This is precisely why I won't be renewing my VIP subscription (and you can remove my Executive VIP condition too). - It's a waste of time.

GringoMonkey said:

You were not seeing things. I was an executive vip, but when i did not renew my paid subscription i lost that.

Click to expand...

SERHub said:

Should have stayed in ninja mode, ser..

Actually that’s a good idea for the forum - @Diamond Damien perhaps an auto downgrade if members don’t keep their subscriptions live would be a good idea, that way ninja mode becomes obsolete.

Click to expand...

Vynith said:

This got me thinking does diamond Damien himself have to pay for jr VIP membership too?

Click to expand...

SOCOM said:

Sorry mods, but it feels like you guys don't take the AI spam seriously enough.

I have to report obvious AI that should be filtered out.

At this point, I don't even care if it filters out some real people.

The forum is dead because its littered with posts that have 0 value. People regurgitating AI answers. You can definitely block it.

You could even shadowban their comments so they think their comments are live but they actually aren't.

I talked with old BHW outside of the forum and they don't come back because the mods don't take it seriously.

Then spam accounts become marketplace sellers.

There are so many sales threads where the only testimonials are from newbs with low post counts.

This used to be the best site on the internet.

It still can be but people don't want to read clearly fake comments. That's why people have left.

Click to expand...

Diamond Damien said:

Thanks for your thoughts on how we handle AI and low-value content. Far from not taking it seriously, we work on AI content and spam accounts every day. We launched our AI content checker back in March this year, which scans thousands of posts every week and we are constantly tweaking it based on your feedback. One person's "obvious AI" is another's good read, so a balance needs to be struck and through reporting we find that balance. The community's ongoing reporting truly does make a difference.

Click to expand...

SOCOM said:

Sorry mods, but it feels like you guys don't take the AI spam seriously enough.

I have to report obvious AI that should be filtered out.

At this point, I don't even care if it filters out some real people.

The forum is dead because its littered with posts that have 0 value. People regurgitating AI answers. You can definitely block it.

You could even shadowban their comments so they think their comments are live but they actually aren't.

I talked with old BHW outside of the forum and they don't come back because the mods don't take it seriously.

Then spam accounts become marketplace sellers.

There are so many sales threads where the only testimonials are from newbs with low post counts.

This used to be the best site on the internet.

It still can be but people don't want to read clearly fake comments. That's why people have left.

Click to expand...

Diamond Damien said:

I wanted to comment on some of the points raised above just so we're all on the same page here.


As I mentioned above Jr. VIP is a prerequisite of holding a Jr. Exec membership. Jr. Exec is required for Exec. ref,
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/t...-a-waste-of-time.1848583/page-5#post-21262239



If members don't keep their Jr. VIP's current then the downgrade is automated. We give some extra time to Execs and Jr. Execs in recognition of their status, but usually, if they don't renew, there is a period of outreach before they are downgraded.



No I don't pay for my Jr. VIP as with all moderators - both volunteers and in house the Jr. VIP is naturally covered as a small token of thanks for the work they do around the community.



Thanks for your thoughts on how we handle AI and low-value content. Far from not taking it seriously, we work on AI content and spam accounts every day. We launched our AI content checker back in March this year, which scans thousands of posts every week and we are constantly tweaking it based on your feedback. One person's "obvious AI" is another's good read, so a balance needs to be struck and through reporting we find that balance. The community's ongoing reporting truly does make a difference.

Spam accounts are a battle on all fourms of significant size, we share less on how we deal with them for obvious reasons, but we're pulling together some stats to show the size of the problem and the actions we already take. Can we do more? Of course and I appreciate the outreach.

I'll be adding more detail to the above in my promised post later this week. Just wanted to touch base on the comments since my last post, and frankly, work on communicating a little better.

Click to expand...

bwman said:

I do my best to report spam, posts in the wrong forums

Click to expand...

bwman said:

I don't think they delete them. The reports usually come back that it has been moved to the right forum

Click to expand...

finn99 said:

I have had at least one report that did not mention any moving, the post just 404d too. I've been very careful where I post ever since, and/or limited my thread creation. Sometimes it makes you think twice about posting because you don't know the exact measures that are going to be taken against "repeated offenders", and I want my account to last. I will rather take it easy.

Click to expand...

SOCOM said:

I'll add to my previous point. While the goal of the forum for its owner is to make money, you can't have the forum geared towards marketplace sellers.

