Bannen

As you have heard by now, Namepros has been sold by its esteemed creator RJ, to the new owner Matt of Bodis.com.
The suggestions, arguments and debates are already beginning, and I thought it was important to highlight a thread specifically for this discussion, inviting all NP members to add their two cents in the way of which areas they think could use improvement, changes, or getting the axe.

We don't know all the plans Matt has for Namepros, but a forum is all the stronger when the owner/leader can see first-hand suggestions from its many experienced members.

I'll start:
1 - Just a personal dislike: I really, really miss having the discussion forums at the top of the home page. I know it may be a business decision to see the marketplace first upon coming to Namepros... but it hasn't led to me using the marketplace any more than usual, and it's a minor annoyance to have to scroll quite a ways down in order to get to the most interesting stuff, the discussions, news, appraisals, etc. Again, I get it if it's a biz decision; but if it hasn't strongly increased your traffic/business in some palpable way, my vote is for the discussion forums back on top.


2 - This is a very minor point, but still worthy of mention: in the appraisals section, when submitting a new thread for an appraisal, quite awhile ago the 'subject' line became automated, so they all now have to start with 'Please appraise' and then limited fields for up to 4 domains. That totally bored me when it happened. It used to be very entertaining to create your own subject line. Even if I was scanning the rest of the forum, I'd often run straight to the appraisals section simply because there was a funny/interesting/whack subject line. Now all it says on the home page under the appraisals section is 'please appraise' for every thread. I often just skip it.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/743639-constructive-suggestions-and-debate-new-namepros.html
As I said, it's a minor thing and I can see your reasons for automating things... yet IMO the value of automating it is not worth the loss of 'fun'.
Remember: Fun, Interesting, Odd, Exciting, these are the things that entice new members to join, and keep term members wanting to come back.

3 - In the spirit of that last comment, I'll make a very vague, generalized, but I think very important mention: a lot of the pure fun of this forum has somehow left, over the last couple years. It used to be quite entertaining, practically daily there was a thread or three that were so entertaining, interesting, potentially volatile (?), that it was hard to not come back often to see how things were playing out.
Somehow it seems much more sterile here now.

It's important to mention that I am still here because IMO this is the classiest, most informative, best-run domaining forum around. I signed up at the other best-known ones, but would keep returning here because it had that certain balance of all elements that I found was stronger than any other forum.

I don't know what the answer is as far as making things less sterile, and that is the main reason I opened this discussion. Perhaps with a lot of input we can figure that one out. It has something to do with rules and how they are modded... but that's not to say there is anything wrong with the rules and the modding, I feel no complaints about them myself. It may also have something to do with the layout of the forum categories... or not.

Perhaps it is also a consequence of the 'balancing out' of domaining. A few years ago there was this larger-than-life, delusional grandiosity still hanging on to domaining, people were still flocking to it in droves, regging any kind of name and thinking they had a million dollars worth. Now domaining seems to be entering a 'maturity', steadiness, professionalism, where a lot of the 'unknown' and 'growth' excitement is gone, values seem to be mostly predictable and sober.

Perhaps the steadiness or decline of traffic to domaining forums is simply the levelling-off of something that has now passed beyond its initial (decade-long) infatuation phase, and has entered a more sober, less exciting, more steady professional phase.

It seems the business-model of domaining forums has to somehow now change with the times... yet I don't quite know what those changes will be... where the trend is going next. Maybe if we get our heads together and throw the right suggestions against the wall, the right one will stick, NP can use that and get right to the cutting edge of where domaining is headed next. Where??????

Anyway, I will have other comments/suggestions, but that's enough to get this thread started I think. Welcome to anyone who wants to contribute their dos centavos.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639



Oh, a comment: this thread probably belongs way way down at the bottom of the forum in the Namepros comments & suggestions area... however, no one visits that, and since I'm starting this thread specifically to address the switch-over period and possible changes/improvements that may happen during this transition, hopefully mods will keep this thread in the discussion area. Even stickie it for a week or two...

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Sully

I second that!

freedom30

...yeah Bannen, I gotta agree.

The sterilty that overcame the forum over the last few years was a major component that appears to have literally choked off much of the flow of independent thought and contributions.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639

It seems that it was forgotten that one can have "fun" while being serious and creating brainstorming ideas of domaining and sales at the same time. Hopefully, at least I anticipate, that this conundrum will be resolved and the forum will steadily grow along with the membership roll.


