Change Log: behind the scenes at BHW

For the past 2 months I've been working on overhauling the text of the warning system. It's taken awhile because there were internal rules for the Community Team to update, rules to update (HAF/WTB) and... there's a lot of warnings.

However, I'm happy to tell you that it's done! Warning texts have been updated to use current terms (there were still references to skype, conversations instead of DMs, etc), give a better feel for severity, add links to our Terms and Rules, Support and relevant threads.

The way warnings work has not changed, though while testing the formatting and links I did find one that wasn't working correctly so I fixed it.

Not the most exciting update, but it was a big project and deserves mentioning!

As you all know, we've been working to bring the rules in all the different sections up to date. I'm pleased to announce that with @BassTrackerBoats help, we got the Joint Venture Rules finished and posted!

What has changed?

- As with the WTB/HAF forums, off site contact info is no longer allowed to be posted anywhere in a thread. If you're interested in the JV, discuss it in the thread and then go to DMs.
- Better examples of what a TRUE JV is.
- Requests and/or offers for financial investments/instruments aren't allowed - full stop.

We're hoping that these rules will bring better quality JVs to the section!

In regards to AI spam: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/tagging-ai-posts.1731535/post-19519616

You'll be happy to know we found a farm and nuked around 150 accounts today and cleaned up their spam (IYKYK).

I know guys get irritated that we're not going fast enough when it comes to some of the spam, scams or other things that go on around here. It's a very delicate balance of trying to avoid false positives. I'm 100% sure that some of you would really be unhappy if we took some of the advice to go ahead and just "ban" accounts without clear proof, "lock" threads without clear proof, etc. This is why we take some time to watch what's going on before acting.

Sometimes these farms are like the Magic Eye pictures from the early 90s. You can't see crap in the picture and then all of a sudden one day you see the whatever. And do you know what helped me discover this spam farm that was right in front of my face? Reports that you guys made. Someone managed to report a few accounts that seemed totally unrelated and when I tried connecting the dots suddenly I became all seeing.

So please keep reporting. And we do appreciate your patience because this is never a quick thing (though if you know who's selling that magic wand that really works, please send them my way).

You may have noticed that between 11:00 and the time of this post the forum was down. This was due to the 2.3.7. Xenforo update.

I'd like to say that there was something amazing in the update, but it was a lot of little bug fixes that really don't matter to us (no, they didn't fix the media issues). The most import things were the security updates.

As always, if you experience any issues with any forum activities, please drop a thread into Feedback or contact support.


P.S. as of today almost 400 sales thread spammers have been eliminated since 16 June due to your excellent reporting skills. Keep up the great work!

It's Tuesday and I come bearing rule changes for the Want to Buy and Hire a Freelancer forum sections.

In our continued quest to give those who post WTB and HAF requests the best chance of finding what they need, the Community Team has once again updated the rules for these sections. Here's what has changed:

1.) We will now be locking threads 30 days or older, based on the current days date. So today threads started on June 22nd will be locked. We will be placing a message, much like we place when we close a Feedback thread, as the last message. We're going to try to close these threads gradually through the day so there isn't 20-30 closed threads on the 1st page.

2.) Anyone found bumping a thread older than 30 days could receive a warning for post count inflation. While we've gone and closed all of the threads 30 days or older for 2025, there are 3700 pages of WTB threads and 5800 HAF threads. We're not closing everything, you're just going to have to practice restraint.

3.) If you're an individual who's thread was closed, once it's closed you may repost a new thread for the same service/item if you didn't get the result you needed in the past thread. And, of course if you do find what you need within the 30 days we encourage you to report your thread to have it closed or put in a ticket to support so we can try to keep the section tidy for the next folks wanting to use it! I guarantee the Community Team loves these types of reports!

And of course, if anyone notices 2024 or older threads being bumped, please feel free to report it to help us keep on top of it!

Oh, and I'll just mention it here even though I haven't created it yet, we'll also be creating a closing message for Introductions as well. We already close threads 7 days or older but to keep up with consistency across the sections, we wanted to have a closed thread template to give the OP a reason why it's closed and a little "what now" guidance.

FULL RULES
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/rules-posting-in-hire-a-freelancer.951769/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/rules-posting-in-want-to-buy.951771/

I have another update! This one is an improvement to the Free Review Copies for Marketplace Approvals section!

We have added a form that Jr. VIPs and Marketplace Sellers fill out in order to submit their FRC.

