BHW Community Projects - Read.

[JFoulds]

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, esteemed colleagues and associates;

BlackHatWorld is a community. To some, it may be a marketplace, to others, a research source for information or even a social network - but it is a community, by definition, to all of us. At the time I'm writing this there are approximately 10,000 BHW users online, and every single one of these users have a unique set of skills. Some of us are developers, some graphic designers, project managers, security specialists, the list is endless. And I'm not talking purely technical skills here; some speak fantastic English while others are fluent in a number of languages - every community member is unique.

However, there is one collective passion that we all share - a passion for technology and generating revenue online. While alone our skills are limited by our own time, our own skillset and our own resources, together we have access to a huge array of skills and abilities and near unlimited man-hours.

Imagine, if you will, that say 1% of active BHW users can code in PHP, if in one given hour you get every PHP coder who was active in that single hour on BHW to contribute to a project, then the combined workload is the equivalent to two and a half weeks of 9-5 work for one single developer. Obviously this example should not be taken literally, but it makes a good point: we can be more combined together than we could ever be apart.

First of all, here are a few things that BHW community projects would not be:

• Presells for any form of software or service, on BHW or any other third party website.
• Sold or payment required in any form while an active community project.
• Limited (while in public release) to only the ‘elite' members of the forum.
• Illegal according to any USA, EU or International law.
• An open ended ‘concept' which never moves from paper to practice.
• A magic button you can press and generate $50 billion USD.

What they would be, however:

• A way for anyone with a skill to contribute something tangible back directly to the BHW community
• A channel through which individuals could hone their skills in a positive and real-world development environment
• Projects with defined goals, contributors and a timeframe.
• Community-centred ideas, which provide a real benefit to many BHW users - regardless of current skills and knowledge.
• Open source.

There are a lot of details that need to be ironed out such as how the project teams would be organised, what projects would be worked on and who would be in control of each community project.

My personal views are that the system should work roughly as follows:

1. Based off community suggestions, a project concept is decided by a project leader (for example, a PHP SERP tracker with daily email updates). These project leaders would be set positions for people interested in running projects and this position would need to be applied for or require authorisation before a BHW community project can begin development.
2. The project leader submits his proposal in a clear and detailed format to the BHW community, seeking contributors (programmers, graphic designers, translators, etc) - there would be a final cut-off point after which the project must either be abandoned if core contributors have not been found, or development commences if contributors have been found.
3. The project leader then liaises with the contributors in order to allocate project goals to each individual contributor with a specific time requirement. The project leader must take on some project goals him or herself.
4. The contributors then notify the project manager once they have reached their project goal, and the collective code is distributed throughout the project team.
5. Once the project leader determines that the project has reached a suitable Beta period, where the core functionality is built and the remaining time can be allocated to feature addition and bug improvement, an announcement is made by the project leader and the project source is moved to the public forum, where development can continue with anyone contributing bug fixes and features.

Currently, I am posting this to see who would be interested in supporting, following or contributing to any BHW community projects. Any and all feedback is welcomed, but please post here rather than PMing me directly as I don't want to fill up my folder with questions that could be more transparently answered in the public forum.

Regards,
JFoulds

EDIT: Please read this for a clarification!

 

[sn0rt]

This has a lot of potential OP. Would be nice to see it pushed forward.

I wonder if something like this already happens in the Jr. Exec Vip/Exec Vip sections..

 

[steelballs]

I hear you out OP and wish you the best with this concept...

But take note these processes take an awful lot of time in managing and implementing...

Plus if it veers off track (unless you have substitutes on standby) the train could come off the track and the targeted process simply collapses...

If you were to ask a seasoned business guru about input on this, don't expect all to jump on board...

 

[JFoulds]

I hear you out OP and wish you the best with this concept...

But take note these processes take an awful lot of time in managing and implementing...

Plus if it veers off track (unless you have substitutes on standby) the train could come off the track and the targeted process simply collapses...

If you were to ask a seasoned business guru about input on this, don't expect all to jump on board...

Thanks for the comments.
The plan wouldn't be to produce any crazy complicated project, I probably should have mentioned that. To begin with at least, all the things that would be being developed could probably be knocked out by a half-decent developer in a week or so. Then once we've got a rough profile of people who are reliable and people who aren't, we can begin to target more complicated projects!

