Closing Off BHW From The World

Money2spare said:

and always remember-- Information should be "FREE"
If not then you should be paid for your post contributions!

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I think I agree with money to spare here.


I would not want a fee and there is already a fee for the cookie stuffing forums or a number of posts to be made before entry to them.

However, I imagine that if it was my forum I might wonder why I was doing the work of upkeep for no payment.

Lots of different things seem to have come up as far as I have got on this thread.

- A paid membership delivering downloads which it has no legal right to be offering.

- The quality of posts.

- People able to feel that it is in their interests to offer good quality help.

- Members tolerance with people while they learn.

- People coming in to spam or spy.

Probably a small yearly charge would pay for someone to do the admin. $10 would do it, I would imagine.

But there is a lot more to be thought of here, not just a fee.

I think what we need to do is stop promoting the site, but run it as it is.

None of the members should make posts on digital point, that r u from black hat world.

That is what is causing the problem!

You can always leave current users be and make an invitation system.

I say close it off, implement a invitation system, limit sign-ups per month (20-30?), purge inactive accounts (1 year, like someone said above), but NO frickin' FEES. I would definately not have joined BHW if there would have been a fee.

The users are the ones contributing most of the content here anyway, not the BHW founders or admins (not saying they also contribute).

If there was a fee though, most/some of the profits should go to users who have given the most. How that would be calculated in a fair way, is another question altoghether (although I'm thinking maybe by how many thanks a topic has received). This would probably give more incentive for people to post USEFUL/INTERESTING stuff.

I say close the doors and as Xplicit said a Jr. Vip or higher must send invites 2 people wanting to join, however, i do not feel a fee should be implemented as BlackHat University would be the place to pay your fees i say keep this forum free.... thats my vote

Or the fees could also be used to develop software for all paying members

Like i said on another post..i found bhw through search engine and am so glad i did. without that i think some of the main contributors today wouldn't have been here.

If you can find a way to let this site be visible but allow the meat of the forum only available to members it may work. I haven't made any money yet but wouldn't mind paying a monthly premium to continue to be a member.

I wouldn't vote for closing it and in all honesty I already pay for DIM membership, if I was asked to pay here as well I would probably pass. Closing it to the public is a great idea, charging a $9 fee or whatever is not so great.

Don't get me wrong, I still visit here more than I do any other forum and I have learned a great deal but faced with 2 memberships I would just slim down to 1 for simplicity.

My honest gut feeling is that if this became the case, a significant number of people would jump ship and move to other shores.

Why not just invitation only by Jr VIP or higher, kind of like demonoid?

When is there going to be a decision made? Whats the input from the mods and all.

I love all of the Obama supporters on here. Lots of value and no fee? That makes sense.

Diamond Dave needs to make money too.

Close it off with a new monthly membership cap and charge a basic fee. That will keep serious people on.

poopinagroup said:

I obviously don't have a lot of posts, but come here often. I haven't offered more because I don't have anything to offer yet that hasn't been presented yet.

I would be more than happy to pay a nominal fee to protect the excellent content here.

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I think that says it all, really. That's how I feel.

I've voted against closing the forum to visitors. I feel restricting the access to the forum altogether to newcomers would eventually mean undermining its originality and vitality. New blood means life to a forum and life's usually messy. So be it. Let's just do our best to provide newcomers with a good example of the kind of community we want to be building here.

Sure, access to some kind of content should be restricted to private areas. I feel the best way to do this is by establishing some kind of "meritocracy" regulated by senior members.

I am a newbie, discovered the board less than a week ago, and may not have a lot of room to talk.

But here's my thoughts. I have already found a way to make money just from reading theory based articles on the forums and a little creativity. But I am reluctant to share my idea, because

a) I fear visitors and lurkers will take the idea and overuse the method. Soon either the website's administrators will catch on or it will be used so often that it becomes ineffective and unprofitable (shaqsquash's AC method seems to be a perfect example. The higher supply of well written articles the more stringent requirements become on up-front payment.)

b) I don't like the idea of lurkers and visitors making money off of an idea that has taken me months and some of my money to perfect.

c) MOST IMPORTANTLY, the forum is open to all the AC, CPA, Google, CL, Youtube employee's whose jobs it is to crack down on the very techniques we use. If I worked on making sure Youtube was not being exploited, this would be a perfect resource for me to find the latest techniques being used to manipulate the system.

The last point alone should be enough to make this a members only forum that is closed to the general public. I don't think there should be a fee, but rather to make this forum truly amazing, I have a new idea:

I learned by reading general articles, not the actual techniques. So I think some of the blackhat articles that are theory based (i.e. defining a niche, how to make a profitable blog, etc.) and white hat methods should be open to the general public to view. This will give prospects enough of an education to experiment and come up with techniques on their own.

To join though, a prospective member must come up with a method that they have used and can be duplicated by the members of the forum. The idea must be unique and the money made must be greater than the time spent (ie no ideas of how to make $100 but it takes 8 hours of work to implement).

If their method works, they are accepted, and if not or it has already been submitted, it's back the drawing board for them.

In addition, every year members are up for review based on contributions and innovative ideas they have given to the community.

Can you imagine how dynamic this forum would be, if every member had contributed an unique tried and tested method to making money on the internet?

The strength of this board as I see it, is not the numbers, but the ideas. The more people that join this board without having any ideas, the more reluctant people will be to share their ideas and techniques.

Like I said, I'm a newbie, but that's my 2c.

don close don close to public

Ironic that this is my first post and that I have downloaded numerous e-books in the short time I have been here. I don't know if that makes me a leech or a student. I prefer the latter. This is my first post because I prefer to listen and learn and then speak. There are so many here who know so much why would I add to the chatter?

So, regarding closing off the forum. I see both sides. This is a tough decision. If the forum does close to the unpaid or newer members a culling of foundational/introductory content could be posted to a website with a forum designed to pull potential new members into this forum. In other words, take the forum off the front, move it to private and put a culling forum in place as an interim tool. The problem with this tho is that smart people could easily get pissed off by being left/kept out with the children unless senior members cultivated relationships with those that showed promise.

For the record, I'm here as an observer. I have a regular job that takes most of my time. Sure the dream is there but I'm pretty white hat as I don't desire the hassle of the evil folks on the net. What I like about this forum is the feel that I have stepped into the past where some postmodern combination of Robin Hoodishness and chivalry intersect. Honestly I'm really fascinated by the ethical questions within this realm. I come from the open source/open standards world where I see similarities with the founding spirit of this community. I would hate to get locked out as I believe I will, at some point, be able to contribute.

I am like a lot of others and would not want to see the forum completely closed off. I also see the need to at least make some of the sections private. I donated to the forum and will gladly do so again. I however could not donate or pay $20.00 a month. My donation was approximately 1/2 of that for the year. So I guess I am saying keep it like it is, and keep or make the preminum parts of the forum open only to those who donate or prove they are really interested in the forum and do a lot of posting and sharing.

James

why change a winning formula? using your present method has built you a huge mailing list

I like restrictive places, but I'd not force people to pay you would ignore some good heads that can not pay money or don't want to do so!
Maybe create more protected areas for experts on various topics, stuff like that is nice to keep the average nobody out of it.
I'd also remove the blackhat threads from the google index, yea it brings hits but after all it's blackhat SEO *g

i think you should close it but no fee !!! would be way better

I don't think there should be a recurring fee. That just seems like your only making the decision for the extra cash.

You should make it a one time fee. This will stop multiple accounts, and spamming because they will get banned and lose their account and to make another even with a proxy will cost another fee.

The fee should be $50-$100.