From a "newbie"

[neddy]

I got an email today from a person who has joined DNT some time ago, but hasn't posted.

Why not? Well, read this and you'll understand.

"I am a Newbie (if the pre-requisite to be a member of that group is recently joined)

I must say I do find the responses to questions quite discourteous at times

There is no "Domainer's College" (yet) so people breaking into this field look to forums like DN Trade to build their network of advisers & colleagues

I am sure I am one of several who sit back & simply observe for fear of the possible response that a query may generate

The "school of hard knocks" approach can be made easier by acceptance of the stage people have reached on the learning curve

Having said that I do also accept that some people are at different stages in the development of their people skills".

We started the "newbie section" to cater for people exactly like this.

There are many generous people on here who are always willing to share the benefit of their experiences, and to those people I extend my heartfelt thanks.

Please - can we all be patient and kind of spirit as we grow our industry? We were all newbies once.

Cheers, Ned (Admin)

 

[xwdomains]

I got an email today from a person who has joined DNT some time ago, but hasn't posted.

Why not? Well, read this and you'll understand.



We started the "newbie section" to cater for people exactly like this.

There are many generous people on here who are always willing to share the benefit of their experiences, and to those people I extend my heartfelt thanks.

Please - can we all be patient and kind of spirit as we grow our industry? We were all newbies once.

Cheers, Ned (Admin)

+1 well said Ned

 

[jhellyer]

So true, it is quite daunting venturing into something that you know little but the basics about....in saying that though I have seen both sides of it on here and I truly believe that the good far outweighs the bad. I have received a huge amount of help and support from some very experienced players and for that I am truly grateful.

 

[webdeal]

patience, patience and again patience.....

 

[Chris.C]

I don't think newbies get shot down unless they enter the market, buy some junk, then start spruiking it here expecting people to buy...

If you qualify that you're a newbie in your posts and you ask questions rather than given ignorant opinions people respect that and want to help rather than demoralise.

 

[djuqa]

Fair enough Neddy.
I am probably one of the worst at being a little short with people at times.
Will do my part to help in the future. But one observation is a lot of the advice given here at times is so WRONG / MIS-LEADING / CONFUSING that my "Doesn't play well with others" attitude kicks-in and I have to comment. I am not the only one that has got frustrated by this.

CoreyG, a well educated and experienced Domainer with a larger portfolio than most dnTRADERS will ever have and over 9000 Posts on various international Domain fora was banned for daring to be outspoken and questioning some dnTRADERS comments.

Myself I have had a dnTRADE Member Fraudulently register with Google/MYOB, an Australian domain that was my personal name, using my Company ABN and placing malicious comments on the provided website, I have also had harassing phone calls on both my business phone and personal mobile. I have had multiple DEALS made by PM / Emails (Both forms are legal contracts), that the senders has reneged on.
I can handle this, but newbies are vulnerable to being mislead, confused, mis-informed, harassed or exploited.

So to truly help Newbies, everyone else should be positive that the advice they impart is helpful and more importantly CORRECT / ACCURATE / RELEVANT / LEGAL / PLEASANT.

 

[neddy]

Fair enough Neddy.
I am probably one of the worst at being a little short with people at times.
Will do my part to help in the future. But one observation is a lot of the advice given here at times is so WRONG / MIS-LEADING / CONFUSING that my "Doesn't play well with others" attitude kicks-in and I have to comment. I am not the only one that has got frustrated by this.

CoreyG, a well educated and experienced Domainer with a larger portfolio than most dnTRADERS will ever have and over 9000 Posts on various international Domain fora was banned for daring to be outspoken and questioning some dnTRADERS comments.

Myself I have had a dnTRADE Member Fraudulently register with Google/MYOB, an Australian domain that was my personal name, using my Company ABN and placing malicious comments on the provided website, I have also had harassing phone calls on both my business phone and personal mobile. I have had multiple DEALS made by PM / Emails (Both forms are legal contracts), that the senders has reneged on.
I can handle this, but newbies are vulnerable to being mislead, harassed or exploited.

