Big changes needed at acorn domains

[DomainAngel]

Firstly I do have to say I'm only a minor contributor, however I do spend half my life here so I'm not gonna be mean, hopefully just constructive.

Recently acorn has gone to pot - fact.

And it's not really down to the owner nor the mods, as I see them fighting fires everywhere, weeding out the blag posts and rip off merchants.

I say gone to pot as regards the increasing amount of idiots who now post on this site, as for ad's features and associated resources, these have got better.

I blame some of the threads. The welcome thread is a joke now. Same old people saying hello everytime and adding thirty or forty to their tally of posts each week, you just can't see the genuine posters anymore.

Ok so it may be a victim of it's own success and people feel happy to post willy nilly, but this does the site no good at all.

Acorn needs to go more formal, it's the only way it can properly survive.

I'm one of the people responsible when it comes to buying cheap domains and yes there is a need for it but not in a thread called bargain basement domains.

A big uk domainer recently told me about a chat they had with a huge investor from over the pond. That investor does not purchase co uk domains anymore and one of the factors was the way people acted on this very site. Ok it's hard to believe someone would forego profit because if this. But a few bad experiences could put them off.

Acorn is the most important website for the uk resale market and always has been, it also reached out across the world to important dominers and serious new domainers. These days have gone.

Ok there is still no uk site to match it but that doesn't mean it has to go to the dogs.

The new breed of posters seem hell bent on turning a fast profit and talking up worthless domains. Half the posts with questions are only asked so the original poster can in fact give their own answer.

From an acorn this site has grown into a superb oak, it's just unfortunate that it is being strangled by the quick growing vines that are now suffocating it and blocking the sun it rightly deserves.

Time for a Forrest fire I would say. Let all of us help burn away the dead wood and let's return acorn to it's former glory.

It will be stronger and ready for the hard times we will face when the .tel and .Asia folks come along.

Forget the . Com any old country can have them. Let's fly the flag for the uk domains and challenge anybody who stands in it's way or tries to put it down.

It's no good just saying hey yay go dot co dot uk.

You have to know your Market you have to be prepared to go that extra mile and you have to.... Well you know what I'm talking about.


Ok I've just had my tea and toast ready for bed and some of you will be wondering what's in my tea.

Nothing is the answer, and I'm quite prepared to stand my ground if any of you think I'm wrong. That's what is needed in this forum again. Integrity.

To the vast majority of users on here your integrity is not in question, I just feel I have to have my say.

I've really grown fond of acorn and it's quality users, I hope it's here for a long time to come :')

Ps

Please do not associate my posts with the wonderful content writing that I do haha

[mat]

I have allways thought maybe a £10+ yearly subscription to post domains for sale would work quite well. Its not much to spend but may help stop people just signing up and trying out their luck with any old domain. Would also help pay to run the forum and give admin a few more days on holiday

[DomainAngel]

Originally Posted by mat

I have allways thought maybe a £10+ yearly subscription to post domains for sale would work quite well. Its not much to spend but may help stop people just signing up and trying out their luck with any old domain. Would also help pay to run the forum and give admin a few more days on holiday

I totally agree.

[golddiggerguy]

It is a hard one and a very fine line.

If i was thinking about going into domaining a bit blind, wanted to know more and fancied a look on here the fee would put a lot of people off I think.

Not just the ones that just want to spam, post shite and in general think aroooogagagagga.co.uk is worth hundreds. But genuine wannabe's that want to taste domaining.

I would be happy to pay £10 a year to allow access to post domains/websites for sale, but you might find it will turn into a click of people and go a bit stale.

I would suggest all active members that have either traded at least 1+ domain, have posted 100 times or/and have been members for over 6 months. Give a notice to be charge £10 for the period of February to post domains/websites for sale or be locked out from some forums.

It could be a test run for 1 month then.

Or start another forum up on a new domain just for paid members.

Not saying either is right or it will work, its just my opinion for your comments and it will be a fine line and might back fire. Forums are a nightmare to run going on what I have seen, experienced and think this site could be a lot worse for spamming/time wasters than it is etc

So well done Admin and MODS

[Takwa]

I also agree on the annual charge to post domains for sale, that should weed out the first time posters from posting their rubbish spam sale on here.

yes this forum needs some more active members as it doesn't seem to be growing ever since I joined.

[lebowski]

Hear hear DomainAngel. Whilst only a new member, have to say the genuine members of this forum stand out a mile. The spam does bring the quality down but these posts are quickly and easily dismissed with our built-in spam filters. Overall, the quality of AD shines through, though the concerns raised are certainly noteworthy. The only way to improve quality is for us all to pay. Sign me up.

Can we also look at changing/removing some of the unsuccessful thread categories?

[philipp]

The mix seems about the same as usual to me, it's the usual combination of smart and not-so-smart people.

Having to sort the wheat from the chaff is par for the course

P.

[retired_member12]

Like all forums, you get posters who seem to burn bright then die, but whilst they are posting, the topics they raise and discuss are interesting and well constructed.
I imagine a lot of the longer term posters here can think of a member or two who they'd like to see contributing again!

[Edwin]

10 pounds is hardly going to deter the people who (from seeing their lists of domains for sale) have spent thousands already on regfee or worse no-hopers (whether they themselves have realised what they're holding is worthless or not is moot, the principle still applies i.e. they have/had many, many times the 10 pounds to spend on "domaining").

Perhaps there needs to be a limit to the number of threads per week that can be started in the for-sale section by any one poster (this can be done programmatically with a vBulletin plugin/mod, I believe). For example, 4 threads per week per poster. Means they can have a new sale starting every 48 hours (with any number of names per thread), but it's also impossible to drown out the forum with a barrage of new threads.

