the community, it's one of the many aspects that makes BHW so amazing.