Hi Dave,

I have been bitting my tong for a while not wanting to openly say anything but I think enough is enough. I could not agree more with you.

I have withdrawn from voting on anything anymore as I see no point in it. I can look at a list in the POTW for example and I know who is going to win even if there are no votes yet cast. 

As for the Forum of the month. This was originally announced as a 3 person team would do the selection. It was also originally announced that if YOU felt YOUR forum met the standards YOU could nominate it.

Now its anyone can nominate any forum and members get to vote. I see forums that do not even qualify in the running and forums that are far more superior not getting a look in.

For those that are blissfully ignorant of the facts,  I will be kind and call it "canvasing" (although that is not the word I would use),  is not only done through Adlandpro private messages and DC's and vote for me posts. Some also use various instant messenger services to do behind the scenes, again I will be kind and call it  "Canvasing".

 

 

Hi Leon, If a person can truly say they have a friend like you, they have something to be thankful for, indeed! Yes, I knew this could stir up a little controversy, but at the same time, felt it was time to bring it up. I've noticed the level of participation going down, down, down on Adlandpro, and some formerly very active, helpful, articulate and intelligent members have been missing for some time. This is NOT to suggest that the members still here are not all of the above - just that we seem to have lost some very dear and valuable members of our community. It is quite clear, at least from my inbox, that the number of people who are still active in the community has gone down rather dramatically. It seems that a very small group of people are doing the vast majority of the posting AND emailing. My hope is that if everyone, rather than tooting their own horn, would expend the same amount of effort promoting the very community-minded forums like the awards forums, new member forums, etc., and remind friends whenever it is time to vote, rather than promoting themselves OR someone on their friends list. Some may find MY opinion on the matter bizarre - after all, some think, this IS a business community and whatever you have to do to promote your business is what's right. However, it's VERY telling when less than 200 people out of a community of 50,000 plus continue to vote. That tells me that the pool that everyone is trying to advertise in is very small, and the ONLY way to get that pool to increase is to create fresh interest and vitality in the community. My question to those with a friend's list of several thousand who might think about promoting themselves to those friends is this: if you have done it in the past and still are only seeing a tiny handful of votes, while others with much smaller friends lists who are NOT promoting themselves are getting close to the same number of votes or more, is it working? A very wise person once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results." A person can do very well posting in community forums without self promotion. As you know, I posted a thread on that called, "How to get REAL Traffic. For those who are following through on that thread, they are finding out that it is completely true, and a lot more fun, too. God bless, Dave

Hi Jenny, GREAT vent! As a human being, it makes me feel a LOT better to know I'm not the only one who feels like this. Thank you for including the link to Kenneth's forum. I don't know how I missed it - it was probably buried in my inbox somewhere! Anyway, it is a very good thread. I do hope everyone who comes by reads your post. You have put in print what I'm sure many members past (unfortunately) and present have thought and are thinking. God bless, Dave

Hi Tony, There have been several good ideas that have popped up in this discussion. One has been to suggest to Bogdan that the button to block email be offered to free members as well as Adlanders. That might just do a world of good for the community, and make people think carefully about what they send out. The other idea came to me when I read your comment about Invitations. I think it would be a great idea, and very doable, if invitations were not allowed to contain advertising of any kind (aka - spam). Whether the members here realize it or not, advertising in a first contact like an Friend's Invitation IS spam (and very unprofessional). You, by the way, are doing what WILL bring you success in a community; you are using a signature file that goes on the end of every post you make. What members of this community may not all realize, is that whenever you CHANGE your signature file, it changes on every post you have out there! That means that rather than continuously slam and spam everyone in the community, all the members can enjoy reading and posting interesting and intelligent comments on the forums, all the while spreading their message all over the community AND getting noticed by the search engines, and whenever something new comes along that a member wants to promote, it can be instantly spread across the whole community JUST by changing that sig file! What a concept! Thanks for a great post, Tony. God bless, Dave