I see there is now a narrow majority for a separate Budget Dealers subforum. I'd certainly be happy with that. In fact, if I didn't have to retype this, I'd change my vote and will do so in a minute.
I assume once you move the forum, costs will become an issue. Speaking for myself, I'm happy to contribute if this will ease the issue. Just now I can afford to do so (This has not always been the case in the last 5 years) and would be happy to if this helps.
But the current ads don't bother me at all and if they defray costs then great...
I would like to see a Budget Dealers section. However, if the dealers actually take the time to test out their products and show us an in-depth review (comparisons of beam shots, run-times, etc.), I would be more than happy to see those posts in the battery section. If they are just going to copy/paste from their website, I don't really see a benefit to that.
Good point, thanks for your comment. I suppose we could take this on an individual basis. If we ever get a real, entrepreneurial, honest seller with competitive prices who becomes a member here, we could give him preferential treatment.
Another question for the audience...
What do you guys think about the best way to deal with users who sign up here posing as users who only want to give false product promotions? I believe they would be classified as "schills". Again, I would prefer to not be the only one who just arbitrarily deletes these users, because another site with eminently powerful moderators already exists, and we don't want to be like them. I was thinking about configuring something like this for every user and/or every post:
When too many of our users get annoyed by a posting (lets say a -5 rating) the post automatically gets moved into a trashbin category. And when a user rating dips too low, he gets blocked or deleted.
I think this might be a good option so that the fate of our users doesn't depend on a single cranky administrator or a single disagreement between two users here on BLF. What do you guys think?
I think they're going back and forth with the letters to try and trick us into thinking they are legit members. After reading this post they will probably start with the middle letters.
This is actually a very effective method, it's just that it really puts legitimate users through a lot of hassle. I personally don't even bother registering with forums that have this policy, because it irritates me. And additionally I'd like to save the administrative overhead of having to manually approve users.
So if I implement this "user rating" and/or "comment rating" system, is everyone cool with helping out by modding down Lusers? It works best with more eyes.
yes, I've been an admin on a few forums over the years, both small and large. It is always a tough decision dealing with problems like this, and it is surprising that a forum this small would have to deal with it. The problem is the new business model from the East. They not only have their own employees working as shills, but they also compensate legitimate customers of theirs to do it too. My problem with a points system, is that it might leave an opportunity to be abused. I would have to hear all the details of the plan, before forming an opinion.