I wrote a post yesterday about outrageous domain wanted threads. It seems Namepros really does not want to address the most problematic threads as evidenced by replies in this thread.
This has now led a professional member Brad Mugford to start a thread like this
Hi,
I am looking for a single letter (L.com).
My budget is $1. I might be able to stretch it to $2 for the right opportunity.
Total budget $2.
Thanks,
Brad
https://www.namepros.com/threads/looking-for-l-com-single-letter-com.1173758/
Namepros really has to put a stop to the nonsense, saying they prefer tools to rules and letting markets decide is off base in my opinion.
Mugford’s request is not even feasible, and while he is allowed to start the thread, all the people replying will get deleted and possibly infracted.
Mugford just looks the fool.
np is nothing but a joke, mods under disguise, not enough of them. Some people are allowed to do what others seem not to do.
Heated debate for some, deleted for others. I am done, thankfully I never paid for membership.
Well I will agree the lack of mods is a joke. There was a disgusting thread that sat there for more than 12 hours as there were no mods on, no forum can have 12 minutes without a mod online. Especially one that gets money from members and advertisers.
Yep. The thread had everything from racism to actual threats.
It sure took NamePros an awful long time to take action on that.
Brad
No one was on Brad, can’t have mods offline 12 hours.
Yeah, that is on NamePros. You can’t have a popular forum with no mods around for that length of time.
Brad
Always liked Brad, lost a bit of respect, just more work for the mods.
I love his savedotorg signature line. Bet he will sell a .org to a non profit for 100X. LOL
I laugh at domainers!!!
The world laughs at donsiners the biggest chuckle comes at namepros.
Donsiners?
I knew it was ridiculous long ago lol, when the mod were rooting for a “proofed” scammer for his “right of speech”, and had to restrict my account for pointing it out and called the “mod” biased.
NamePros closed the thread. I am fine with that.
I made my point. NamePros is actually willing to close ridiculous threads in the request section despite what they said about “letting the market decide”.
My thread is no less sincere than someone offering $50 for a $300K+ domain that started this entire issue.
In the future maybe NamePros will make more of an effort to get rid of the actual ridiculous threads when reported.
Brad
Ategy said it best:
The ultimate problem that comes into play, is where do you draw the line and how do you technically deal with such issues? What might be garbage to one might not be for others. I this specific case I’d think 100% of people would agree, but if you’re going to have a rule, then they need to define minimums for each type of domain .. and since most domains do have unique qualities and attributes, that would necessitate a sub-set of pretty much countless rules for minimum offers.
Otherwise the only potential solution I could think of is to create a separate WTB forum for “liquid” domains .. and then set minimums based on the current liquidity level (maybe state people can’t request anything below 60% of current liquid level).
But even then I’ll be the first to start the potential list of problems .. in that even the definition of liquid domains is subjective.
It won’t resolve anything for “dictionary” words because indeed some “dictionary words” are worthless garbage, so offering $20 for “dictionary” words isn’t unreasonable to me because there are some dictionary words I’ve passed over at $5 closeout.
Then when it comes to numerics and things like 3L/4L, while there are broad liquid values, there are also sub-type values based on patterns etc.
So in the end I don’t really see a usable solution other than expecting NamePros to judge the line for every single auction. Then with that you know there will be countless arguments in the cases where NPs does make a close call.
Ultimately maybe the only other solution is to allow people to make only this exact comment:
“Your request is less than half the liquid value”
Then maybe if the buyer sees enough of those messages n their requests they will start to get the message.
Or maybe NamePros could start a new thread that discusses that buyers should make reasonable pricing requests .. within THAT thread give several examples and guidelines. That allow people to link to that thread when requests are under 50% of liquid value.
None of what I said I think would be any better than the current situation .. and while I do see the current problem, I just don’t see a realistic or workable solution that doesn’t open a huge can of worms and debates on where to draw the line for each domain.
The posts that were referenced it would be easy. Sorry there is no “eye of the beholder” for LL or NN names and you have a $50 to $150 budget.
Keywords sure, I have said that before you can’t regulate them. The person will get lousy combos and that’s on them.
