[ANNOUNCEMENT] New WTB and HAF Rules

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Hello everyone,

Today we have brought in new rules to the Hire a Freelance and Want to Buy forums.

These forums have been a bit of a pain to manage for a while, these changes are hopefully going to improve things for moderators and members. Hopefully restricting who can reply to these threads will mean there are less issues for us to manage between members in the Shit List forum and it also means the quality of members replying will be higher as lots of them will have been through the marketplace review process and already have Mod Approved Marketplace Threads.

The new 2017 Want to Buy rules:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/rules-posting-in-want-to-buy.951771/

The new 2017 Hire a Freelancer rules:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/rules-posting-in-hire-a-freelancer.951769/

Please read the new rules before continuing to use these forums.

In short, if you are not a paid up member of BHW (Premium Member, Jr VIP or Marketplace Seller) you will be unable to reply to threads in these sections. Most other rules remain the same.

If people start to PM you in response to threads in these sections it means they do not have the correct membership level to reply to your threads. You should ignore the users and report their PMs for spam.

Hopefully this is a move in the right direction for these forums for everyone.

Thanks
 
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royserpa said:
I agree with the rules man, but I've also done lots of business with people that are yellow (non vip members).
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Yes, just because someone's in yellow, doesn't mean they're untrustworthy - this is why there's no restrictions on starting a thread in there.

However, Jr VIP's, Premium and Marketplace Sellers have invested money into advertising their services on the forum and, as such, their account is of more value to them than someone who's registered a couple of days ago and hasn't invested any time or money into the forum.

We get inundated with shitlist submissions from the HAF and WTB forums where people get spammed by newbies that have no stake in the forum and don't care if they get banned. It's fairly common for the person named to have stopped using their account by the time the thread's been approved.

There were restrictions on the old software that stopped some people replying to these forums. When this was lifted, we had a huge increase of newbies spamming the thread's and people complaining about being ripped off, hence reinstating the restrictions.
 
Apricot said:
Yes, just because someone's in yellow, doesn't mean they're untrustworthy - this is why there's no restrictions on starting a thread in there.

However, Jr VIP's, Premium and Marketplace Sellers have invested money into advertising their services on the forum and, as such, their account is of more value to them than someone who's registered a couple of days ago and hasn't invested any time or money into the forum.

We get inundated with shitlist submissions from the HAF and WTB forums where people get spammed by newbies that have no stake in the forum and don't care if they get banned. It's fairly common for the person named to have stopped using their account by the time the thread's been approved.

There were restrictions on the old software that stopped some people replying to these forums. When this was lifted, we had a huge increase of newbies spamming the thread's and people complaining about being ripped off, hence reinstating the restrictions.
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I totally understand. But why not change filters to something like: member needs to be 6 months since account creating, 500 posts and X amount of thanks?

I'm sure not all yellow members are like what you are saying, but this filter is just eliminating the possibility of "good" yellow members to post IMHO. :)
 
royserpa said:
I totally understand. But why not change filters to something like: member needs to be 6 months since account creating, 500 posts and X amount of thanks?

I'm sure not all yellow members are like what you are saying, but this filter is just eliminating the possibility of "good" yellow members to post IMHO. :)
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Makes things complicated.
 
A yellow member with many year old account - "300+ posts - 200 + thanks + multiple positive "Itrader" is still more eligible than a member with "100 posts and few thanks and a jr. VIP". The rule will definitely stop the scam cases, but it is buyer's fault to not use his diligence on seller.

I also wonder how many new buyers will read the rules and mark non-Jr. VIP members PMing them.

The rules are now too strict to be honest.

I will be buying a Jr. VIP this week, so it won't be an issue for me. :eek: Although, I rarely post there.

Also just a thought - What if scammers buy old accounts, do 100 posts, buy Jr. VIP, scam members. It will surely degrade the Jr. VIP status respect like has been previously mentioned by members that Jr. VIP is just a $100 membership (Open membership) and doesn't prove member can't scam.
 
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Offering a service to someonein HAF is nearly the same as opening a bst for your service, just a bit more customized so I support this step. In addition most of the serious freelancer should be able to pay less than 9$ a month for Jr.Vip to get easy access to so many people offering jobs.

Will help many people to not get scammed and support efficient usage of mods time too so it's a great change.
 
royserpa said:
I totally understand. But why not change filters to something like: member needs to be 6 months since account creating, 500 posts and X amount of thanks?

