Page 4 - Changes to SEO forum - how and why

Fathom,

And then the true reality...

I know of no business with actual CUSTOMERS that does not make concessions in its decisions based on what the customer wants.

If you are not willing to hear your customers wants, then I promise your business will be harmed.

It's not all about rank, money, and volume.

People have to fall into your business somewhere, or you have no business.

Oh, Fathom - please!

So the solution is to prevent anybody and everybody from gaining anything from their investment?

Not everybody does. Some do because it's easy, it's spam - very, very few. Some do because they invest inordinates amounts of time, effort and energy into this thing.

They're not paid.

Remove their only benefit. How do you expect to motivate them?

Well, I think the answer is staring you in the face. Or rather, it's gone - run away.

You're trying to justify a decision that was taken for an ensemble of forums - the devshed forums.

It was taken, and it was a mistake.

The "admins" now know it was a mistake - enormous businesses have failed because of stupid mistakes taken by incompetant "executives" against the advice of experts.

But I'm finding it difficult to belive that you're still championing the incometant idiots that made this decision - folowing on from the moderator fiasco...

Please, Fathom, STOP it!!!

Everybody has had enough.

good points... so in this business that most profitable customers left?

... or are they stil to come?

SEOChat is a free resource of people sharing knowledge, skills, and experiences. Today was an experience wasn't it.

Never dull around here! :-)

This is Gr8ted3s...and I suspect this post will be deleted. I have no reason to think otherwise, my trust in this place has been demolished but I will try one more time.

A mistake sure, and he learned. We all make mistakes. The simple fact is that they (devshed) have been consistently getting worse and worse.

The attitude is not condusive to an open forum. As far as your ramblings about business. You may want to run everything YOUR WAY, however, if you do not take into considration what your customers/users/etc care about, you will be doing it YOUR WAY alone.

EGOL, I deeply...DEEPLY respect you as a person and professional. However, the way we were treated was unforgivable. I did not cuss...I did post a new thread in the wrong place...which should have constituted a move and perhaps a PM.

Instead, my thread was promptly deleted and I was banned for "99999" days. This is absolutely the most childish I've ever seen Mr JCaputo. I hope and pray that I will see you in my new digs at cr8asite, if not, I will respect your decision and with much head shaking sadly mourn the loss of your sage insight. I was but one of many that got banned today.

SEO_AM, it IS a sad day, I will miss you a great deal as well and hope to see you elsewhere. You are probably the most level headed person in this place, you simply never get upset no matter what is thrown at you.

One last note. Rich posted an apology to SEOMoz and when met with (at best) luke warm reception, quickly switched to the defensive indicating that it was our fault. The integrity simply isn't here anymore.

I have much more to say but simply do not currently trust myself to say it. Gr8ted3s will apparently post no more since the ban is still in effect. GrittedTeeths might post again but it will not be often!

Lest everybody forgets... the product that SEO Chat was selling is the posted knowledge of SEO Chat SEO experts.

Without the SEO experts, you. SEO Chat, becomes a library of old SEO expert posts. This is a dynamic industry. The best sales people you had was the stock of SEO experts that gave you... yes... gave you their knowledge for free.

I might add that ALL of my sig links pointed back to SEO chat!

One last thought, before I go to bed (no, I'm not ironing at this time of night ;) )

When will this thread be deleted?

The last one went fairly quickly...

It reminds me - very clearly - of the old communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

Removing people from photographs as if they hadn't existed - you see? nobody is against us!

Those that were are, unfortunately, dead. Who knows what tortures they endured.

Don't wake up that memory....

Don't try and rewrite history - it doesn't work. Cleverer people than you have tried - and failed.

MCS
x

That's a very good question, and I fear that it is an unanswerable one.

The point is, respect the customers/members you have, and you will grow... don't and you will basically recycle customers/members and never truely grow.

I'm sorry you feel the way you do. Ive read your complaints, I understand them, and I respect them. Fact of the matter is, what is done is done. I'm going to do what I can to rectify the original complaint but I cannot undo what has transpired since.

If you would like to continue to post here as Gr8ted3s, say the word and I will unban the account. If you want to go post somewhere else, I wish you well.

All we can do is move on from here.

One last note, I said the same things here as I did on SEOMoz. I expected not to be met with open arms when I posted over there, but I did not turn around and place the blame on the community. I was pointing out that both sides of the coin could have done things differently. Again, it is water under the bridge, at this point.

I was once a President of Rolodex... an employee made a $10 million mistake. No killings took place. He was just told: "It is what it is'" Let's move on.

See, that's what I'm talking about. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY THE WORD!

You should have already unbanned all the accounts that you know good and well are respected users of this site as a matter of good faith! This simply tells me that you think it's ok to tromp all over those that you've used to gain your position.

As I said before, may you reap what you sow.....

I am of the opinion now that JCaputo has simply been pushing to see how much we would take....it just has gotten worse and worse....well now he knows.

In my business my #1 rule... turn disadvantage into competitive advantage.

DevShed IMHO did the right thing... and if one seriously looks at the code [from an SEO perspective] you would agree...

split the wheat from the chaff and make the wheat that make more powerful.... now that the rubbish isn't wasting weight, relevancy, and RageRank on the chaff - think of the possibilities.

DevShed has made some radical changes - but in the direction.

What they did was mix up their herbicides...they accidently dropped the stuff that kills everything instead of just the weeds.

The link thing (while being a major slap in the face) was NOT the reason for the exodus. It was the disrespecting attitude of one person.

Right, but I bet if he made another mistake, this time for $15 million a few months later, and no killings took place I'd bet he would have at least been asked to move on alone.