Shout-Out To Bob Hawkes

[Internet.Domains]

Please give a shout-out to our very own @Bob Hawkes!

It was recently uncovered that Bob was feeling a little less motivated, and possibly retiring from Namepros, after some recent bullying. This saddened me as Bob has been a wonderful contributor and a valuable asset to this community. I may not agree with everything he writes, but I respect and admire his contributions. He is passionate and good natured. He is always respectful and the bullying he has recently endured is completely uncalled for.

Please give @Bob Hawkes a shout-out in the comments or Like/Thanks this post to let him know there are those who care!

(The best defense against bullies is letting those who bully know we stand with those who are bullied)

 

[Jay Ha]

Although I never interacted with him irl, I can already imagine him as a good person on and off the internet.

 

[xynames]

Is it better to be loved, or be right? Obviously Bob is loved.

If I decided to leave NP I doubt anyone would even care, certainly there would be no long thread gushing with sentimentality for me.

 

[NameLlama]

jk luv u

 

[Brian L.]

I'd like to thank @Bob Hawkes for a suggested available domain and all his great posts!

 

[Internet.Domains]

I think a lot of people are confused because they can’t see the bullying.

Well we could debate the definition of "bullying", and we could debate if it applies here, as it can be subjective. Although, someone felt they were bullied. Plain and simple. This thread was not intended to oust, ban, discipline, or call out the bully.

Instead, this thread was intended to support someone who felt victimized. To stand with someone who felt down after being "put-down." This thread is more about love than hate.

 

[domainer111]

Sorry to hear about this trouble @Bob Hawkes was receiving.

A great writer and a real asset to the community! There were two really prominent hugely successful domainers who gave so much help to the community, but also felt they were being harrassed coming up against negativity, and called it out.

It's a crazy world and people have crazy situations to deal with, it leads to this crazy negativity imo.

 

[namemarket]

Sorry to hear about this trouble @Bob Hawkes was receiving.

A great writer and a real asset to the community! There were two really prominent hugely successful domainers who gave so much help to the community, but also felt they were being harrassed coming up against negativity, and called it out.

It's a crazy world and people have crazy situations to deal with, it leads to this crazy negativity imo.

I'm feeling the pain as I was also not too long ago harassed and heavily flamed by several NP members even including insulting large BS graphics and falsely posting I was a liar. I did in fact leave NP for a while over it but decided to return again after the Mods kindly offered to help which offer I appreciated but decided to not pursue, which return I am not sure was a right decision.

 

[MackieMesser]

Bullying is a method of weak persons that have personal problems (often a low self-esteem) and try to make others feel bad instead of solving their own problems.

 

[MackieMesser]

I don't think that description fits those accused of bullying here

I don't know the cases here, but that's a (or my) general assumption of people who bully others.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

^^You guys should keep it short please. We are tired of lengthy posts. Learn how to summarize!

Speaking of lengthy,
Your post was 422 words.
Bob's was 375 words.

I know it's not a word measuring competition.

My post 685 words.

If it was a word measuring competition. Mine would be bigger.

But...

the size of a post isn't a dependent variable equating to quality.

Are you saying I'm over overcompensating?

 

[efizi]

@Bob Hawkes Your presence in the community is invaluable as many have testified. We cannot afford to lose you just because someone lacks etiquette on this great forum.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Nonetheless, I have it as my display pic for the time being to remind myself of alternative things to do/say besides more negative attracting things such as criticizing.

The graphic you shared is a terrific message for all of us to strive for. Thank you for sharing it. As well as the obvious relevant ones like make it about the ideas not the people, I particularly like the one about goals. We should each set our personal goals in domaining. Those goals will be very different for different people, and we should respect that. NPs would be boring if we all had same goals and approaches!
Thanks again. Have a positive and great day.
Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for so honestly and transparently sharing both your challenges and your success, and how your past experiences shaped who you are, which as you say, they do affect all of us. It is not easy to write like that, but I think it is valuable to do so. It maybe builds on what @xynames wrote in a way, about if we can go to the step of the personal connection, it can help us avoid some escalations. I suspect we will never see eye to eye on quite a few things, but huge respect for the sharing you just did above @BaileyUK.
Have a good evening, and best wishes for continued success.
Bob

 

[Name Trader]

Anyway the end to all this, I returned from a holiday towards the end of the first year of being in charge. Instead of being called by my first name, and occasionally having to suffer having threats to have my lights punched out. Everyone including my close associates were calling me Mr Mxxxx. The supervisors had everyone onboard with showing me greater respect, I couldn't ask for that I had to earn it - I tell you it nearly had me in tears. The only person working 12 hour days through all this was me

So sorry yes this is a bit like one of Bobs blogs - But I am a man of action, you start pulling the wool over my eyes and I will respond, and not always politely.

Hope you understand my nature - don't think I can change

Hope you got a good bonus

 

[BaileyUK]

Hope you got a good bonus

Yes I did get a substantial pay rise, and choice of a new car every year. (which I didn't need for work) Funny enough the repercussions of success can be harder to predict, For then you have to up your game even to a higher level.

For, suddenly I had made unintentional enemies of all the other warehouse managers in the south of England. Who were asked the question why can't you deliver the same efficiencies. Next I had the Regional sales managers on my back. Because by offering, guaranteed next day delivery to their shops customers (who weren't my responsibility). I had taken away about half their workload, which was about 50% of the time placating customers ( on delivery delays) and negotiating these slots.

Yes success means you have to up your own game to another level, which I must admit I wasn't quite ready for.