 

[Petko]

Hi mate and all other brothers and sisters. I'm pretty much interested in something like this. Even I was thinking if it is possible for our community to create some sort of private blog network ,where all members will participate. At the moment I can add a site with pr2 in the sport betting niche. I'm also ready to participate with let's say 50 usd. If let's say 1000 members donate/partiipate in such project this is 50k USD which good for start. Of course everything will be under the supervision of the Diamond Damien or some of other reputable members here.

I'm looking forward your thoughts

Petko

 

[the_demon]

While I admit a good idea in theory, you miss the true central theme as to why we are all here...

To make money. Many people here are not necessarily remotely passionate about technology, it boils down to something far more simplistic. That is, we do what makes money.

Also, a project so vast would mean wide spread exploitation and thus the method or project would likely become worthless from wide spread abuse and or a few bad apples who ruin it for the bunch. This is why top-tier methods are reserved for higher ranking members in hidden parts of the site. It's similar to your method of collaboration, but it is a way to ensure that:


NOTE: "The players" below refers to higher ranking BHW members.

a. The players involved are truly capable individuals

b. The players there have earned the right to be there by making solid contributions "to the group" aka BHW as a whole

c. The players have a certain level of dedication to the forum and maintain the "higher purpose" of making money and for 99% of us we don't scam other BHW members, we genuinely care about the forum and it's members, and we play by BHW's rules*

d. Limited number of players to prevent over saturation, meaning the method(s) shared stays alive much longer


* Yes, there is the occasional bad apple in the "higher up" group and yes, sometimes us "higher up" members or whatever you want to call us make mistakes. No one is perfect.


---

What you're talking about is an approach similar to communism, and as we all know,to date that approach has never worked out in practice. Although it's a nice theory to think that we could all play fair and be equal.

 

[davids355]

It does sound like a good idea in theory, but in reality its very difficult to distribute a project between many people - in reality the best you could do is have 1 person developing, 1 person managing, 1 person doing SEO, then its really just like a JV - in order to get say 50 or more people all working on 1 project it would be VERY difficult, because everyone has their own methodology and their own way of doing things.

Sure, if you wanted just non-skilled workers its easy: you give them a very simple task and they do it, and all of those workers doing all of those tasks makes something much quicker to get done.

But for skilled people (like we all are on BHW ), its much harder - If you ever watch The Apprentice (UK) you'll know what I mean!!

 

[JFoulds]

Many thanks for everyone's comments, but I feel there has been some confusion over my suggestion.
I'm not suggesting that we share monetisation methods and techniques to directly generate income, I'm not naive enough to think that concept would ever work in practice. What I'm suggesting rather is the creation of tools which are useful for BHW members and are not based on any particular 'method' which it is even possible to saturate or exploit.

See my example of a PHP SERP rank checker with daily updates as an example, this could not be 'exploited' by anyone and could be of great use to many BHW members, it's a tool, not a method!

Hope that clarifies my suggestion.

 

[slybear]

I admire what you are trying to do but remember the old adage:

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!!

 

[Lemonhead811]

Sounds like a good idea in theory, hopefully when or if it's put into effect, it works as well as it sounds it will. This could lead to BHW creating some absolutely amazing stuff. Like mentioned above, a blog network is possible, software is possible, anything is possible with this community. Something that would take months or even a year to make single-handedly/with a few people can be done in days or weeks with the large amount of people available here.

The way I see it, the more the merrier. There are potential issues that could arise, but as long as there was an end goal everyone could contribute towards getting done, there shouldn't be too much conflict. If this ends up happening, I'm down to help out on these projects.

Cheers

 

[thejake]

What you're talking about is an approach similar to communism, and as we all know,to date that approach has never worked out in practice. Although it's a nice theory to think that we could all play fair and be equal.

Pretty much anybody who makes money online either uses or relies upon open source software, and some is developed with a hive or stone-soup model as proposed by JFoulds. An open-source alternative to say scrapebox or hrefer wouldn't jeopardize these super-elite methods you higher-level bhw members keep hidden in these gloryholes of wealth the general membership doesn't get to see.

