It seems like I’ve offended quite a few people with my list of reasons why Digital Point Sucks. So I’m opening an invitation to everyone who wishes to discuss my blog article more in-depth, exactly four months later.
Even as I’m writing this, I can’t believe there’s people that STILL don’t get it. And it’s somewhat shocking to a degree that I have to come up with a whole other blog post to describe it to them.
News Flash = It’s filed under SATIRE
I’m writing this blog post to explain to those that think I was absolutely serious in every single point I make and to open up the floor for those who want to ask me something about why I wrote the list. And I’m writing this because it would seem as though some people don’t even bother to read the comments anymore (Hint: check comment 26 over there).
Here are the rules for this Debate:
- No Insults. This is a serious discussion.
- Replies with comments like “Your blog Sux, DP RULEZ!!!!” and “You know nuthin bout SEO” will be removed!
- If you can’t tell the difference between one of the “Serious” Points and one of the “Silly” Points, don’t comment. I don’t need idiots filling up my question slots.
- No Duplicate Comments, read through the others first if you do not want to have your response deleted.
- So make sure to read everything, the list, the list’s comments, this post, and this post’s comments (even the DP threads, if you wish, although they don’t pertain to this discussion specifically), before commenting.
This is the type of comment I will gladly respond to:
Greetings.
It seems to me that you are most-likely a banned member at Digital Point Forums, thus the reason for the hate blog post. Perhaps you can edit your blog post and tell everyone your user-name and why exactly you were banned from DP?
I actually took the time to read through your entire list of “the cons of Digital Point Forums” and there are only a few that seem accurate. Maybe you decided to list the cons because you didn’t have the time to experience the good aspects of Digital Point Forums before you were banned?
Firstly, I am not necessarily here to defend Digital Point, but I am here to voice out my opinion towards your blog post.
Digital Point Forums, in my opinion, doesn’t have enough moderators and administrators - you’re right about that and I’ll agree with you; however, for having such a limited amount of forum staff members, they do a superb job moderating the forums and maintaining such a large forum in a decent timely manner.
There are a few horrible points which I would like to address to you that you tried to make. For the majority of your list, you repeated yourself or just made horrible points.
Digital Point’s server is slow sometimes because it is so popular. Everyone knows that big forums like Digital Point Forums, powered by vBulletin, is an easy target for hackers and DDoS attacks - on top of that, there is a lot of people constantly visiting the site, straining even their “leet” powerful server.
I don’t see why you complain about people claiming themselves as “SEO Experts” - people who have experienced some good techniques with SEO have the right to share it with others, and that’s what a forum is all about: teaching, learning, and discussing with each other. There’s always something new to learn about SEO, and there’s always some new method or strategy that *can* work for you, so it’s definitely worth reading on what some self-proclaimed “SEO Gurus” there have to say.
The final thing I would like to point out is regarding the content of Digital Point Forums. The forums were originally intended for discussion regarding Digital Point’s webmaster tools and have now evolved into a massive discussion forum for webmasters. Digital Point simply created the categories and forums for discussion within vBulletin’s forum system; under no circumstance do they promote or endorse any content published onto their forum that does not regard an official product/webmaster tool of Digital Point.
Members are accountable for what they post - that includes a tactic for search engine optimization including blackhat techniques and generally offensive/hateful posts. Digital Point does not endorse or recognize member posts as an expressive opinion of the company; members represent themselves through their posts, just like on any other forum. Grant it, because of the low number of forum staff, it may take a while for a reported offensive post to be deleted, but it will still be done. The forum is so large right now that it is difficult for all the forum staff to view every single post made - that’s why vBulletin has the nice “report post” feature.
Digital Point Forums is one of, if not the largest webmaster forums on the Internet. The forums contain a lot of valuable information that is useful for webmasters, and serves its intended purpose well as a webmaster discussion forum.
Even I have got infractions and have been banned before. There’s usually a reason why members get infractions and banned…if not always. Perhaps your blog post was created out of mere jealousy of a live success? You tell me.
Justice seems like a nice guy, and was very polite about it. He had much to say and didn’t lash out or get into a rage or anything like that.
So if you have anything you want to ask, either about my reasons why I wrote about it, or the blog post itself, you can ask here.
On a final note, alternatively, if you’re feeling really brave, you can ask about everything over at ihelpyou, more specifically about DP here, and increase your knowledge base extensively.
(removed = this is for USEFUL discussion)
I don’t understand why it take so long to moderate and approved my account. I sign up in Mid April, confirm my email address at the same day and there is a response saying I am in the queue for moderation before I can start posting.
Till today, I still cannot post in DP forum. This is the first time I join a forum that take some long to approve my account. It seems like there is something wrong in the pipeline, but, I can’t find how I can talk to any moderator as I cannot post.
It’s really. Suck.