But LLL for $100 is a joke makes an embarrassment of the forum and the member. Some members just blocking or ignoring people, some have told me they recognize the same avatar on Twitter and block them there too, some people are just going to make examples of foolishness.
No one is asking NamePros to police every single request thread.
These threads were so completely absurd that there is no reason to leave them open. Even when reported NamePros decided to “let the market decide”.
NamePros really needs to look at reported threads or change the policy so you can respond to these threads with constructive comments that can help educate the buyer.
Brad
Exactly the thread by DomainINO should have been closed, I reported it when it opened. Let the market decide is nonsense.
You can’t let people comment because too be fair it screws up other people’s threads bumped down, and most don’t educate they troll.
On top of that like one famous newbie said to me, I don’t want your education, I want your money, if you have no money Shut the fuck up!
There are always people that try to say nothing you can do, if I had to read Ategy everyday, I would just get off the Internet permanently.
Namepros sucks, most of their members are clueless and there is much better out there.
Why don’t the big hitters spend time on namepros? Enough Said
Brad, I thought it was hilarious. Thanks for the laughs…and for making the point.
I miss the old namepros when RJ owned it, it was smaller but more community and less like VerticalScope owned forums. I do find all the “new” rules a little pushy. I also find more crap at namepros then I use to. I would love to go back about 10 years on the forum when Chat was Chat and not a spam fest of over priced domains. But Oh well maybe some will be pushed over to my new adventure.
A lot of people miss that.
Brad is a true domaining Pro and a very good guy always willing to help anyone there who needs it. He was just trying to prove a point there w/the ridiculousness that has gone on for over a year now. It does get annoying and unfortunately it is impossible to avoid.
I really can’t believe they don’t have an ignore feature for a whole specific Forum section. The “Domain Buyer Requests” Forum would be much better with that as an option so we don’t have to ever see that crap.
NamePros will get the hint after many of us stop paying membership fees to support them. I don’t anymore. I used to always stick up for NP when others would rip on them but now I get it. It has gone downhill quite a bit this past year or so.
Hopefully they will make some changes for the better soon because it is gonna be useless as a tool for domainers and it will be a social club of only newbs shortly if they don’t get on the ball.
The bigger problem as I see it is namepros has no real domainers in their ownership or management.
Eric Lyon, Paul Buonopane, Edward Zeiden, yeah none of them are making sales charts or any domainer awards or hall of fame.
They think they know better when they don’t. Where is schilling, berkens, schwartz, hell Rosener wanted to shut them down, where is castello, guta.
Namepros has a handful of top notch domainers that contribute there and a bunch of others who by their own admission don’t make much if any money. They are hobbyists, passing the time.
“none of them are making sales charts or any domainer awards or hall of fame.”
That doesn’t make someone “a real domainer”. People who are on those charts represent a small fraction of the domainers out there who do have valuable domains and make sales. You can’t judge someone by that.
“Where is schilling, berkens, schwartz, hell Rosener wanted to shut them down, where is castello, guta.”
Running businesses and their lives. These guys have done more than their fair share of lending advice and time to the domain industry. You can find their articles and audio all over the internet.
The fact is there are few “real domainers” on Namepros.
And I know where schilling,schwartz and those guys are the point was not on namepros but they are active in discussions other places on the net. You can find Schwartz very easy.
They are not on namepros because the place is not worth being there.
First it is very important for a forum like Domains to have a safer technology to know the members registered in Namepros and for what has been happening in the last year.
Now they have not yet put thread in the cage to darken the patches that bother the vast majority of us.
It’s a waste of good spit…
Why even bother anymore, the answer by the mods is to close the topic. If you really want to discuss it you need to do it somewhere else where a mod can’t come in and close the topic.
So yes it is getting ridiculous… not only the topics themselves but also the universal way the topics are addressed. Lets close the topic before anyone can actually come up with a viable solution…. sigh…
PS. I chose not to respond knowing the topic would be closed and I was right.
I personally love how namepros limits its use of censorship but tries to keep an eye and intercede if they have to.
Similiar to how a teacher watches over her students playing at recess.
Many members of namepros are talented, bright, successful, creative, etc.