"It has something to do with rules and how they are modded... but that's not to say there is anything wrong with the rules and the modding, I feel no complaints about them myself."

Every professional forum or company needs rules, of course...how they are to be used or abused is, in the final analysis, a matter that is left up to the discretion of the ownership and the direction that they wish to proceed with the company.

Do changes need to be made? More than likely, but a small adjustment or tweaking to some can appear as a tsunami to those used to the prevailing gray environment and appear as anarchy when it is but a liberating approach to encourage a freer flow of intelligent discourse.

Changing rules is never an easy thing to do, but there are times when necessity dictates that it is vital for continued positive growth.

I welcome the new ownership that comes in with the potential of pushing the forum to greater heights. That is precisely what Tom Ricketts did when he bought the Chicago Cubs and hired Theo Epstein, thus wiping out a century of cultural complacency in one fell swoop. If nothing else, baseball will never be the same again for the Cubs as the losing culture that used to be accepted has effectively been eliminated, regardless of what happens this year.

Just my thoughts for now. Got more, of course, but I appreciate Brannen throwing out the first pitch. Now it's someone else's turn at bat...

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Ms Domainer

*

I agree with Bannen's assesment:

I appreciate how difficult it is to moderate a forum, keeping the spammers, porners, haters, bullies, and scammers at bay, but it seems to me that part of the fun is the whacky off-topic posts that sometime pop up.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639

I see nothing wrong with a gentle reminder to get back on topic, but I cringe when I see a deleted post just because it was "off-topic" or it was a response to an off-topic post.

I don't believe that the mods are on a "power trip"; they are simply following the rules and TOS. Perhaps the TOS could be tweaked a bit to include a bit of fun and humor that does not include bullying.

Having said this, I would not like to see Namepros to morph into an "anything goes" forum.

I love this place and plan to stick around.



*

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freedom30

...msdomainer...well put!

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liquidcherry

Are we talking about Microguy right now ?? LOL


But i agree with bannen, scrolling down to go to the for me most interesting subforums is a hassle....

cheers
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639

liquid

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enlytend

Agreed!

Anyone who visits NP with the intent to buy/sell, will scroll down the page until they find their destination. Discussion is more likely to get lost in the shuffle.

As Bannen said, if the metrics show that moving the marketplace first had a tangible business benefit, I can appreciate that. But I think the move put a damper on the number and variety of discussion topics in the rest of the forum. Just

Agree with this too - it would be overrun by bots, spammers and scammers in no time.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639

Allowing off-topic posts is fine with me, as long as they the content isn't spammy or inappropriate. The appraisal threads especially have gotten pretty cut, dried and boring.

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johname

I like the discussion forums at the top too, but there probably more market only members that like it the way it is now.

The forced 'Please appraise' is to get people to put the actual domain in the title. So people know what there stepping in before they click the thread

The height of namepros "crazynest" was also the height of reg any crap and get your regfee back on parking income. Quality control and the economy are much to blame

Corey

Sell/Giveaway NamePros Merchandise

Cheers
Corey

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Bannen

I'm thinking there is a whole transition area that has not been properly tapped into yet, and perhaps that might be a catalyst for some growth here;
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639

Going online is now not only for tech geeks and companies; even the almost-computer-illiterate are learning about blogs, websites, and domain names. There seem to be two main forces: domainers, and those who don't know about domains and must either 'learn a lot, quickly', or hire domainers. The latter group may be interested in purchasing or finding a domain for their personal use or company, yet when they go to learn about domains and domaining they're met by a massive wall of learning curve... and usually they don't want to become actual domainers and learn all this, they just want to learn the 10-minute basics and then buy or search for their domains.

Seems to me this foggy area hasn't been successfully bridged by anyone yet, and I am talking in terms of large-scale; in other words, having a part of the forum dedicated to new members who DON'T want to learn about domaining or become domainers, and yet will make it easy for them to learn what they need to know in a few minutes. I would suggest, if you're keeping the marketplace area up top, to make it more visitor-friendly -- or at least, make the immediately-visible part of it visitor-friendly for non-domainers. Something of a welcome to all noobs, but noobs who are not even here to become domainers per se. Maybe an obvious 'new visitors go here please', where a short 5-minute-read can apprise them of the absolute basics they'll need to know about regging/buying their domain/s, plus a few pitfalls to avoid. We don't necessarily need to tell them just how bad some registrars are (I will not even mention 1and1 here), just give them a short solid list of the ones with most domainers' stamp of approval. Give them tips like letting them know there are such things as discount coupons for regs, etc. All this can be written in very short, to the point form, at least as far as their needs go.

