Now that the focus of WT has shifted to those topics you mentioned, it’ll be even more difficult to find the posts you’re interested in when helping others out. And I think (setup-wise) it pretty much already looks like DP. All that’s left now is that its up to the posters whether they want to turn WT into a DP clone or not.

Thanks for the comments, too, and remember I do have my conspiracy-forum project I’m working on ATM, along with a reply every day or two over at IHY, but as I said, for other forums, I won’t be posting nearly as much as I did at WT.

Perhaps it is not the owners intention to make it that much more commercialized, but when you integrate a commercialized forum into the existing one, it will naturally become more commercialized. It is sad for me because now when you go to “New Posts” it is mostly marketing, SEO, affiliate links, and the like. I don’t like having to go to the main forum page, mark all the forums I don’t like as read to view the newer posts for the site. It’s becoming too much of a hassle. It may not end up being just like DP, but it may end up looking like it.

I enjoy your blog and hope to see you again either on WT or another forum

And I actually believe adsense is a great way to make money online. It challenges you to write great blog posts (or website content for non-blogs), and after you have the initial traffic base and network in place, generating clicks and income is easy.

While topics like affiliate programs and the like may be legit topics, as you said, WT didn’t really feel like the place to be discussing them. Giving them their own special emphasis seemed to be a bit too much for me. I mean, what if the staff decided to create more Forums about even more topics that weren’t in our interests.

I do see your point though about staying out of forums that don’t interest you, but then again, they are on the same website. For example, topics about SEO and PR often spill into the Google Forum. So I think it’s inevitable that MMO topics will spill into other sections of the site as well, there’s really not much escaping it.

Talk to you in a bit

I guess I look at it that AdSense is just one aspect of making money online. In fact many would say it’s the least useful way. I haven’t had a chance yet to go into those forums in any details so I’m not sure what’s in there at the moment, but I think it’s going to be good we can discuss other forms of monetization. I know some of it might come across as spammy to some, but I don’t think the specific form of monetization is automatically a spammy thing. AdSense is a good example of that. You have it here, but I’d hardly call you spammy. At the same time there are plenty of MFA sites that serve no purpose beyond the ads.

I think topics like affiliate marketing and direct ad selling are legit topics to discuss and I think a lot of people will be interested in them. They don’t have to be about spam, though I do understand your concern. Monetization wasn’t really the expertise of most at WT, but those from EF do know more about it and I think they can teach us all a lot. I know I’d like to make more money from blog given all the time I put into it.

The other thing with me is every forum I belong to discusses topics that don’t interest me. I just stay out of those forums. I may not like them, but I know other people do.

I know you didn’t say you’d never return and I do understand if you need to be away for awhile. I do hope you’ll be back though.

As I said in my post I’m not (and I don’t think I can be 100%) sure that I’ll never return, but I don’t see it happening in the near future.

I know I wasn’t apart of the forum when past contests were held, so I had no idea about those which took place for sure (or maybe I was thinking that they were past the gimmick stage, and the quality posts and dedicated members would have been enough).

Actually too, I have no problem with the marketplace changes, they look pretty good, and I never came to WT to sell my work or promote my services, so those changes didn’t influence my decisions.

About the money making, I feel having a whole category dedicated to it may be a little over-the-top. I mean, as you said, we already had the adsense/adwords forums, along with the ecommerce and general business and miscellaneous IM forums (which often contained topics about generating online income).

I don’t think WT will automatically turn into DP because of those changes, but it sure looks like a step in that direction. I know it’s the community that makes the decisions on how it’s shaped in that regard, but those changes seem to beg similar posts and inquiries (and I have nothing against EF or its community, the two just don’t seem like they belong together, IMO).

I know forums change over time, but as I said in my email, it didn’t feel right to exclude dedicated members from the changes (as necessary or unnecessary as they may have been).

A part of the reason for the new Marketplace was to help reduce some of the spam offers we get. It’s not as though people weren’t posting those offers as it was. Having to pay a few dollars should cut down on the more spammy offers. It also allows the mods to delete any thread advertising that is outside the Marketplace. The new Marketplace is also separate from the rest of the forum so it would be easy enough to avoid if you don’t want to see it.

As far as the new forums about making money I think those will be good for the forums. They are subjects of interest to people building websites. We already had forums about AdSense and AdWords so this is really more of an expansion.

I don’t think any of the above means the forum has to become more like DP. The character of a forum is based on the community. It’s not all about the forum topics or whether there’s a Marketplace.

The truth is things change and WT had to change if it was to continue to operate. The forum needed more members and it needed new blood. I hope you’ll come back, but I’ll understand if you prefer not to. You certainly have that right, but you will be missed.

And like the others, I certainly don’t blame you for leaving either. Sometimes I just wished people would read sticky like “HTML Resources” or “Why Toolbar PR isn’t Important” before creating those “Where can I learn CSS for free” or “Next PR Updation” threads.

Also, it’s good to see you on my Conspiracy Forums. I know they don’t have as much activity ATM, but I’ll work on creating more quality content and threads to discuss in, so it’ll be more interesting for current members and potential new ones (No “Point Games” or prize-winning gimmicks for me ).

Another reason I left was because it was almost the same threads every single day without any new interesting questions been asked. n00bs didn’t bother using the search feature, ie, how do I increase my PR? However if they used the search feature they would soon realise that PR was not important.

But oh well, forums have their time and people must move on.

I appreciate the feedback (for my WT suggestions, among other things). And in the time being, I am carrying the evilness to IHY, as some may have noticed.

I’m not sure if other members will also leave or not, they’d have to make their own decisions about that.

I may check out your guys’ websites too, if you ever update them that is, to keep in touch.

Maybe one day blogging will spark your interests. Tim, you have some *really* great designs and blogging would be a great way to communicate with people who would be interested in them (I think Kandi mentioned somewhere over at WT that you could earn a great deal off of your designs).

And Phil, well just by judging from your posts over at WT, you’d make a great blogger too.