The reason why this forum was so successful is because of the people.

There used to be a ton of big guys in here that would post. Some just stopped returning and some got banned.

I used to post threads too, but what's the point with all of these fake comments and bots?

You rely on the marketplace to make you money, but you need to cater to us real people in order to come here in the first place.

It's the people you should be gearing this place towards.

If you're going to let some AI content go because you think it might be a good read then you've lost the game right there.

If you're not shadowbanning, you've lost. If you're not stopping the em dashes, you've lost. If you're not blocking the patterns, you've lost. If you don't measure the time it took the visitor to view the page and how fast they posted in it to detect bots, you've lost. If you're not blocking datacenter proxies, you've lost.

You either take a hard stance or you're going to watch this forum continue to die.

Any "One person's "obvious AI" is another's good read, so a balance needs to be struck and through reporting we find that balance." stance means you're not doing what's required. You go all the way.

Click to expand...

finn99 said:

As an aspiring Jr. VIP, this is, honestly, worrying to read. Are metrics for the site public in some link I am unaware of, or is your data solely based on the activity of the Marketplace and the number of new posts and replies appearing at a given time?

To be honest, the investment is still a modest one, but if anyone has success stories to share, particularly when promoting SaaS products that can be integrated on a given website, I'd be very happy to read them.

Click to expand...

coolsheet said:

I agree with all of this completely and echo it. I canceled VIP, and haven't logged on in forever. Why post things of value when its going to be buried by bots and AI? Why have a marketplace listing when it's over-looked due to tons of low quality services?

You're core issue is that this community used to be ran by the community. People were invited to mod, not hired. I was a lurker from like 2009 to 2014 before ever creating an account. That right there tells you how much value was in this forum at one point. You didnt even need an account to find gold. Finding the gold, caused me to create an account, which lead to me being a paid sub.

Click to expand...

coolsheet said:

I agree with all of this completely and echo it. I canceled VIP, and haven't logged on in forever. Why post things of value when its going to be buried by bots and AI? Why have a marketplace listing when it's over-looked due to tons of low quality services?

You're core issue is that this community used to be ran by the community. People were invited to mod, not hired. I was a lurker from like 2009 to 2014 before ever creating an account. That right there tells you how much value was in this forum at one point. You didnt even need an account to find gold. Finding the gold, caused me to create an account, which lead to me being a paid sub.

This used to be a fun place, where you would get a hard dose of reality if you commented bullshit, and could see tons of gold and spark entrepreneurial ideas.

Click to expand...

deppo said:

The forum's downfall can be attributed mostly to one person who was in a senior position and is not with the forum anymore.

A lot of members banned for trivial reasons and open conversations were stifled due to an authoritarian management style.

Click to expand...

Panther28 said:

I'm happy to pay my membership to be JR VIP, and try to keep a good level of performance for Exec eligibility, to get to read what all you goof balls are upto every day on your computers. lol

At this point I don't plan on being a seller on BHW, but i'm happy paying my sub, as i read and learn things from members here that impact me on other sites that I work on, and I don't expect to make a income from BHW. I just like to work on actual methods such as product/content creation, and service/process implementations on other sites like the ones that all get mentioned here.

You are what you put in though. So maybe for some people the cycle of time as with everything passes, and I feel thats ok. For people that still are happy to be here, its up to us to work hard, read, and share our experience to make things as popular and spam free as possible.

I think of fondly also of wefunkradio, who are just 2 radio DJ's in Canada that hold down every Friday a 2 hour show. They don't earn from it, yet they are on their 30th anniversary year this year. Its an amazing passion for them, and they've had amazing music industry guests play and get interviewed.
They are recognized world wide and have toured in Europe for a nearly decade of 10 shows a year during their hey day. Anyway. I don't even know how they make their make their money. One of them i think is a Uni professor, lol. My point is they pay homage to hold down a popular show (by buying the music and spending time learning the mixes, syncing with guests each week) as they enjoy it, and like to provide a community center point.

Similar to BHW. Behind all the spam, behind all the scams, behind all the gone members. Are really always a bunch of passionate real active users who are hungry and motivated people in search for more effective ways to earn money. Lets keep the BHW radio show blasting, as best we can and the neighbors up all night from the tapping of our keyboards!! lol

Click to expand...

IM Dude said:

I got a solution that have worked before for another forum. I will be happy to share in private with a mod(s) over the DM.

Click to expand...