Lesson learnt, managers, of all people need to be seen to be busy, even when they aren't.. You take that away and man they won't like you.. further lesson be aware of ALL the implications of change.

Such is Life - It never stops being an education

 

[TCK]

It was recently uncovered that Bob was feeling a little less motivated, and possibly retiring from Namepros, after some recent bullying.

In cases of bullying I am always on the side of the victim.

In this time and age, the charge of bullying is to be taken very seriously. If you make such a charge, please provide proof.

This is not a nice industry overall

No industry or business is "nice". However, in the years I have been part of this industry, the spirit of camaraderie is stronger than in any other.

 

[Grego85]

So I always type in a bunch of domain names every day at a whim when certain words catch my interest. I typed in CyberBully.com just now after reading the last few posts here, and what do you know, there is a picture of Rick Schwartz! LOL

 

[JB Lions]

Just in general about bullying.

There are people who get bullied in real life. Most can't do anything about it. If they could, they would stop it, that makes sense.

In this forum, if you feel you're getting bullied, you actually have multiple options:
Don't read the post
Put the person on Ignore
Just simply flag the post and if a mod agrees, they'll delete it.

Most of the time, it's more of a thin-skinned issue. People are going to disagree, that's normal.

But in this forum, the word gets abused. Usually I see the word bully, troll etc and a lot of times it's directed at people that might have a differing opinion and a lot of times it's about new gtlds. They're words used to try to stop them giving that opinion. You can have a forum where everybody likes the same thing, like that new gtld forum and what happened? It's now dead. There were a few people who were being honest, but most of the time it was a big reach-around fest. People just telling people what they want to hear. It might make you feel good but it's really not going to help your business. You can try such a forum again, it'll die again.

Back to the Ignore feature that many people have posted about already. Some people have replied they don't want to use it because they might like other posts from that person. That's the way it goes. You're not supposed to agree with people 100% of the time, that would be fake. Is Megan Fox not beautiful because she has thumbs that look like toes? You take the good with the bad, if it bothers you that much, throw some mittens on those things.

 

[AgentE13]

I always enjoy reading your rich and informative comments @Bob Hawkes

 

[branding]

Just to be clear, I am expressing my interest in .ninja domains as an end user, not as an investor. I enjoy using them for internal server names and personal websites as they're fun. I didn't buy them with an expectation that they would increase in value--and, as I suspected, they have not. Which is partially why they make for great end-user domains for small projects--they're cheap!

Its always surprising to me how little love there is for end-users over here. I'm not the biggest ngtld fan but for end-users and small projects they're brilliant. Especially these days as the domain extension used basically only matters for establishment of trust and 'lazy' marketing. Also, just like your use for .ninja, not every domain is about web presence.

Bring good content to the mix and any tld will work. The problem is people feel the need to monetise anything. Back in the day it was just cool to own your name in .com, right now all people see is the value. It takes away (some) of the fun. Will ngtlds be valuable in the future? I dunno but as long as it fits your usage right know isn't that awesome?

Anyway, on subject, Bob comes across as a very friendly and intelligent guy, open to discuss about anything and the way he's using data to back up his opinions is refreshing actually. I don't always agree 100% with him but I rather have a strong debate and disagree with someone who supports his views with data than someone throwing around easy oneliners supporting the general consensus. I wasn't under the impression he got bullied but the tone that was set was not very friendly to say at least. I wouldn't call it bullying but it can prevent people from speaking their mind on certain subjects as they don't want to get into a lot of drama. Heck, I'm not offended easily but half of the time I skip posts on NP just because someone is acting all high and mighty and I feel it's pointless to get involved.

What it comes down to people, don't be a d*ck .

 

[youaintme]

You remind me of Grandpa from Three Ninjas.

Teacher whats fits you perfectly is #DomainAnalyst. Yeah. #Respect @Bob Hawkes

 

[Name Trader]

Bullying is a method of weak persons that have personal problems (often a low self-esteem) and try to make others feel bad instead of solving their own problems.

I don't think that description fits those accused of bullying here

 

[xynames]

I just can’t see myself ever direct messaging someone asking him to remove a post in which all he did was state that I was wrong. Let alone doing it twice after getting no response.

 

[Jv1999]

Bob has our respect. But I agree, until all his theories are demonstrated by actual big sales, his theories will remain just that...theories.

Ur one of da bullies, u kno that right?

 

[Jv1999]

Is bully the correct adjective here?

Maybe I missed the bullying posts elsewhere.

The post you quoted was more critical than bullying.

Much like his other posts.

Wouldn't critic be a better descriptive adjective?

Further, does his experience and education give him more credibility to his criticism?

The random pic I found as my current display pic says successful people compliment, unsuccessful people criticize. Granted the definition of success is subjective to each individual. Nonetheless, I have it as my display pic for the time being to remind myself of alternative things to do/say besides more negative attracting things such as criticizing.

Show attachment 119607

I don't want to profess to know everything as I'm trying to figure it out just like everyone else. But for what my opinion is worth, might I suggest more compliments are in order (from all parties)?

Not necessarily complimenting the content if you disagree, but perhaps compliment the time they took to reply. Some people value their time more than others. For those struggling to find value in their time, the value of somebody else's time may often be overlooked.

Well you can look at post history between Bob and xy and decide for yourself. But honestly, at times and certain threads i felt like if I was bob id be afraid to post because xy was just waiting to retort with some heated insults and not just criticism.

I mean, the least harshest thing I remember was xy saying bob posted pages only to say nothing and not take any kind of side.

But I guess it's normal for people to clash when people become frequent posters. So if two frequent posters have friction, they'll collide over and over in threads.