Introduction- Welcome to my second and final HF Feedback & Story Thread. My previous one can be found here. I joined Hackforums on January 23rd, 2011. I’ve owned 3 groups, led a few others, been in almost all of them, started and managed a product line that made over three quarters of a million dollars in sales just on this site, and a lot more during my time on the site. Now my last one was fancy and nice, but this one will be more direct and focused on the things I think are more important, things that should be changed or improved, things wrong with the site, and some things that are good about the site.
Administration- Like most feedback threads there is a portion dedicated to all the admins and staff, most of it is pointless, including my one from last year for example for the most part. Most are just kissing ass for the sake of kissing ass. So I’m going to do it a bit differently this time and be a little more direct.
Omniscient, you’ve done a great job setting up the site and getting it this far, truly, as many have tried and failed. However, the last year or so, it’s been very stagnant from what I’ve seen. You constantly clear posts and prune members so those stats are hard to judge it by just on that. So I am judging it by the activity of sections overall, quality of new content, and general feelings of more known and involved members.
Over the last year or so, give or take a few months, you’ve really started to become more emotional in how you handle things across the site it seems. That’s one thing I really dislike about the site lately. The first couple of years I was on here you would make a point of saying you run this site like a business. That you’re not here to be anyone’s buddy, you’re here to run your business. Now it’s perfectly fine to show you’re a human to people, to have passion and emotion for your creation, but it’s more of the negative emotions that I’m talking about. Where people are afraid to post their opinions or disagree with you in fear that you’ll just close their account. Some are afraid to post suggestions or comment on your threads for that reason too.
Showing people you are serious about the rules you make is one thing, but closing accounts simply because they may be a bit annoying or disagree, being a bit trigger happy with the rep fucks and bans, that ends up hurting the site more than helping it. A simple warning on the account or some trash talk back would take just as much time and solve the problem. However, killing people's accounts will make sure that person no longer contributes to the site, but also anyone they talked to will also have more of a negative opinion of the site. Hopefully you are just going through something temporary and go back to how you treated it a couple years ago.
Groups- Now usually, this is where people talk about each group and suck up to try to get an invite or only brag on the groups they are in. I have no interest on that right now so I'll keep this section short this time. I've been in almost every single group on the site, over 40+ groups, there are only a few I haven’t been in. Majority of them are crap and everyone knows it, especially the people in them. Groups for the most part are great, they get people to meet other members, work together, and become friends. It’s not always that way, but that’s how it has been for most of them. It’s like a club or team in high schools. I would definitely recommend everyone to try to join some if you get the chance, but not all of them are worth joining, if they are selling spots, it’s likely not a good group so stay away from those, they aren’t really a group then, they are just a userbar for show. If you have to pay to get in a group, it’s not worth it, at least not currently.
Most leaders focus on how they can squeeze every dime possible from groups. They sell membership spots, leadership spots, etc. That only makes the group worse. The leaders may have had a good idea for a group, but since they had to pony up several grand, they want to make their money back and then some. With those paid spots it brings in shitty members who hurt the group and cause issues among members. It also shows the lack of interest of the leaders, they are there only to make a buck, not to make a good group.
Since there are no more free groups it has made the groups less about helping out the site or members and more about making the owners money. And that’s how it should be when groups are the prices they are. However, the only ones it hurts is the site and it’s members, by groups getting to this point it’s only assured that they will not truly benefit the site or members like they did when they were free or cheaper. I’m trying to change that with Phoenix, but I don’t have the time or interest to do as much as I had originally planned for it, for now it’s the other leaders mainly running the show there.
Marketplace- The Marketplace here is quite large, there has to be tens of thousands being transferred on a daily basis through it at the least. When I was active in the marketplace just one of my products averaged $23,500+/month at it’s peak. There were dozens of products like it and many other products out on the market so I know there is quite a bit out there being bought and sold every day here.
In my time in the marketplace the total sales of the products I sold were $821,355.72 USD. I went through all the payment accounts and records I still have. Now that’s not counting Liberty Reserve or exchanges so the number would really be even higher, that’s the total revenue via PayPal and BTC (Cash value of BTC when it was cashed out). My first sale on the site was May 21st, 2011. I was heavily active in the marketplace from October 2012 – January 2014, that is when the bulk of the money was made.
