an Advice for Acorn? how not to silence members and still maintain good manners?

[Helmuts]

Hi, really need an advice and your input..

it seems I have been tightening the positivity screws here way too much..

how can we stay pro-free-speech and anti-insulting?

I feel that I have been silencing people here when in lots of the cases this wasn't insulting and not disinformation.. then it turned into mess :/

where to draw a line?

how not to silence people and still maintain good manners?

.. this is dangerous as well allowing corporations and businesses dictate what is true and what is not, as will impact their bottom line.. I'm not proud of how is turning out..

 

[Helmuts]

@JimDavies what would you say? you are trying to say things about Nominet and I feel I have also been silencing you..

@Whois-Search .. Andrew? .. I would really, really love to hear your advice..

 

[Helmuts]

received a very constive suggestion to remove feeds.

these are the feeds we have (both active and inactive):

Domain Incite is by @KevDI (UK) and Crunch.id is by @LeanneMac (also, UK) > these should stay as we need to help with max eyeballs to our UK community members.

it.com are our corporate sponsors, don't interfer with our businesses, have office in Hammersmith (we had a great meetup there) and their feed goes to their own category.

Domain Lore feed gives a look into recently sold names.. Question: shall we remove the restriction reporting only decent sales (preferrably 1k+) or start reporting all? :?

Nominet's feed goes directly to the "Nominet General Information", and has been so for many years.

This leads us to 2 global leading dn news feeds: DNJournal and Domain Name Wire > shall we keep them? .. my thoughts are that it is good knowing what is going on in the world .. and our dedicated server has all the resources to check these feeds regularly and publish them so we we know almost instantly when these are published.

suggestions?

H

p.s. you are most welcome to write me in private. .. I am looking for further improvements of Acorn and fixing the mistakes that have been made by me in this process. .. work in progress.

 

[DesD]

Good and potentially important post, Helmuts.

I think you’ve got the balance wrong.

The forum isn’t a place for business in the first instance, it’s a place for community.

It’s the mix of content that the community creates that drives loyalty and repeat visit. Remember, while members do visit to see high quality content, they also want to see low brow stuff, silliness and yes, a bit of controversy. You don’t always want to talk shop where you relax.

Remember also, partners can create their own sterile environments easily. However, they cannot create living, breathing communities like this one.

A forum is an organic thing and that’s where the uniqueness and value of Acorn should be. Taking the quirkiness out actually weakens your offer, the opposite of what you’re looking to achieve, I believe.

The better approach may be to educate partners on community standards as opposed to moving community standards to meet business standards.

Now, if I was in your shoes [I’m not so this is no more than a suggestion], I’d consider the last couple of months a bit of an A/B test. You may be happy with the results, but if not…

I’d adjust the dial and send an olive branch to members who may feel too much change occurred too quickly. Let’s get them back. They’ve spent a lot of time here so a small bit of humility should achieve this.

I’d ensure the moderators are well respected.

I’d ask the admin to disappear into the background.

I’d work hard to remove any cliques that management are involved in.

I’d try less hard, promote less, reduce feeds and allow the forum to bloom again.

I’d cut back on selling / banners etc. Having partners onboard as contributors to threads, bringing their insight and deals in a more organic way will achieve all of your objectives, I’m sure of it. This last bit is key in my opinion. Partners will earn infinitely greater benefit by joining the community and earning respect in the same way as any other member. They will benefit enormously from an honest appraisal of what they’re doing well / less well.

I’m pretty sure we all want to see you succeed, good luck!

 

[crazihos]

As a long time lurker I don't enjoy it here now personally. It has become too b2b and the personality has gone.

In my opinion you need to let people duke it out a little. Obviously there are limits but when people clash it's interesting and you get to see different view points thrashed out and that brings in other people who also have varying opinions and it grows from there.

You remove all elements of controversy and it gets stale very quickly.

Now I struggle to find decent domain sale posts among all the B2b fluff.

I'm sorry it's not a more positive response from me but hopefully my feedback is still helpful.

 

[RB5]

I'd thought about privately messaging this but in the spirit of encouraging views and conversation, I'll post publicly.

At its core, go back to the definition of a forum "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged."

The approach has not been to allow differing ideas/views.

Based on our previous interactions, you know I just want the right thing to be done.

If I were to post something along the lines of that I think statements from one of the forums sponsors such as:

Are unclear and misrepresenting the offer due to there being domains that are not $49:

See the following guidance from Trading Standards which apply to this scenario:

This is where the owner of the forum and the admin team should not (as have been cases in the past) delete the threads/comments about it. They are discussing something as a community with differing views.

Where your approach has lacked in the past (and even currently) is that you're aiming for this goal of a perfect place to do business, which doesn't exist. By sanitising everything you're killing everything healthy.

Now the other element, and I ask you to not delete this, is that a forum needs to have something that brings it together, take the rise of UKDNF and 4M. They have both grown due to the "tightening the positivity screws". What is Acorn offering as a place to bring users together? It's not a place to discuss any topic openly, in terms of visitors it's probably on par with those other forums. The one thing you do very well (as can be seen from the summit) is you can get attention from companies. Why not encourage them to have representatives that can be publicly queried (even in a negative light). That then brings value to Acorn, the brands have a feedback loop that they wouldn't have anywhere else.

You need to stop approaching this as a technical issue, things such as feeds/newsletter bounce rates etc are not going to build that community.

