Closing Off BHW From The World

This past year BHW has gone through tremendous growth. We went from a small black hat community with around 4k members to over 24k members...roughly half the size of digital point forums.

I never thought BHW would grow this big and I am feeling it is getting too big for "black hat". The last thing we need is for this black hat forum to turn this into another one of "those forums". With the news about different black hat methods I'm worried about people's privacy with the affiliate managers and also having our posts stolen and used on other forums. With all this extra growth I have been overwhelmed with 252 unread pms and have been not addressing important site issues which really need to be dealt with. BHW is lucky to have loving and caring admins and mods to help out but they can only help so much.

Several members have asked if we could close the doors to visitors and make BHW a private community for a small fee. While I realize a fee wouldn't prevent all these issues from occurring it would help to at least limit their occurrences. Now I am asking everyone for their input and what they think.

If so only members who pay a negligible fee of say $9 or $19 a month would have access to BHW forums. Executive VIP members would be exempt from fees since they have contributed in the past. Current donors would be given a 4 month free pass. Search engines would be allowed to spider the forum but would not "cache" anything thus we would not loose any traffic.

I agree that the forum should close to new signups, Could even get rid of a few newcomers. But I do not think a membership fee would be fair.

I couldnt stay if there was a fee.

Can ya add a poll answer:
Close it off and no fee....

Keep it open to the public is my vote

yea i would obviously prefer not to pay a fee, but if that is what is needed to keep this community alive, of course I will.

personally I wouldn't mind paying for private area (like warrior forum has) with a one-off payment to unlock a new area, but I would have never found this place if it were a closed community and subsequently never learned so much from so many brilliant people.

You have created a great 'community' here and I know the temptation must be to monetize it, but you may be better using this place as a funnel into other things.

my vote is yes close it to non members

I say leave it open, but make it harder to become Jr VIP, and start moving some of the better material there.

pollfactory said:

I say leave it open, but make it harder to become Jr VIP, and start moving some of the better material there.

Click to expand...

Being a JR VIP wont stop newbs from coming in and highjacking threads, spamming, asking stupid questions before they search.

I say either close it to no registration, or by invite only and you have to be a JR VIP to send out invites.

Hi,

My personal opinion on this matter is that black hat is a great website to be apart of and i have learned so much over the last few months from all these great members that share there ideas and techniques. It would be shame to lock out newbies wanting to learn some new stuff. As for charging a fee to registered users well i do not agree with it i think it should be kept free but if it keeps this website alive then so be it.

Thanks

Close it. You've got everyone you need right here.

Though I have only benefited slightly from being a member here, I do think a closed community would increase the quality of the posts and community as a whole.

I voted yes, even though it will be a bit difficult for me to pay the membership fee...

I say do the 9$ a month so the entry level is enought for everyone that is part of it right now. And yes close if off to everyone else...

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.

I voted no, but it is a conditional no. I think that completely closing off BHW to the outside world would be extremely detrimental to the community's longevity. Like most people, I found this forum through search engines and I'd hate to see that stop. There have been a number of great members that have joined recently that I doubt would be able to afford a monthly fee. In my humble opinion, some of the most thought-provoking questions come from new marketers who haven't become as jaded as some of us with more experience. I personally find those contributions especially valuable.

I would, however, like to see certain sections closed off to the non-paying public. I think that the programming sections, for example, might be a bit more successful if some of us knew that our contributions were a little bit more protected. I imagine that same principle could apply to a few other sections as well.

This is a bit biased, but I also have to admit that as a seller, a closed community becomes a little less attractive. I imagine it'd reduce the number of scammers and carders, but it would also reduce the face-time my products get on BHW with potential buyers. I think that other people who sell or offer their services and use BHW to network might also be negatively impacted, but I would like to hear other vendors' opinions.

One thing that I would like to see done away with, and I know this will yield a negative reaction from many, is the Member Downloads section. I think that it fosters an environment where out-and-out stealing is acceptable. It also provides those who steal from us with a good excuse.

Thanks for allowing this to be a democratic decision, Dave. I think that says a lot about you.

After reading other members views... especially Oldenstylehats opinion.
I believe it should be allowed to the public(for BST to prosper)...
Member downloads should be moved over to a restricted area. Too many people
are signing up only to request downloads.
There should be a brief intro email sent to all new members regarding forum
rules...especially about posting those "how do I make money" threads.

Well, either make it free for BHU members OR only allow new members via a referral from only certain level members.

If this becomes a subscription I'll have to decide IF what other memberships to keep...

xplicit said:

I agree that the forum should close to new signups, Could even get rid of a few newcomers. But I do not think a membership fee would be fair.

I couldnt stay if there was a fee.

Can ya add a poll answer:
Close it off and no fee....

Click to expand...

celestmark said:

Well, either make it free for BHU members OR only allow new members via a referral from only certain level members.
.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly

As for most, they might not be able or "want" to pay the fee but have contributed quite a bit to the forum, and I am speaking for myself on this.

Hmmm... Well this can be looked at a couple ways. Here are my thoughts...

Making it a "pay only" community will really close the doors on people joining the board. And quite honestly... I think that is a bad thing. Just for the simple fact new talent won't be recruited.

There are leeches out there that come on here for just one thing - To leech information. There are also probably the affiliate managers and spies from various sites we attempt to exploit. Those AMs and spies will still be on here - They will just "pay" to be on here.

On the other hand there are new people that join this board that actually contribute... They feel things out, grab some information, and share some information. I know I fell into this category and I have made this my new "home". If this was a private board when I first reached the site... I would have probably thought about it for a minute and then drifted off somewhere else.

Forcing people to pay is not the best option in my opinion... I think a better approach would be to give "donating members" access to other areas/forums/etc on the board.

Just my .02 cents...

Cyp

celestmark said:

Well, either make it free for BHU members OR only allow new members via a referral from only certain level members.

If this becomes a subscription I'll have to decide IF what other memberships to keep...

Click to expand...

An invite system for access to certain sections could be very interesting. I wonder how hard that would be to integrate into vBulletin?

close it off and not pay a fee would be best. everyone who is here stays...