There are a few things I learned about the mindset of the marketplace here. One thing, if there is drama, good or bad, the product involved has a nice spike in sales. For example, Blackshades admins said during the drama of them being backdoored sales nearly quadrupled. When there was drama with my group Empire our sales had a massive spike as well. On Hackforums, just about any publicity is good publicity when it comes to the marketplace. Sometimes people will fake drama to get an increase in sales as well.
I like how the market is pretty unregulated for the most part, customers weed out the bad products over time themselves, but the Marketplace Discussions section should be more heavily moderated. It is always full of spam, flaming, and pointless arguments that have no point being there. Should be open to mentors to moderate, would help with cleaning it up. And people argue the mentors would be biased, of course people are biased towards those they like and against those they dislike, Omni picked them to help moderate and can remove them if he finds them abusing their responsibilities, but it would help more than it could hurt.
Donations- When I made my last feedback thread my total donated to HF was around $14,000 USD and total given to HF+Members was around $23,000 USD. Currently my total sent to HF is now about $16,500 USD and my total given to members and HF is nearing $36,000 USD. A lot of people have said it’s stupid to do so, I agree for the most part, that’s why I don’t do it as often as I used to, many of the people I helped out and gave handouts to were complete shitty and lazy people once I got to know them a bit better. But it helped people nonetheless so I don’t really regret most of them. In fact, I have one more big donation planned for the upcoming holiday season, it’ll be my last donation and thread on HF when I post it as right after I will be leaving the site.
A lot of people say donating to HF is a waste of money, but those in the marketplace should donate. Just think, it’s in your best interest, the growth and continuation of the site only benefits you, if the site dies out or lacks funding to continue, there goes your marketplace. And if you still don’t like it at that point, well then think of it as a publicity stunt, donating publicly brings you attention, brings your products attention, increases your sales.
Improvements to Hackforums- This section I’m going to list out and detail things that could be done to easily improve the site. Omniscient, please actually read this and act on it, you’ve said most of this for years, people have spent more time talking about it than it actually takes to pull it off, hell, you’ve spent more time talking about each one of these things just by responding to threads about them then it would actually take to do most of them.
- Rep Abuse Section
- Bring back the Rep Abuse Section. It solves the problem of you having to deal with reputation abuse, instead of just having one staff member do it, you should open it to all full staff members (not the ones still on their probation period). It would make sure it’s still solved and make the work load a lot easier. But still have the same no-bullshit rules you have for people that report to you. If it’s something you’d rep fuck the person for complaining about, then have the staff do that to, or at least give 3 day bans for false reporting rep abuse. That would serve as an appropriate deterrent for the most part and would save you time.
2-Factor Authentication- This has been talked about for over two years now. It is worth putting a few hours into finishing it. It has no downsides, it will help secure accounts which helps lessen scamming and other abuses. Even your own account, which you can secure better than anyone else because you can make changes to the site to prevent it, was hijacked for a few hours at one point last year. If this was implemented it would have never happened. I’m sure if you even charged a few bucks for this feature it would still be widely adopted by most heavily active members and sellers.
Mobile App- This is even more obvious than ANYTHING else. It’s just so simple. Mobile browsing has now surpassed desktop browsing as of January this year.