I'm sure not all yellow members are like what you are saying, but this filter is just eliminating the possibility of "good" yellow members to post IMHO. :)
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Seconded this Opinion -/
 
IAmNotLegend said:
What if scammers buy old accounts, do 100 posts, buy Jr. VIP, scam members. It will surely degrade the Jr. VIP status respect like has been previously mentioned by members that Jr. VIP is just a $100 membership (Open membership) and doesn't prove member can't scam.
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I feel as if that's far less likely than a scammer starting a brand new account and immediately contacting potential buyers. It's a security-based change, and will probably stop 50%+ of the shitlists.

Then maybe @BassTrackerBoats will get to sleep a few hours a night.
 
Sherbert Hoover said:
I feel as if that's far less likely than a scammer starting a brand new account and immediately contacting potential buyers. It's a security-based change, and will probably stop 50%+ of the shitlists.

Then maybe @BassTrackerBoats will get to sleep a few hours a night.
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Well, the rules to stop scammers shouldn't effect the ordinary genuine members, I am sure they too make this big community more awesome and shouldn't be affected by new rules to this degree. Members do rely on freelancer section to earn their income.
 
IAmNotLegend said:
Members do rely on freelancer section to earn their income.
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And BHW relies on memberships as a large part of its income as well. There's a give and take. You earn your income from BHW, you give back. Plain and simple. Consider it insurance that the pool of people underbidding you will shrink significantly.
 
Oh. I've made some good money there writing for people. It's all gone now.
 
Definitely a step in the right direction!

This change will provide more of a chance for "paying members" to land jobs while also helping to reduce the amount of SL threads that the team needs to moderate.

@topakins

If that's the case, reinvest and upgrade to Jr. VIP. Then you can keep applying for jobs and on top of that start your own sales thread where your earning potential will double.
 
topakins said:
Oh. I've made some good money there writing for people. It's all gone now.
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You're eligible for Jr Vip - go ahead and buy it and then you can respond in those sections again and continue to make good money.
 
Sherbert Hoover said:
And BHW relies on memberships as a large part of its income as well. There's a give and take.
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Membership would only make up for little of BHW's income. Major source would be advertising (Website Ads + Sponsored Stickied posts).


Sherbert Hoover said:
You earn your income from BHW, you give back. Plain and simple. Consider it insurance that the pool of people underbidding you will shrink significantly.
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This statement is similar to charities asking for donation just because we got more money than the poor person.

An online forum like this (Especially BHW) doesn't need token of money from us. They are too rich for that. It rather wants us to help the community and abide by the rules (Definition of forum).
 
IAmNotLegend said:
Membership would only make up for little of BHW's income. Major source would be advertising (Website Ads + Sponsored Stickied posts).



This statement is similar to charities asking for donation just because we got more money than the poor person.

An online forum like this (Especially BHW) doesn't need token of money from us. They are too rich for that. It rather wants us to help the community and abide by the rules (Definition of forum).
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They're helping the community by protecting employers from non-vetted applicants and in my opinion the team here does a pretty darn good job at doing it.
 
IAmNotLegend said:
Membership would only make up for little of BHW's income. Major source would be advertising (Website Ads + Sponsored Stickied posts).



This statement is similar to charities asking for donation just because we got more money than the poor person.

An online forum like this (Especially BHW) doesn't need token of money from us. They are too rich for that. It rather wants us to help the community and abide by the rules (Definition of forum).
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So what if they make a lot of money? You're receiving contacts and connections through them. $97 is nothing for what you're receiving.
 
ContentExpert said:
They're helping the community by protecting employers from non-vetted applicants and in my opinion the team here does a pretty darn good job at doing it.
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Let's cool down the discussion a bit. I didn't flame the BHW mods or admin for new rules. I support the new rules.

This thread was posted by Moderator so he can view member's opinion on this. So, I put forward my opinions.

Please don't try to put my statements so as to make me a bad guy here.

whiteblackseo said:
So what if they make a lot of money? You're receiving contacts and connections through them. $97 is nothing for what you're receiving.
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Is it really about that? You are saying what I posted as reply on top - This community prefers a $97/year membership over a member whose posts have helped the community. $97 is tiny amount actually. Most of the HaF threads deal with amounts greater than that.

Also, let's stop the discussion on 'Why a member should buy $97 membership?', because that is not the purpose of this thread.
 
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