Hey Asia’h
If I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about whether your account was approved or not. There’s many more (and better) webmaster forums out there.
Although from the technical side of things, I don’t know why they wouldn’t approve your account. It’s not like you have duplicate accounts or anything, as you said it was your first time, odd indeed.
Hi,
I took the time to read you previous blog fully, in fact even twice (only because i wanted to smile again).
In my opinion you either fell asleep while writing the blog or thought 100 was enough, either way, the extensive list in my opinion is spot on.
For the record i am an active DP member, a very active one - but not for much longer, i wont leave thou until im even forceably banned or reach the 10 pointless fractions. I give it 2 weeks
DP in my opinion has a serious lack of respect towards its posters, and by DP i mean the staff. Just take a look through the Suggestions & Feedback to get my drift, often arrogant and rude replies to genuine questions often resulting in infractions and bad rep for placing them in the first place pmsl. Oh did i mention they then close the thread immediatley, almost like slamming the door in your face.
Im not sure which number in your list its was, but the entry reffering to shawn (the board owner) not active on DP, i thought i would have a look, and o…m…g… 6 weeks and not a single post. Thats bad in my opinion, the owner not even catching up with his fellow members.
DP is full crap as you rightfully say, although flaming is not publicly allowed, it is allowed through the rep system, and again imo, far worse.
I commend you for writing the blog, this and the other, unfortunatley it was not long enough
only a matter of time before people move on….. ohhhhh they already are 
How’s it goin’ DB?
Funny to know you don’t feel 100 was enough
(It only took me about two or three hours to write the list and placing all the links, etc. Like I said at the end, I was tired, and it was around 3 in the morning).
I’ve read through some of those suggestion threads recently too. A friend of mine from Webmaster-Talk, Phil (Cheshire_Cat) recently posted a few questions over there asking about DP’s reputation around the web, and they immediately closed both threads down, saying he wasn’t contribute anything of value (I know, that’s crazy).
While I can’t vouch for what goes on behind the public scenes (via PM’s or the rep system, as I’ve never personally posted there), hearing all the stories from some WT friends of mine, other regular members such as yourself, and just reading what some have said about the rep system over there.
And concerning what you said about Shaun, (it was point number 78) that’s exactly what I was referring to too, only making five or ten posts a year in his own forum seems to imply that he either has NO free time at all to post there, or he just doesn’t care about what goes on there very much anymore.
Thanks for commenting and hopefully the rest of DP will change their minds (and attitudes) someday.
(removed = this post is for those who wish to discuss my article, NOT for link dropping to an Anti-DigitalPoint website)
My husband and I were active members of DP…Then my husband was banned, for multiple accounts. So, I signed up for my own account and not too long after I was banned. I contacted one of the admins (mcfox) and he told me that the ban was the appropriate action *rolls eyes*. I never had more than 1 account and I never done anything wrong at all…but yet I get nailed. But how many other people do you see breaking the rules huh and yet one that doesnt break any rules, gets banned. When you mention it openly in DP, you get members being very rude etc but what they dont understand is that they wouldnt be too happy if they had a bunch of rep, itrader and posts and they do most of their business on DP and if they got banned they would be upset as well….They see it just one sided and think that we are just cry babies.
Another thing that is just so senseless is the Suggestion/Feedback area in which they don’t change anything that anyone requests and you see so many closed threads that are unanswered or a mod was a complete A$$ about it.
DP is full of scammers and the mods/admins dont care about you as a member, they just care that their forum is popular and they think no one will try to compete!
That’s DP for you.
I completely agree about the suggestions and feedback section too. I don’t even know why people bother to create threads in that section, the mods just close them if they don’t like them anyway.
Like I make in a few of my points, there’s no accountability over there, nor are quality posts and threads at the top of their priority list. Yet at the same time so many people flock their as if it’s the holy grail of internet marketing or something; it just baffles me.
DP does suck, but I still like it. However, I get pissed off when I get an email saying ” You have received an infraction “. It’s from posting and either updating a thread or something else useful, however they penalize me for ” bumping ” and ” post has no value “. It’s like they are penalizing you from posting on the forum, when you aren’t doing anything wrong. I was banned for 30 days over this and was about not to go back, but I did (for now at least).
DP are sooooooooooo ANNOYING. They banned me for reporting a scammer!
I’m locked out of Digital Point for changing my e-mail address in the user control panel.
Apparently there are warnings everywhere not to do this which I’ve missed for over a year.
I was later told by a mod that changing your e-mail address in Digital Point puts your account into a moderation queue that the moderators can’t see.
The queue can only be seen by an administrator and there are 3 for the entire forum. One admin doesn’t accept PMs, another doesn’t reply to them and the other one hasn’t been online in months.
I like the way I’ve been put into a “moderation” queue that “moderators” can’t see.
To be honest here, I’m not so sure why you guys are so concerned with either being “locked out” or “banned” from DP or whatnot.