On the other hand due to the popularity of domains as an investment to more of the general public in recent years has attracted many members that think they know more than they actually do. And like any industry you have people that hope to take advantage of others.
Just want to add that posts that slander like that ridiculous one yesterday should not be allowed no matter how entertaining or intriguing without verifying its authenticity.
No brainer:
Profanity, negative remarks towards race or rellgion, threats should have 0 tolerance.
Namepros is nothing without it’s memebers, the owners do not create the content, it is all the users.
At this point namepros is just ringing the register.
The same ridiculous things are all over the place: Facebook marketplace/groups, Tweets, Craigslist, Sedo (ever sort by highest price? Alot of trash at ridiculous prices…) Why not just ignore them and move on to the non-crazy items
I don’t know anyone doing domain business on facebook marketplace or craigslist.
Because people are not going to ignore, namepros and it’s members are going to be called out over and over. Don’t like it tought shit.
True that, no one is ignoring anything and the ridiculous threads got closed, bye – bye #GoGetARealJob
With over 100,000 to 300,000+ people using NamePros every month, we will never be able to please everyone, but we still try. We try to find solutions that are sensible and fair to everyone, from new domainers to experienced experts. We have a wide range of members on NamePros from those at the very top to just beginning. We want to be inclusive and considerate of everyone. Not everyone will agree with that approach, or all of our decisions, but you can trust that we are doing our best and what we believe is right.
Unfortunately, there are times when no matter how hard we try, some people cannot conduct themselves with tact and we have to remove/restrict certain members from NamePros. This unfortunately leads to some unhappy people, who were already unprofessional to begin with, who relish in any opportunity to speak badly about NamePros. Those types of people will be ignored, and we will focus our energy on positively moving the industry forward.
Fortunately, for those who are sincere in wanting to reach us and suggest improvements, we are always listening and improving. We have more than 7 distinct ways we can be contacted, including a presence at the leading industry conference NamesCon every year. We are very accessible to those who have good intentions, and we will always work hard to provide you with value. Stay tuned for a lot of exciting advancements in 2020 that are just for you!
Of course, the title of this blog post will bring out a lot of negative/unprofessional people who we’ve had to remove from NamePros (or will soon be removed if their non-constructive and antagonizing behavior continues), and we have better things to do than interact with people who want to encourage/spread negativity.
For the respectable professionals (including those who have commented here), we look forward to serving you at NamePros! You know how to reach us if you ever need anything.
Have a nice day
What you have written here is simply not true. You did not address Vito,MapleDots or Brad Mugford are they the negative/unprofessional?
You are at Namescon? WOW who cares in between Pina Coladas you are making policy decisions.
Lastly you are not moving this industry forward, you are the lowest common denominator of this industry.
Eric,
I sure hope your comments are not referring to me. I have been a member of NamePros for more than a decade and have never had one infraction.
I think anyone who I have ever done business with would say I am professional.
Some times you need parody/satire to bring attention to a problem.
There are legitimate issues here. To say something like this is unproductive –
“some people cannot conduct themselves with tact and we have to remove/restrict certain members from NamePros. This unfortunately leads to some unhappy people, who were already unprofessional to begin with, who relish in any opportunity to speak badly about NamePros. Those types of people will be ignored, and we will focus our energy on positively moving the industry forward.’
Meanwhile you say that, yet some other members who have been restricted 5+ times for rules violations are still allowed to troll around and antagonize others constantly.
To just brush off legitimate criticisms as “spreading negativity” is unproductive as well.
Brad
Brad,
Your criticism was not brushed off; we responded to all of your feedback on this topic at NamePros. We simply disagree, and that’s okay. We are all entitled to our own opinion about what is best.
We hope our previous comment was clear about which parts of it referred to the bad actors vs. the good ones, but just to be sure, this part of our previous comment was for you and all members with good intentions:
For the respectable professionals (including those who have commented here), we look forward to serving you at NamePros! You know how to reach us if you ever need anything.
Have a nice day.
Addressed to Eric
Hello Eric, your post above reads almost like a veiled threat and does not sit well. As you can see by the VALUED member who opened this post (and are participating), it had to be done away from namepros because discussion at namepros has been stifled and moderated to the point where members cannot bring up constructive criticism without the topic being closed.