[img]http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/140227104442-mobile-time-spent-620xa.png[/img]
This is a huge trend currently and it’s not going away. Yet hackforums on a mobile device quite plainly sucks. Many people would like to use the site more on their mobile devices. It would increase their activity on the site and make the site more attractive to new users. The benefits of this shouldn’t have to be argued, it should just be done. It’s been years that you’ve had to field questions about it when you know it will only benefit you. There are several companies out there that do all the work for you, even let you create a private subscription or usergroup (like Ub3r or 3P1c) as the only one allowed to use it that will allow you to profit from the mobile app. Not having a mobile version only hurts you, don’t listen to me, listen to Google’s own research:
Not only that, but Google will also penalize you in search rankings for not offering a mobile version as well. There are many upsides, it’s time to just do it rather than talk about it. The longer you wait the more it hurts you. Here are a few companies that do most of the work for you: https://tapatalk.com/ or http://www.forumrunner.net/
Conclusion- I wrote this mostly on my phone and late at night so there are probably a few errors or parts that don't make sense so sorry for that but too tired to proofread it all. One last point I’d like to really make is to the members. Before you make a post, send a message, or do something to someone, think about it for a second. Think about if it happened to you or would you have the balls to do it in person. If you wouldn’t do it in person or would be upset if something was said or done to you, don’t do it or say it to someone else. You’re not just talking to a screen, there are real people behind each username. So don’t be a dumbass. Especially for those that piss off the wrong person, they will eventually get revenge or you could end up in prison if you did something illegal to them and they feel like wasting the time it takes to get you caught.
Also, I’d like to leave off with a few quotes that I posted the last time, if you follow these, you’ll save yourself a lot of stress and issues:
"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."
"Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway."
"Never sink to your enemy's level. Just smile and nod, it drives them insane."
Thank you to those that read this. Now for the shoutouts of course.
Shoutouts- Kept them short this time. If I left you out then either I forgot about you when writing this on my phone at 2am or you're an asshole or I just don't know you.
Troye: You're the one I trust the most here. But you need to staph being so negative sometimes master hoe!
๖ۣۜAlexander: You're a lame ass bitch who goes to bed way too early and got rek'd, but you're also a really cool noob, except when your jimmies are rustled.
1n9i9c7om: Still hate your username lol, but you're one of the nicest people on this site. I don't think in two years that I've ever seen you actually mean. You are the ideal member for any group.
bugga: One of the few honest and loyal people here. You can also be vicious to those that deserve it. No one should piss you off. xD
Eternal.: You are one of the few people here that I am glad I have met and consider a friend that I can trust. Just sucks that you like cats, they suck.
Evangelist: You ran away from here because you know you'd never be able to beat me in a debate and had to hide your head in shame. You wanted to make sure this pissed you off, too bad you'll have to wait to see it.
Existence: Hey bish, ur a dolphin.
Vicellus Drum: You like inferior cars and brands, staph being so lame noob!
vitafortis: You are another one of the few I trust here and consider a friend, and you do know your shit when it comes to programming. Oh and the NRA sucks ass, you drunk, trigger happy noob.
xadamxk: You were a pretty good noob, but lately you're lame and lazy, go back to being a good noob!
DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS MEMBER
I give this feedback a solid 4/10, seeing that I am so negative.
Oct 17, 2014 12:47 AM
(This post was last modified: Oct 17, 2014 12:47 AM by 1n9i9c7om.)
I give this feedback 10/10, as I'm never mean.
And don't hate my name. :(
Great feedback thread mate, keep up the good work.
Awesome feedback thread bud, and can't believe you actually wrote most of this on your Mobile haha!
Take care bud <3 :)
Came on here mostly to see my shoutout. I shall now go and lock my self in a dark cupboard and cry, profusely.
I will have a proper read of this later when Anya and Jack are having their nap. I can't give it the attention it deserves as of now.
Nice feedback Lion :) Was pretty cool reading it.
RIP Tibit.
Sucks that you're leaving, but you were on point with what should be changed or improved.
DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS MEMBER
There are some rich sons of bitches on this forum. Nice feedback.
Excellent feedback thread and I agree with you on many points there, in special the following:
"Showing people you are serious about the rules you make is one thing, but closing accounts simply because they may be a bit annoying or disagree, being a bit trigger happy with the rep fucks and bans, that ends up hurting the site more than helping it. A simple warning on the account or some trash talk back would take just as much time and solve the problem. However, killing people's accounts will make sure that person no longer contributes to the site, but also anyone they talked to will also have more of a negative opinion of the site. Hopefully you are just going through something temporary and go back to how you treated it a couple years ago."
"I'm totally going to mention you in my last thread." You forgot bitch.
Only use HF to deal.
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