 

[the_demon]

Pretty much anybody who makes money online either uses or relies upon open source software, and some is developed with a hive or stone-soup model as proposed by JFoulds. An open-source alternative to say scrapebox or hrefer wouldn't jeopardize these super-elite methods you higher-level bhw members keep hidden in these gloryholes of wealth the general membership doesn't get to see.

That's actually a highly inaccurate statement...

1. Look at wordpress, or almost any open source web platform. They are probably the most spammed/hacked/abused platform on the web today. Sure they offer many wonderful benefits, but just the same they have put loads of people out of business and caused a mass proliferation of web spam.

2. An open source; scrapebox or xrumer OR SIMILAR * (times) 100,000s of thousands (or maybe even millions) of new users would attract even more attention causing search engines to react even faster to devaluing those types of links. This then in turn actually makes it harder for everyone to rank.

3. I make loads of money online and while I use some open source methods and tools, the best ones are in fact the paid software. Don't get me wrong, I love Open Source things and I like the concept of it too. However, I accept and understand that money is a primary moderate for the development and attracting the best talents for other products. This is why even charitable organizations often shell out big money for their CEO's. Sure, having a strong believer in a cause is wonderful, but the fact is the best CEO's are the top money makers and if you want their talent, they want fair compensation for what they bring to the table.

And please, leave your condescending remarks out of this. You or anyone can be a higher ranking member if you earn it. It took me almost 5 years to get to Executive Jr. VIP in addition to participating on this forum nearly every day since then, and on top of that I had to be voted in by members above me.

None of us "higher up" members bought are way in*. We worked hard, played fair, followed the rules, and contributed a significant amount to the masses.

*Excluding the cost of Jr. VIP membership, but honestly that's more about keeping spammers & scammers out then it is trying to keep the masses out. Even still, your account must be in good standing and you must also earn your way in by having a decent amount of quality posts.

 

[Russian-Czar]

Good post OP

 

[JFoulds]

1. Look at wordpress, or almost any open source web platform. They are probably the most spammed/hacked/abused platform on the web today. Sure they offer many wonderful benefits, but just the same they have put loads of people out of business and caused a mass proliferation of web spam.

Sorry, that has absolutely nothing to do with Wordpress being closed or open source. Try making a tool like ScrapeBox, you'll understand pretty quickly.

2. An open source; scrapebox or xrumer OR SIMILAR * (times) 100,000s of thousands (or maybe even millions) of new users would attract even more attention causing search engines to react even faster to devaluing those types of links. This then in turn actually makes it harder for everyone to rank.

Search engines are constantly improving and refining algorithms to combat web spam, but contrary to what a lot of big SEOers think, they pretty much don't give a shit about web spam when it comes down to the general direction of the company. Any tool like xRumer, even if it was open source and free, would have a steep learning curve by nature - this is how you keep people from mass spamming and devaluing links.

3. I make loads of money online and while I use some open source methods and tools, the best ones are in fact the paid software. Don't get me wrong, I love Open Source things and I like the concept of it too. However, I accept and understand that money is a primary moderate for the development and attracting the best talents for other products. This is why even charitable organizations often shell out big money for their CEO's. Sure, having a strong believer in a cause is wonderful, but the fact is the best CEO's are the top money makers and if you want their talent, they want fair compensation for what they bring to the table.

First of all, you're completely incorrect here, some of the world's biggest software projects are open source and the developers are not supported by money at all. Secondly, so, what web server are you running? I presume you're not using PHP on that, right? No MySQL either - right?

Lets focus on my suggestion, please.

 

[the_demon]

1. Sorry, that has absolutely nothing to do with Wordpress being closed or open source. Try making a tool like ScrapeBox, you'll understand pretty quickly.

--> Yeah, actually it does matter. The wider the adoption of something the bigger the target, by nature the less users using it, the more platforms being used, and therefore, it requires more effort to effectively spam the web as a whole. The more engines, the more time to code.

2. Search engines are constantly improving and refining algorithms to combat web spam, but contrary to what a lot of big SEOers think, they pretty much don't give a shit about web spam when it comes down to the general direction of the company. Any tool like xRumer, even if it was open source and free, would have a steep learning curve by nature - this is how you keep people from mass spamming and devaluing links.