So to truly help Newbies, everyone else should be positive that the advice they impart is helpful and more importantly CORRECT / ACCURATE / RELEVANT / LEGAL / PLEASANT.

Thank you for your post Djuqa. I appreciate your offer to try and be a bit more patient with others - particularly newbies.

Couple of points from your post:

1. CoreyG was the first person we have ever banned - and she certainly was not banned for being "outspoken" as you put it. The reasons were explained to her - and also to you when you made representations on her behalf.

However, I'm not sure if Corey told you, but after she emailed me a couple of times, I agreed to give her another chance and changed the permanent ban to a one month "timeout". She resumes in a couple of days. Couldn't be fairer than that.

2. You state that a DNT member was responsible for fraudulently registering your name as a domain. Do you have proof of that? That is a very damning statement; and one that I'd like to follow up on if you have evidence.

Cheers, Ned

 

[Shane]

I don't think newbies get shot down unless they enter the market, buy some junk, then start spruiking it here expecting people to buy...

Agree 100%. The problem is that some newbies spruik their junk, and when you try to give them some advice they just argue with you.

I registered plenty of junk in my early days, and I wish I had someone back then to tell me I was wasting my money.

CoreyG, a well educated and experienced Domainer with a larger portfolio than most dnTRADERS will ever have and over 9000 Posts on various international Domain fora was banned for daring to be outspoken and questioning some dnTRADERS comments.

Having a large portfolio doesn't mean a thing. Any of us could hand reg a thousand .info, .in and .sc domains, but what would that achieve? And having thousands of forum posts doesn't mean much either since 90% of them were "Where's the privacy policy" or "What TLD?".

Corey's domains and websites (yes the ones you created) were simply rubbish, and she was another in a long line of people who will argue to the death rather than taking advice.

Soj did a great job of building DNT, and Neddy and FPR have ramped it up even further, but I'm seriously at the point of leaving DNT because of the attitude of many of the newbies. I think the fact that very few of the experienced domainers post in newbie's threads says a lot.

 

[djuqa]

neddy,
1. I know that you "unban" corey on Nov 4th
2. I have evidence.


Shane,
Where are all the required privacy policies?
And corey has been running an Australian Domain with an Australian focused Site since 1998.
Yes most of the sites I do for corey & others are not nice looking.
But they only get what they want and pay for.

She has not just bought a collection of domains and parked them.
Most of her sites have real content and excellent traffic.
Shane, I don't rubbish your excellent content service, so why do you continually rubbish my business which incidentally is not just crap minisites.

 

[neddy]

Agree 100%. The problem is that some newbies spruik their junk, and when you try to give them some advice they just argue with you.

I registered plenty of junk in my early days, and I wish I had someone back then to tell me I was wasting my money.

Soj did a great job of building DNT, and Neddy and FPR have ramped it up even further, but I'm seriously at the point of leaving DNT because of the attitude of many of the newbies. I think the fact that very few of the experienced domainers post in newbie's threads says a lot.

Some good points that you make Shane (and others!).

Running a forum like this has its challenges. On the one hand we want to encourage genuine newcomers to the industry, and be able to give them as much assistance as we can as they learn the ropes. And to do that, assistance and contributions from seasoned professionals like yourself are invaluable. (And we thank you all for that!).

On the other, we want to actively discourage those few newcomers that think they know it all or spruik their wares. So I guess it is up to the admin and moderators to be more vigilant about this; and for us to be prepared to get in early and point these people in the "right direction".

Any help or suggestions that you or others may have along the way would be gratefully received. Always feel free to PM me.