Then the marketplace might be overhauled and rethought, in order to make it more friendly to non-domainers as well as pros. So someone who needs to reg or buy a domain for their business or personal use, but doesn't want to become a domain trader, can use the marketplace to both peruse the names for sale, as well as possibly have a much stronger 'domain name wanted' area for them to post what they are looking to buy, for available regfee name suggestions all the way up to asking to buy premium names.

If that were to happen, it brings yet another business model area into play for NP: a proper escrow service. NP already has thousands of members... and we all go thru Sedo and other sites for escrow services. If NP set up a proper, secure escrow service, I for one would certainly use it over the other companies, and I'm betting many members would as well. This escrow could be very slick/streamlined to make it uber-userfriendly, for the non-domainers.

This would work especially if there were a split, or choice, platform: possibly the thread starter could have a 'start escrow transaction' button when the sale is decided, so we could choose, for each individual transaction, whether we wanted to go ahead without escrow as we do now for our between-members sales... or whether we want to use your escrow for the transac and pay your percentage fee (whatever that would be).

I for one love this idea, though I know it would involve quite a bit of thought and work on Namepros' part. However, it struck me as a solid possibility on these strengths:
- bridges the gap between domainer and non-domainer; allows those who want to reg or buy their own domains, but not 'become domainers', to visit NP easily and go through the transactions painlessly, without a lot of domain learning.
- offers a (proven lucrative) income addition to Namepros, that percentage of income from each escrow sale.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639
- allows new visitors, non-domainers, professional businesses and Joe Normal, to more easily buy and reg domains, and post want-to-buy threads, not for domaining but for end use.
- allows a secure but user-friendly escrow for new visitors, domainers, and non-domainers. Making it so easy for people and professionals who are not-domainers to come in, go straight to marketplace and start interacting with us about a domain they want, and then providing a simple and secure escrow for the trade...
- ...opens up, way way up, a closer interaction between domainers and end users. The ideal is to make that marketplace THE place for non-domainers to come to buy names easily, and do secure transactions. They get directly in touch with we domainers who can offer the kinds of names they're looking for, or offer brokering/acquisition to get them the name/s they want for their budget. In other words, rather than them hiring Sedo brokers etc., they just sign up here, forum-style (something many more people know how to do than, say, figuring out a Sedo account and hiring a broker there), and the interaction begins. Instead of one (overpaid?) broker working on their behalf, they have a forum's worth of people competing to either sell them the right name, or get them the best brokering deal.
- allows NP members to still choose not to use 'NP escrow', and save those fees; basically the choice to keep doing marketplace bi'ness as usual, or going thru NP escrow.

A lot to take in, I know. And needs a lot of thought and input. But I wanted to throw this idea into the fan
It's a great as-yet-untapped resource: people and businesses who want to buy a domain, but don't want to go thru the intense learning curve needed to suss things out at Sedo and other for-sale sites, as well as going through the intense learning curve of becoming domainers. Joe Public is largely helpless right now in the domain arena, they make a lot of poor regging/buying decisions on their own, and must hire domainers/brokers to do larger deals... but if someone were to fill that gap properly, bring the edges closer between domainer and end user, it would be both a wonderful service and a cash cow...


Lot more details to this, and I'm sure I wrote a mess of unusable stuff as well as a couple interesting points... but time to stop writing already

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liquidcherry

now, wouldn't that increase some traffic if you have to click first.....? :-)

cheers

liquid

P.S: please get rid of your sick "i love microguy" avatar....LOL

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cdboard

this is the first I've heard of the sale.

defaultuser

I made this suggestion in the Namepros Suggestions thread about 3 months ago.
I felt that NP was more of a community and not a marketplace and the shift was off putting to that notion.

For a long time I've said that discussion and new members and new web usership is more important to NP than domaining. It's about marketing, logos, knowledge, wordpress and everything in between more than domains alone.


My suggestion?