--> Yes, actually they do care. That whole "USER EXPERIENCE" thing that determines whether or not people stick with their engine or leave... Yeah, that matters. mmk

3. First of all, you're completely incorrect here, some of the world's biggest software projects are open source and the developers are not supported by money at all. Secondly, so, what web server are you running? I presume you're not using PHP on that, right? No MySQL either - right?

--> No, Sir, I'm not COMPLETELY INCORRECT here. I did not say ALL charities, I said OFTEN (learn how to read).

--> Yes, I use PHP/MySQL for various things and much of my web dev stuff. I infact, clearly stated that I do like and use open source.

Once again, please learn how to read and comprehend so that when you make a rebuttal, it might have even the slightest chance of sounding intelligent.

Also, all of your alleged claims of me being wrong or me being opposed to certain things completely ignore my disclaimers to the contrary. Unlike you, I did not make any blanket statements, but rather highlighted general trends.

Furthermore, if you had read and paid even the slightest bit of attention, I did focus on your suggestion, analyzed it, and provided you with appropriate feedback. Because, I do not believe your idea is feasible does not make me or my statements wrong.

 

[JFoulds]

--> Yeah, actually it does matter. The wider the adoption of something the bigger the target, by nature the less users using it, the more platforms being used, and therefore, it requires more effort to effectively spam the web as a whole. The more engines, the more time to code.

So you're saying the fact that a lot of people use WordPress means that it's easier to write a program that spams a lot of WordPress links? It barely takes any time to code a custom web-spamming tool for absolutely any platform, and only a few minutes to modify that tool to another engine. If WordPress was a closed source binary people uploaded to their server, how would it make it ANY less easy to spam?

--> Yes, actually they do care. That whole "USER EXPERIENCE" thing that determines whether or not people stick with their engine or leave... Yeah, that matters. mmk

No, actually, they don't. The majority of employees at Google don't even know the first thing about web spam and SEO. They have a very, very small team of people working on web spam, they're a lot more focused on creating new products and innovating to care about some 'leet SEO pro' making $100/daily from a spam result.

--> No, Sir, I'm not COMPLETELY INCORRECT here. I did not say ALL charities, I said OFTEN (learn how to read).
--> Yes, I use PHP/MySQL for various things and much of my web dev stuff. I infact, clearly stated that I do like and use open source.

1) I never even mentioned anything about charities, so try taking your own advice and reading my damn post.
2) Awesome, so how does this factor in to your opinion that people 'won't contribute' to these type of projects? Pretty much the entire Internet is powered on a lot of open source technologies.

Once again, please learn how to read and comprehend so that when you make a rebuttal, it might have even the slightest chance of sounding intelligent.

Unlike you, I don't feel the need to throw around forum ranks and rage out glaring red text to convince people of my skills and intelligence, they can see that for themselves.

Also, all of your alleged claims of me being wrong or me being opposed to certain things completely ignore my disclaimers to the contrary. Unlike you, I did not make any blanket statements, but rather highlighted general trends.

I make loads of money online and while I use some open source methods and tools, the best ones are in fact the paid software.

I won't embarrass you by pointing out your own hypocrisy here, you do that yourself much better than I could.

Furthermore, if you had read and paid even the slightest bit of attention, I did focus on your suggestion, analyzed it, and provided you with appropriate feedback. Because, I do not believe your idea is feasible does not make me or my statements wrong.

You misunderstood my post and came to an invalid conclusion. The issue of your views on the feasibility of an idea you misunderstood is irrelevant. If you don't understand anything about software development, don't make sweeping statements about it.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion that people don't contribute to open source projects.
You're fundamentally and literally incorrect, but sure, it's your opinion, you're still entitled to it!

EDIT: Now, if you don't have anything positive to contribute, kindly GTFO my thread. I'm trying to do something positive for our community and your self-righteous nonsense isn't helping on any level.

 

[SkyrocketSEO]

If 1% of BHW members give me only $1 I would support this idea, sounds good to me

 

[Black.Star]

 

[JFoulds]

 

[LongBanana]

Been awhile since i've been on forums, but I would be interested in an open source project of sorts. I actually am a web developer as an occupation currently and I strongly believe in the open source mindset.
You can do it pretty well if we get it setup on some sort of repository system such as Git and have a modular plan so that different groups of people can work on a certain feature or function of the program.
To the OP: Feel free to message me if you get one started, I would be interested in contributing.