When you're instructed by a Marketplace Team Member to fill out the form, navigate yourself to the FRC section and click on the Submit FRC button. This will automatically bring you to the form where all you need to do is answer the questions!

We're working on making processes simpler and clearer so you're going to see more forms in the future. The next one that will be released soon will be for Disputes! Then we'll look at other areas that can benefit such as WTB, HAF, Freebies and Service Reviews.

Alright folks, we're going to close out the week with another improvement! This one has taken a little while to get up and live, but we now have a Dispute Resolution form.

One of the things that slows down the Community Team when going through posted Dispute threads is:

- lack of proper formatting
- lack of description of what's wrong
- lack of evidence
- spam

So in order to get the information that we need and hopefully avoid wasted time all the way around, the only way to post a thread in the Dispute section is via the form.

A few things:

1.) The form is long. While we made sure to make it as precise as possible, we wanted to make sure we get all the correct information. This really does save time all the way around.

2.) We made it so that those starting a dispute can attach files, add URLs, or add a combination for their evidence.

3.) All of the description fields are up to 5,000 characters. So be detailed pretty please.

4.) There is a rule change (there will be more tomorrow when I post the updated rules for Disputes) that EVERY dispute starter MUST DM the accused to let them know that they're going to put in a dispute. This is often a road block to submitting a dispute because the dispute starter failed to actually talk to the accused.

For those of you who are not able to start a DM, you have 2 choices. You can either contact myself, @SettingSun77 or @BassTrackerBoats before putting in your dispute and ask for a DM to be created with the accused OR you can choose no for the question regarding this, put in that you can't DM, and whomever picks up the dispute will start that DM for you. Regardless, this piece of criteria is obligatory.

5.) Those that successfully complete the form will receive a DM with some follow up information. At this point if there's any questions or concerns about the dispute, or if you've forgot something, you can reply to the DM.

I think that's about it. We did our best to make sure that the questions and flow make sense & we can make sure to get disputes out even faster. If you encounter anything weird or have suggestions to make it better, please either start a Feedback thread OR feel free to put in a support ticket. They always get to the right person!

BlackHat World Forum Update - Review & Feedback Rules

Today we bring you another rules update, this time to reviews of BSTs and feedback left on user profiles.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-black-hat-world-marketplace-rules.1295700/post-13962695

While we're sure that everyone is going to click on the above link to check out the updated review & feedback rules, I'd like to to a TL;dr just to make sure nobody misses them and starts collecting warnings.

• All reviews (positive or negative) must include either an Order ID, Order Date, or both.
• Staff may request proof of the transaction via support. Failure to respond within 72 hours may result in a formal warning.

Along with the rule changes, we have created a new warning specifically for this new rule.

We're hoping that this not only helps clear up some "review" spam, but helps in keeping the Marketplace as well as those offering services via WTB/HAF honest and useful for everyone involved.

Happy Hump Day folks! There's a little update from the back offices of BHW that you might be interested in.

I'd like to introduce a new BHW staff account, BlackHat World. There isn't any specific person behind it, we've created this account so it can be the home of important threads and documentation. Threads such as this Change Log, all of the different stickied rules, and all of the different threads in the Newbie Guide Section.

In addition to being the holder of important threads, this account will also be the account that some auto DMs are sent from. If you're ever in the unlucky position of needing to submit a dispute form, in the near future (and I'll update the change log of course), you'll get a DM from the BlackHat World account vs. my own.

The reason we've chosen to go this route is so we can keep things on our end central and organized.

Please note that if you choose to DM the BlackHat World account, the DMs will be pushed to Support. Just so you're not surprised when it happens!

Dispute Resolution Tweaks & Updates

In July we updated the Dispute Resolution rules and let them run for about 30 days. However, we weren't happy with them and decided to tweak the new form and rules a bit more. Here's a bullet point of the changes:

• time change for dispute notification (48 hours to 24)
• support ticket is opened for the accused
• rules tweaks
• update to the dispute resolution form
• shortening of the Dispute Resolution rules for easier comprehension
• some formatting for better visuals and emphasis

If you'd like the more in depth version of the updates to Disputes, check out the post in our new BlackHat World News & Updates section! You can reply to the post and share your thoughts!

Today we introduce a brand new forum section to the forum! BlackHat World News & Updates!

This is a section that has been in the planning for awhile now, but we didn't have enough going on to really keep it updated. However, now that we're super busy with a lot of cool things, it's now or never!