Stop allowing people to bump hubbletelescope.co.uk or shagging.us.
Shagging.us is a 10 year old domain that has been for sale for about 10 years and bumped daily (or so it seems).

Get Berryhill to hang out here more. That guy is sharp AND makes me laugh.

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CureCancer

The forum owner needs to leave things the way they are and only add benefits to active members!

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Michelle

Thank you Bannen for starting this thread I have made it a sticky.

carob

Are the new owners going to tell us what they want or what they propose? I would be happy to listen.

Personally, I'm happy with marketplace at top, I don't really care about the discussions.

I stopped posting replies in the assessments section because my posts were often considered off-topic. I'd prefer more interesting thread titles there, but maybe a compromise would be to just put the word ASSESSMENT: NAMEOFDOMAIN into the start of all thread titles there and allow individual text after that?

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Bannen

Thank you for the sticky, Michelle (egad... does that phrase sound vaguely physical?)

I noticed after the sale was announced that the most immediate response from people, including myself, was a sudden influx of ideas, almost like the members here have been waiting years to say these things. A whole list of things came to my own mind, and it seemed timely to organize these thoughts into a thread. More suggestions are percolating and I'll write as they solidify. Right now I'm chewing my cud over the concept of how to alter forumpost rules in a way that allows more interesting/exciting interactions yet maintains a barrier against chaos. That seems to be one of the most contentious issues for this (and most?) forums.

Namepros is my favorite forum, out of all domaining and non-domaining forums, so I guess I feel a vested interest in contributing to its growth. You people are great; well done to all creators and mods, and to all members.

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Rich

Amen to that, I come here to find domain discussions to read or post about. It's a forum before a marketplace

motorhed

I want to get these out, so forgive me if I double up on pre-existing suggestions...


1.) Get rid of the CLUTTER. We don't need people's avatars slapped all over everywhere, and we don't need a floating "back to top" link, etc.

If possible, convert to Simple Machines ( http://simplemachines.org ) - It's much nicer and is easier overall to use. If you have features here that there aren't mods available for Simple Machines, just have them created.

Additionally, buy the $90 Simple Machines "Store" plugin and let us all list items in it. Boom, you have an actual transaction system in place to replace the current "PM someone and hope they don't screw you" system.

NamePros just converted to forum w/trade to forum w/trade and fully featured online store.

It can even be restricted to users who have been around a while, etc., to exclude spam and newbies who may make critical errors.


2.) Standardize Moderating. Right now Moderators can willy-nilly warn someone for something, then let someone else pass on the same offense. For example, I was warned for a mild profanity... "a*s" if I recall correctly...

Try Googling "Site:Namepros.com F*ck" - without the astersik. Then try Sh*t. Then try everything else. You'll see a megaton of people who got to curse their brains out - but since I tend to rub people the wrong way, I got warned for a*s.


I've also been warned for things not in the rules. You can't abide by rules that you have no idea about - because they don't exist.


Standardize moderation above all else, because that kind of stuff drives away users.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=743639



That's about the long and short of it.

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twomoon

Thanks for this thread Bannen.

Here are some suggestions from me:

1. Discussion on the top (agree with Bannen and other members)
2. To get back the High Priced Section (Matt already was talking about that)
3. To delete "All domains for sale" (it was much better without it IMO)
4. To make it possible again to make comments in Domains Wanted section (to prohibit comments "PM sent" and similar, but make possible to us ask questions).
5. To make "Views" of the threads visible to all members not only topic starters.

Of course all IMO

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mitch007

Wow, I am impressed by your suggestion here. Since I own shagging.us I will take this into consideration since this one bothers you so much. Maybe you want to buy it, delete it, and stop the agonizing you are going through.

Bannen

My personal opinion: I agree with all of these.

---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

This gets my vote too.

I agree this is perhaps the biggest topic to address. I'm percolating some ideas/suggestions to post later when they're clear.

---------- Post added at 11:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 AM ----------

At least get shagging.ca and alternate the two for variety

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menzl

Second that!




.

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mis_chiff

There is a way to turn off those extra avatars. I use the Clean theme and I have them off
it's just like normal

Just go to USERCP and click on Edit Options, scroll down to "Show Avatars in Thread Listings"
and make the changes.

Corey

Does NamePros have an Ethics Manual?

or maybe a thread on Ethics?

Cheers
Corey

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