Finally, as an admin you're meant to be at the core of the community, you should be joining in, where there's issues and complaints you should try and get to the bottom of it, if there's community kick back on something talk with some that you respect on how to deal with it. Deleting content should be the absolute last option, if you've done something wrong admit you've fucked up but do not delete the content. Garner a mutual respect but being willing to learn and improve at what you're doing.

 

[MapleDots]

The forum isn’t a place for business in the first instance, it’s a place for community.

You actually hit that right on, forums are all about expression and you can add business to it but the business should not impede the free expression.

That is why when I write forum rules I call them Guidelines not rules.
My Moderators are called Guides.
When you report a post you "Call a Guide"

We guide members to a mutual agreement and most times via PM behind the lines.

If interested you can see a copy of our GUIDELINES here: https://dn.ca/forum/guidelines/

 

[Helmuts]

If interested you can see a copy of our GUIDELINES here: https://dn.ca/forum/guidelines/

Thank you, Frank! I will definetelly look into this..

 

[Helmuts]

good morning,

Are unclear and misrepresenting the offer due to there being domains that are not $49:

I am confused: what is obsession with it.com domains? .. is this something personal??

The price on their website is $49 per domain.

They have lots of registrars, including Dynadot, Porkbun, Netistrar, GoDaddy and others, and the registration/renewal prices there vary from time to time and from platform to platform.

As with all similar products, they also have names that are classified as “premium“ names, and you will find these at Sedo (maybe somewhere else).

Guys, what is the obsession with the it.com? .. based in Hammersmith, re-attempting where CentralNic failed: successfully selling subdomains, they probably have one of the best sales teams that our industry has, they don’t claim that these are for the investment and keep developing their own backend software solutions.

Seriously, this isn’t cool.

 

[Helmuts]

[Quick update]

We have disabled the DNJournal and DNW feed imports.

And, lots of categories will be reorganised over this weekend to make Acorn cleaner

.. we really like what Frank (@MapleDots) has done at the Canadian dn.ca

enjoy your Saturday! Helmuts

 

[MapleDots]

.. we really like what Frank (@MapleDots) has done at the Canadian dn.ca

If you need a hand with anything let me know, I've become quite proficient with Xenforo.

I'm just a quick PM away if you need anything.

 

[Helmuts]

If you need a hand with anything let me know, I've become quite proficient with Xenforo.

I'm just a quick PM away if you need anything.

@Admin

 

[crazihos]

good morning,



I am confused: what is obsession with it.com domains? .. is this something personal??

The price on their website is $49 per domain.

They have lots of registrars, including Dynadot, Porkbun, Netistrar, GoDaddy and others, and the registration/renewal prices there vary from time to time and from platform to platform.

As with all similar products, they also have names that are classified as “premium“ names, and you will find these at Sedo (maybe somewhere else).

Guys, what is the obsession with the it.com? .. based in Hammersmith, re-attempting where CentralNic failed: successfully selling subdomains, they probably have one of the best sales teams that our industry has, they don’t claim that these are for the investment and keep developing their own backend software solutions.

Seriously, this isn’t cool.

I think the point is probably that the advert should say "from $49" instead of "for $49" because currently it's misleading.

 

[Helmuts]

I think the point is probably that the advert should say "from $49" instead of "for $49" because currently it's misleading.

Please try https://www.dynadot.com/domain/search

.. or porkbun: https://porkbun.com/products/domains

.. and many many other registrars would have also very low pricing..

--

also, can you notice the position of it? .. that shelf Costs Money.

.. sadly, there are individuals that keep bashing it, instead of analyzing how an underdog actually survives and becomes stronger..

--

You see > their $49 price does Not compete with their registrars.. isn't it nice?

All good now? .. I don't understnd this .. some people can look up the deepest stuff online, though reject to see obvious things.

 

[Helmuts]

btw, for those who are curious to learn what it.com is doing > here is their latest presentation from the Domain Summit 2024 by Joe Alagna, who is the actual person who started building subdomain business for CentralNic (if I am correct), when was working for them:

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[crazihos]

Please try https://www.dynadot.com/domain/search

View attachment 4536

.. or porkbun: https://porkbun.com/products/domains
View attachment 4537


.. and many many other registrars would have also very low pricing..

--

also, can you notice the position of it? .. that shelf Costs Money.

.. sadly, there are individuals that keep bashing it, instead of analyzing how an underdog actually survives and becomes stronger..

--

You see > their $49 price does Not compete with their registrars.. isn't it nice?

All good now? .. I don't understnd this .. some people can look up the deepest stuff online, though reject to see obvious things.

I'm sorry but I really don't understand your point.

I have no problem with it.com or their offering. I've not looked into it deeply whatsoever because it's not a product that interests me. I'm certainly not obsessed about it. I don't really care.

I only commented on the advert that @RB5 highlighted in his post because of it's wording. The ASA and trading standard require accurate descriptions and pricing in adverts and using the word "for" in this advert may contravene that. Especially if they still actually own the premium domains that are listed on their site.

That's it, it's what I think. It's an opinion on a technicality about a single word within an advert that is highlighted within this thread. I don't care whether they change it or not and I'm not ripping apart their business model.

 

[Helmuts]

@crazihos makes 100% sense.. my apologies.

can I ask you: what is your main business? .. you have one of the oldest accounts at Acorn and probably has seen it all here (so far)

.. what are your thoughts on us changing the categories (I want to make it simplier, with less categories).

Thank you