Similarly, I believe there is a plugin that will allow only one "bump" per 24 hours (or whatever time period) and that might have merit too. All subsequent posts within that 24 hour window either get auto-merged into the previous post (if they're sequential posts by the same author), or they get tacked on the end of the thread, but without bringing the thread back to the top of the list again.

Some of the above would cramp certain kinds of sales (I'd have been impacted by the second suggestion during my recent 24 hour sale) but I believe it's worth considering a few sacrifices to make the overall Acorn experience that much better...

One non-programmatic idea - and hence IMO less appealing - would be a rule stating that any given domain can only be flogged once in a week (or two week, or whatever) period. So if there are no takers the first time, it can't be the subject of a new thread until that stated time period had elapsed.

Setting restrictions in the software (or, to a lesser extent, in the rules) may have a more direct effect than imposing a fee, especially since then the gut instinct is to try and "amortise" said fee by extracting maximum value from the forums (= posting as frequently as possible to try and sell more names)

[retired_member6]

Originally Posted by Edwin

10 pounds is hardly going to deter the people who (from seeing their lists of domains for sale) have spent thousands already on regfee or worse no-hopers.

Perhaps there needs to be a limit to the number of threads per week that can be started in the for-sale section by any one poster (this can be done programmatically with a vBulletin plugin/mod, I believe). For example, 4 posts per week per poster. Means they can have a new sale starting every 48 hours (with any number of names per thread), but it's also impossible to drown out the forum with a barrage of new threads.

Similarly, I believe there is a plugin that will allow only one "bump" per 24 hours (or whatever time period) and that might have merit too. All subsequent posts within that 24 hour window either get auto-merged into the previous post (if they're sequential posts by the same author), or they get tacked on the end of the thread, but without bringing the thread back to the top of the list again.

Some of the above would cramp certain kinds of sales (I'd have been impacted by the second suggestion during my recent 24 hour sale) but I believe it's worth considering a few sacrifices to make the overall Acorn experience that much better...

One non-programmatic idea - and hence IMO less appealing - would be a rule stating that any given domain can only be flogged once in a week (or two week, or whatever) period. So if there are no takers the first time, it can't be the subject of a new thread until that stated time period had elapsed.

Setting restrictions in the software (or, to a lesser extent, in the rules) may have a more direct effect than imposing a fee, especially since then the gut instinct is to try and "amortise" said fee by extracting maximum value from the forums (= posting as frequently as possible to try and sell more names)

Yes but what some of you fail to realise is this is a business to a select few who flog to the people on here who like domains at their price or fresh catches at the right amount or even old names to new onlookers. A lot just do this out of full time work hours and they moan at people trying to earn their living.

Therefore you have to continually try and gauge the audience present at the time and adjust your offering either in a bulk manner, or by lowering and yes even highering prices to make the deal suit the varied interested parties who ARE interested but at their level.

Yes you could plan your approach better, hit them low constantly or go high and gradually reduce over an eight week period but domains should get the amount they deserve, hence three forums, portfolio for packaged - people get confused on that one and list all sorts, priced for individually priced domains and offers and auction, ultimately the buyer wants a good deal, the seller wants a good deal and both want to be happy with the result so updating threads obviously has its use and the quicker the better sometimes for both parties.

Time and time again I have requested a forum which can really be a sales forum with adjustments that are reasonable and proper, like price lowering several times in a day to get the sale. I find it absurd the suggestion that you should edit a post and not reply post and somehow expect someone to know the price has been lowered, how's that work then? Also sometimes very quickly you can judge the long term response by the initial one so to get the sale and profit you may turn an offer into an auction and to do so you need to update and alert people to that fact, all very nice is the bidder would reply to the post but 70% they do not. There's more reasons for regular updates as well.

You can leave a post up all week with a domain in, it aint going to sell itself is it? it's a waste of time for everybody. people have to be able to market and sell their domains but also be responsible. I try to be, I do a post every 24 hours as permitted, yes I lower prices or make new packages maybe a little too often but I need the sales now not next week. What good is next week when this week it's vienna and next week amsterdam, I have to pay for that with sales today.

Acorn added a bargain forum upon request, why not add a flog your domain forum as well, where prices can be adjusted and blagged and sold. Maybe there's a vbulletin mod that enables a post to be shown as edited and that will get around the reply post option to draw attention to a price drop or repackaged deal rather than the current way. maybe an rss feed can be implemented in some form or another for updated prices which people can be informed of?

Either way, there's many types of different domainers on here, people with jobs and who do this, people who do this full time, people who sell only to end users - the bigger catches, and those in the middle who turn a fair load of domains during a year to both end users and domainers and web designers / businesses who frequent the board who have to sell their wares continously so as to bring in the money to put food on the table.

Bring in your restrictions if that's what the majority want, but you will only stifle the forum, domains don't sell themselves, not even the good ones, ask Michael Toth. Is there a solution, yes, find a way to show posts that have been edited and make it clear that means offer changed or simply take the for sale posts out of the new post section and offer an alternative search result page for those looking to buy domains that can also be instantly clicked.

In my view domains should reach their level in a good and reasonable time period for buyer and seller to agree, unfortunately eight weeks or even two weeks don't cut it, there has to be a solution but how on earth can people find out an offer has been changed just by editing a post and how do I get a £1000 in two days, when I'm expected to not be a salesman and to instead wait for someone to knock on my door.

There has to be a legitimate way to be pro active with sales on here. And we all know what a tat domain is and what an over priced domain is, one person's rubbish is another man's treasure, I don't like how some people look down their noses on other's trying to make their living, we all know all sorts sell on here, sedo and everywhere, good luck to all.