While their infractions may not be fair, the mods may be fascist, you’ll get scammed, etc., it really shouldn’t make a difference here. There’s significantly better forums out there in my opinion, take these two for example:
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/
http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/
I’d recommend checking out these types of alternatives to DP.
I made a topic over on DP saying “DIGITAL POINT BANS EVERYONE!” The reason i did this was because i was sick of tham baning everyone for bull shit reasons or for nothing!
In the topic i tould people to wach how thay will ban me for just makeing this topic!
And gas what happens..
First I get a “infraction’ for not posting in the right Forum ArE YoU KiDeInG mE? my topic was under “General chat”
Than they remove the topic so people cant see what thay are going to do next.
i got BAND! This is what thay said…
“You have been banned for the following reason:
Asked to be banned by retarded mods one too many times.”
I naver askd to be banned ONES! LOL WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!
Dgital pont BANS you for NO REASON AS I PROVED IT!!
Its ok though they will keep BANING there reputacion away!
I will no longer use digital point.
And i recommend you all do the same. Unless you want headaches from the CORRUPT ADMINS. Than by all means sign up to Digital point:)
Hey, I searched for your thread title over there and couldn’t find it. While what you describe sounds typical of DP, it’d still be nice to know exactly what happened and where.
Is there any truth to the rumour that Crazy_Rob and other moderators and members there are being investigated by the IRS due to the fact they don’t declare earnings, there seems to be a growing number of rumours going on!!!
Sorry Curious One, I have absolutely no idea.
Recently I went along to the DP forum to check my messages, logged in and confronted with
Banned:
Stop Spinning Dupe Accounts
Lifted: NEVER
What I would like to get off my chest is, I have never had a dupe account and I know they can check the IP from which the posts have been posted. So I have lost my right to post on the forum now and also the right to complain as they seems to be nobody answering any feedback, admin, web,aster posts to the main website.
I believe 100% it was the crazy rob guy who banned me but what really gets my goat is that I cannot even ask them to prove it, like it or lump it your banned, go away.
If they are any DP mods on here or anywhere please check my account Aubenrey and prove to me it was a DUPE, I know you cannot because it was not. Or will you use the old we cannot over rule another mods actions.
Time to move on me thinks and look at the more serious forums out there.
Just for fun have you seen http://digitalpointless.com another anti DP website.
Thanks
aubenrey
What else do you expect from DP? It’s one of the things that they “just do”. I wouldn’t worry about it.
I’ve seen the link before due to getting referral traffic from them, although I don’t know why they’re trying to look just like DP (except with the “less” in the title), why not stand out a bit more?
And there are no DP mods or Admins here, it’s just me here running everything on this website. Although they might’ve read the list and / or this post, I’m not sure.
Digitalpoint is a brilliant example of what money does to people - finding a nice person on that forum is damn near impossible. Even when you offer people help, if it’s not exactly what they’re looking for they will either patronise you or report you.
As long was I wasn’t banned, I told myself that I wouldn’t start complaining about DP but last night that very thing just happened to me. I was banned for having a ‘Duplicate Account’ and yet I’ve only ever had one account on DP: even if they had sent me the username of my duplicate account or offered me some kind of proof I would held my hand up and accepted the ban.
Admins are too busy threatening people with bans, moderators are too busy handing out infractions and the members are too busy worrying about the $2 they lost on the ‘How To Make A $1,000,000,000′ ebook which turned out to be a load of nonsense.
DigitalPoint was once a useful tool but now it’s time to move on.
I would like to re-iterate some of ponts discussed in the post as well as in these comments. IMO the DP forum mods are not well qualified or they think themselves as god in Internet. Now a days there torture has even crossed the limit and any one who is trying to point out getting a ban or infraction. And when you contact them you will never receive a reply.
I am sure in no time Dp is going to sink in the deep shit. And there are many other webmaster forum which are far far better then Dp and they are going to excel. Guys let us come together and form a new community to let teh DP mods and admin show that how exactly a community should be???
DP is great but the mods suck like Rob. They act like 15 years old child. He banned me because of duplicate account but I dont have any, so stupid. When I asked he said we dont want you here. I did nothing at all.
The biggest issue with DP is its ultra-arrogant and super-weirdo staff members. Have a look at this thread and you’ll know why Crazy Rob is hated like crazy by most DP members, except perhaps some “ass lickers.” Yes, its also a spam haven, but if you’re smart enough you’ll know how to avoid being spammed. But I am sure every newbie on that forum goes through a psychological shock when one of those staff members give them an infraction for the silliest of reason, and then posts rude replies and closes their threads when those members make a hue and cry over it.
Also, I cant deny I have learn’t a lot from that forum. I might not yet be a very good webmaster (I’m definitely a bad internet marketer), but I do credit DP for helping me make a side living on the internet.