A few things:

• the News and Updates section isn't meant to replace the Change Log. You're meant to get the bullet points here and the "meat and potatoes" over there.
• there are rules to the section. Anyone can reply to threads but only staff can submit a new thread. More about the rules here.
• you will get a warning if you post count spam. That doesn't change so please don't.
• this changelog will move over to the new section in a few days. We just wanted to let you read this before it suddenly goes away.

That's it! Go and check out the threads that are already posted!

Hello! Happy hump day!

A little earlier today some of you probably noticed the forum was down for about 20 minutes. This was for some planned forum maintenance under the hood so to speak. There shouldn't have been any changes to how the forum runs or its features, so if you encounter problems that you weren't having before the downtime, please either start a feedback thread or send a ticket in to support.

We also took this opportunity to move the Changelog to the News & Updates section, which is it's new home. We've left a redirect up in the Feedback section for the time being so that people who read the changelog will be able to read this and realize that the thread moved.

PetraAnn said:

Hello! Happy hump day!

A little earlier today some of you probably noticed the forum was down for about 20 minutes. This was for some planned forum maintenance under the hood so to speak. There shouldn't have been any changes to how the forum runs or its features, so if you encounter problems that you weren't having before the downtime, please either start a feedback thread or send a ticket in to support.

We also took this opportunity to move the Changelog to the News & Updates section, which is it's new home. We've left a redirect up in the Feedback section for the time being so that people who read the changelog will be able to read this and realize that the thread moved.

Click to expand...

I complained to IT about the site being down for those few minutes, and he sent me a bill.

It's well past my net worth.

But we have the best IT team on at least 4 planets, and being a minor geek, even I appreciate them and what they do.

Today's change is small, but mighty (especially for the Community Team's sanity, or what's collectively left of it).

We've added "Media" to the General Social Chat section name. We've also bolded and underlined "social media" in the description to help indicate that this section isn't the BlackHat Lounge, but for discussion about social media that doesn't fit in any of the other designated sections.

So... off topic from digital marketing goes into the BlackHat Lounge. Talk about social media that isn't Facebook, TikTok, Twitter/X, Reddit, Youtube, etc goes in General Social MEDIA Chat.

TY for helping keep BHW organized!

Some of you may have noticed that we turned on a "similar thread" tool that will give you up to 8 suggestions based on your thread title!

Please let us know if you experience any issues with the feature.

Thread Suggest Tool Information

I come bearing more updates.

1.) From here on out, only forum users with 15+ posts may post in the Hire a Freelancer (HAF) & Want to Buy (WTB) sections.

2.) There is now a specific warning for rule violations in these sections. This warning applies to both thread starters and repliers.

Explanation here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/o...re-a-freelancer-want-to-buy-sections.1768195/

We have made a change in the rules relating to high price account selling services in the Marketplace.

Please note that this change went into effect on 30th October 2025. Any thread that was live before this date is grandfathered in.

Chapter 4 of the Marketplace Rules: Account Selling Services

Marketplace Change Log

[Marketplace] Update to Account Selling Services Thread (for discussion)

Happy days! We've looked deeper into the issue that was breaking Youtube embeds and returning a 153 error. It turns out that this is something that Youtube has gone and done, but our IT team was able to update the forum so that Youtube is happy and is willing to once again let videos through!

If for some reason you're still getting this error, please check your browser as the type of browser or plugins/extensions can apparently still affect Youtube embeds. And there's been reports of VPNs/Proxies also making YT throw this error.

Today we bring you an update to the Media rules surrounding Marketplace thread images and signature banners.

The rules that all media follows can be found in Chapter 1, Section 1, Point 12 of the Marketplace Rules. The specific update is in regards to media titles, descriptions and tags.

Warning: Sellers found violating any of the rules below will receive a warning.

• Keyword Stuffing/Spam
  • Keyword stuffing in the title, tags, or description of BHW Media metadata is strictly prohibited.

Click to expand...

The reference to these rules for signatures can be found in: Everything You Need to Know About the Signature Space Rules

We're getting close to Christmas and today's update coincidently gives the Dispute Resolution forum a little "christmas" coloring.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/dispute-resolution.31/

In a nutshell the Dispute team decided that we'd like to add prefixes to the section so anyone can clearly look at a Dispute and know what status it's in:

- DR Live (yellow): the dispute is currently in a live (active) dispute
- DR Resolved (green): the dispute has been resolved one way or another
- DR On Hold (red): the dispute is on hold for some reason (like waiting on a refund confirmation)

There's really no other story to this update other than, it really makes the Disputes a little easier to keep organized.