Cheers, Ned

 

[jhellyer]

anyone wanna buy my domain name I just registered....newbiedomainer.com.au

I'll take $5000 for it.....lmao

 

[djuqa]

anyone wanna buy my domain name I just registered....newbiedomainer.com.au

I'll take $5000 for it.....lmao

Great Name

 

[DavidL]

"I am a Newbie (if the pre-requisite to be a member of that group is recently joined)

I must say I do find the responses to questions quite discourteous at times

There is no "Domainer's College" (yet) so people breaking into this field look to forums like DN Trade to build their network of advisers & colleagues

I am sure I am one of several who sit back & simply observe for fear of the possible response that a query may generate

The "school of hard knocks" approach can be made easier by acceptance of the stage people have reached on the learning curve

Dntrade is hardly the school of hard knocks. Investment related forums tend to get quite heated i think - maybe because people are literally invested in their ideas so tend to fight hard for their beliefs. But even forums like Whingepool are way more intimidating IMO

I'd suggest that potential newbies that are this precious will struggle in domaining anyway because, as we all know, you get a few knocks along the way.

Having said that I do also accept that some people are at different stages in the development of their people skills".

Yeah that's true enough

 

[Data Glasses]

just hang in there and be gracious once you are up the ladder a bit more is the best way to go about it

 

[FirstPageResults]

Many members not only go out of their way to welcome newbies, but they're also willing to share knowledge and give advice (both publically and privately) so I don't agree with the hard knocks comment as a whole.

The issue seems to be directed at the appraisals forum where honest opinions are sought and delivered (perhaps a little too crass at times). We can look at options to rectify this if need be.

If you are new to the scene, then I encourage you to join and fire off any questions you do have. Get to know some more experienced members and they won't mind lending a helping hand. Heck, the vast majority of us are guilty of blowing a few bucks on dud domains, but getting involved in the community will get you on the right path faster.

People also develop emotional ties with certain domains and may see value in areas that others overlook.

 

[sp@rky13]

I haven't really been posting much recently, mainly because threads haven't related to me + I am in the middle of the HSC (wait only 1 exam left so maybe not middle ) but here's my observation:

There are a lot of domains that post up a domain for apprasial and the truth is they're worth nothing (the domain that is). Sometimes the posts deal with this issue correctly by telling them the honest truth but wording it in a way that doesn't make them seem stupid. This means, saying stuff like, "I don't believe it's worth anything except maybe reg fee. Remember though that everyone's done this before and they're done it 100's of time for many" Instead of: "It's worth zilch." The reason is that we're dealing with text you don't really know how a person's saying it.

I think all that needs to be remembered is that if someone says they're a noob then remember back to the days you did the same things. And don't deny you didn't buy some shocking domains back then Anywayz, that's my thoughts.

 

[James]

And idea would be to have a resources or guides section on the forum for newbies too could be an idea, currently the "resources" is blog based.

But yeah I think the best advice you can give is honest advice even if it is hard, people register a name and think it is worth thousands when realistically it is only worth registration fee.

 

[johno69]

But yeah I think the best advice you can give is honest advice even if it is hard, people register a name and think it is worth thousands when realistically it is only worth registration fee.

I agree.

All sounds a bit childish to me, some people need to harden up. This is business right?

 

[neddy]

I think honest, forthright opinions are fantastic. Helps others look at a different side to an equation sometimes.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with people and addressing issues. I believe in the adage "A gentle answer deflects anger,
but harsh words make tempers flare". But that's me. (And I don't always abide by that. )

As far as DNT is concerned, as long as there is no flaming or personal abuse, then everyone is free to do it their way.

 

[James]

I mean business is business, If you are not honest with people they will go and waste money it is their own fault.

It really depends what you want to cater for your forum, I mean we can have 5 members who want to post countless threads about worthless domains and complain to every one when they have some insight for them! Or your can have 500 members who want to get down and talk serious business.

I mean we all make mistakes I probably own like 10 domains out of the 150 I currently have which I acquired and now think WTF was I thinking!!!!

To be brutally honest if I come to a forum and I see it flooded with newbies all asking the same things, threads full of people complaining about things, I will just move onto the next place.

I saw the exact same thing happen with Digital Point Forums it was a great place in 2004-2006 then it just to a turn for the worst. But then again this is not my forum so the way in which it is run is totally not up to me. I think the "newbies" section is good just need to start some guides in it imo...Things like how to research domains, how to pick trends, how to use Google keyword tools, some important threads should also be linked in it so you bring back old posts which contain value or people will just start new threads asking things which are already answered.