Thanks for the suggestions SunShineS. We always appreciate suggestions from our members and we encourage them. Please don't hesitate to make suggestions whenever you have any. We might not do everything that is suggested, but we do want to know what our members think.
We are interested in quality posts so we don't want to do anything to encourage people to post just to have more posts.
We have had contests where members have been able to win real cash for making outstanding posts.
We have contests at times with cash prizes. We also have some special honors that do not come with any prizes such as our Hall of Fame, Most Valuable Poster and Bright New Star.
Possibly your suggestion could cause us to give some consideration to doing something new for outstanding posts that are made.
Thanks for the suggestions. There are no bad ideas and we love hearing what our members would like to see. We are actually looking at adding some forum enhancements this week to add for our 3rd forum anniversary. Like Larry said have a couple ideas we're tossing around for extra member recognition so thanks for your ideas.
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I split this topic off from another thread so it would not be off topic with the help we were trying to give that member and also so we could have an in-depth discussion if you guys want to.
It's a great idea and thanks for volunteering to help.
We've had other members suggest this and I even mentioned to Larry recently that it would be cool if we could set up some type of mentoring program. But there are a few issues. These are the ones that come to mind right away but I think there were some other concerns.
1) Confidentiality - If we suggest and teach one newbie a niche, anyone reading can decide to steal the ideas we give that one person and then we have several competing in that niche all doing the same things we recommended to the one person. A lurker that isn't very high integrity could horn in on it too.
2) Newbie follow-through. As we know some newbies do not have the skillset or commitment to follow through on the suggestions you guys would take your valuable time to suggest. We've had this happen in private with members who seemed well intentioned, kept asking and asking for help. Then we give it and they just don't do anything with it or worse just disappear.
That makes the whole experiment or project looked like it failed when in reality the niche may have been good, the member support and ideas were good, the newbie just didn't have what it took or didn't even try.
3) Mentor follow up - people get busy, someone could start helping with best intentions then just stop or take 3 days to show up and answer a question. Or a member who's a newbie but thinks he's a pro starts giving advice that is not very good or outright bad. Then it just gets frustrating and can sort of look bad for the forum.
This isn't anything against anyone here, in fact I think you two would be especially good at this. In an ideal world, because I love helping people I'd like to do something like this, but unfortunately it's NOT an ideal world. You guys have no idea about some of the things that happen. We've just had lots of situations come up that got dicey but luckily most were behind closed doors in PMs and not an open book on the public forum.
I used to wear rose colored glasses and try to help people more and I hate to sound jaded or negative, but just have been through too many things.
So those are a couple thoughts. I think I had a whole list of issues when this has come up before, I just can't remember everything right now. Larry may have more to add.
I'm open to ideas. Just not sure I have the time or emotional bandwidth right now. I have been going through some really serious family health issues and most days it's all I can do to just show up, to tell you the truth.
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The free forum support we provide is made possible by all the 5 Star programs at the top of the right sidebar & in the directory below. Please visit & support our merchants.
As Linda said, this is something we have talked about before. I agree with the points Linda made.
When it comes to forums and some of the members, I've always looked at things with glasses that were covered with mud and that mud is getting thicker as time passes.
Some of the wild things that go on with some members make it very difficult to do some of the things we would like to do that could be helpful.
This is a good idea with good intentions. I want to make that clear.
I don't want to say what my main problem is with this idea because it involves something that some members are doing that we know they are doing but they think we don't know.
That probably was as clear as the mud on my glasses. (I don't really wear glasses, just making a point).
Thanks Rob for taking the time to make this thoughtful suggestion.
Yes Linda and Larwee, you are right, and I understand why you feel this way.
A lot of people will try doing the same niche if we try to help one person.
I have also seen in another forum where the site owner decided to help a user setup a niche, and in return, the user had to post daily/weekly forum posts to keep people updated, so everyone could learn. The user then stopped posting when he started making good money, citing the fact that he didnt want people stealing his ideas!!
The only way I can see something like this working is if Rob and I work together to setup a niche site and post updates on our progress. We dont have to release the niche, just what we have done and the results we have got....
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