Why must topics be closed when members are still discussing the subject at hand and everyone is getting along. You come in give your response and clost the topic. Time and time again topics are closed even though the members are not off topic and the treat seems to be in an on topic conversation.
It is so disheartening to see good articles, great effort, and lots of participation in a topic and then boom it’s closed for whatever reason. I can understand the topics that cause a lot of problems but for a moderator to say this topic has run its course (or similar) is just not just. If members are responding then the topic still has life.
No wonder we have to go elsewhere to express our opinions and namepros is walking a fine line until someone decides to launch a more open platform that actually encourages free and open discussion.
Nobody is above free speech and namepros is controlled by 2-3 people who seem to want to make the decisions for the entire industry.
Sorry but that is wrong, there needs to be far more discussions before closing valuable topics.
Did I say I love namepros? – I do, I just don’t like the totalitarian direction it’s heading into.
“your post above reads almost like a veiled threat and does not sit well.” – I can assure you, there was no threat. As you know, when rules are violated, warnings and infractions follow. in cases where offenses are habitual and the member continues to violate the same rules, eventually, their account is automatically closed by system for exceeding the maximum allowed negative points.
“discussion at namepros has been stifled and moderated to the point where members cannot bring up constructive criticism without the topic being closed.” – namePros actually does not believe in censorship, so I’m not sure what you are referring to. As one of multiple moderators and I can only speak for myself, I do not censor. I follow the policies outlined by namePros.
“Why must topics be closed when members are still discussing the subject at hand and everyone is getting along. You come in give your response and clost the topic.” – Again, I can not speak for other moderators and only myself. I’m not familiar with the specific situation you are referring to in this comment, however, if a rule violation of some-kind took place or the topic went so-far off-topic that the entire discussion lost the majority or all of it’s original context, that generally results in a split-topic or a closure (But not a deletion, as censorship is frowned upon). Members can always start a new thread topic, instead of taking a thread off-topic.
“It is so disheartening to see good articles, great effort, and lots of participation in a topic and then boom it’s closed for whatever reason. I can understand the topics that cause a lot of problems but for a moderator to say this topic has run its course (or similar) is just not just.” – Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the thread you are referring to that was closed for “Running it’s course”. So I am unable to provide any insight into that.
“Nobody is above free speech” – I agree! Normally, we get complaints about allowing too much free speech and that we don’t moderate enough, so it’s a bit odd and confusing that this discussion of being “too strict” and not allowing free speech has come up.
At the end of the day, moderators are simply tasked with enforcing the rules and policies outlined by namePros. We play no favorites and enforce them the same for everyone (Minus human errors/accidents). Since there are several moderators, some using the same moderator team accounts, and each with different digestive contextual perception (E.g. One may find an image very offensive, where another feels it’s borderline), there may sometimes be a small difference in how a report is handled between them, based on that perspective of the context.
It if helps, when you are in a dispute and you would like a second opinion you can always tag or add more than one moderator team to a thread/conversation.
That way you get two teams perspectives, rather than one.
The majority of a moderator teams day is keeping the community safe, investigating potential fraud, mediating between buyers & sellers in direct message to help them complete their binding agreements smoothly, stopping and cleaning up spam campaigns, etc…
Other than that, arguments between members because they disagree on politics, religion, what the best domain or extension is, etc.. is not at the top of the list of priorities. Members should be able to conduct themselves as mature and professional adults. At times, I do get involved in situations reported where aggressively unprofessional behavior is being exhibited (E.g. threats, name calling, etc.) and shut it down, however, moderator teams generally never get involved in heated debates between members, unless a rule violation takes place.
I just want everyone to be safe, that’s my focus. Our members safety is our number one priority. All the heated debates and twisted context arguments fall on the members creating them and engaging in them.
The above is my take on everything anyways, but as I said before, I’m just one of multiple moderators tasked by namePros to enforce rules and policies.
I don’t have all the answers, but I hope I was able to assist you with some of them.
I just see namepros as a comedy site, most of the people there make no money it seems. It would be great to see a new forum come up that holds members accountable, and maybe use your real name. What do you have to hide?