Anyone want to help trade some posts?
- Thread starter BlackJacket
- Start date
Edrondol
Well-known member
So what does it matter if your users find out the post came from someone in Postloop? All you need to do is let them know that you are in the loop and that it allows for x-posting of interesting topics/posts and keeps multiple communities open and active. BAM! Win-win!
Edrondol
Well-known member
One thing I'm noticing is that posts do not have the benefit of conversation. For example, on the Postloop Portal site, nearly all the threads are things like, "What's your favorite band?" or "Which is better: Harry Potter of Lord of the Rings?" And then when you post in the threads, nobody answers you. So everyone is trying to get in their 10 posts to be involved with the loop, but there's a huge difference between merely posting and having a conversation.
Let me give you an example. I put in my board and last night at 3 I had someone join, make 12 quick posts and then they logged off. It'll be interesting to see if he comes back. His posts? Some of my users are suspecting that he's a spammer.
Let me give you an example. I put in my board and last night at 3 I had someone join, make 12 quick posts and then they logged off. It'll be interesting to see if he comes back. His posts? Some of my users are suspecting that he's a spammer.
Edrondol
Well-known member
Point taken. Still, you require people to post there to be weeded out, yet without a true conversational environment I don't see how you can gauge the true value of a user's posts.
Besides, I was REALLY looking forward to responses by my wall of text post about the collapse of the world's electrical grid/infrastructure. After I posted there were no further responses.
I'm continuing to give it a shot and will be (brutally) honest about my findings.
Trombones13
Well-known member
Once you're accepted, you become an inactive user on the Portal, meaning you no longer get points for posting there. http://www.postloop.com/community/i...onger-earn-points-in-the-postloop-portal.627/
Peggy
in memoriam 2016
Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering the same thing.
Edrondol
Well-known member
Okay, I've been a member for a few days now and here's what I've discovered.
If too many people join your forum too soon without you buying points, your site will get rated low and be suspended. I had 5 people subscribe. One person posted a bunch of things and I don't think he's been back. One posted and keeps coming back with quality stuff (Thanks, Peggy!). One comes in, posts in very broken English but he tries. Two have never posted.
I could post at forums which I've subscribed to, but one has gone inactive and the other is a very regional thing so I don't post there unless I have something to say. One site I went to had someone from Postloop post 37 times in less than 1/2 hour their first time. They have not been seen there since. More than likely they have an account and were spamming for points.
I'm not saying that PostLoop is a bad thing, but it's not as much for established sites as it is for newer sites just starting out for posts and/or users.
If too many people join your forum too soon without you buying points, your site will get rated low and be suspended. I had 5 people subscribe. One person posted a bunch of things and I don't think he's been back. One posted and keeps coming back with quality stuff (Thanks, Peggy!). One comes in, posts in very broken English but he tries. Two have never posted.
I could post at forums which I've subscribed to, but one has gone inactive and the other is a very regional thing so I don't post there unless I have something to say. One site I went to had someone from Postloop post 37 times in less than 1/2 hour their first time. They have not been seen there since. More than likely they have an account and were spamming for points.
I'm not saying that PostLoop is a bad thing, but it's not as much for established sites as it is for newer sites just starting out for posts and/or users.
Peggy
in memoriam 2016
Postloop people could do well even on regional sites like mine if they would take a few minutes to do a google search (using my site as an example) for Youngstown, Ohio, or Mahoning Valley. There's history, upcoming events, news sites. etc. So take a couple of articles off of a news site, start a thread with it, and people will post their opinions. If people have nothing else in common, they ALL have an opinion.
Some of the post loop people that have subscribed to my forum have spent nearly all of their time in off-topic, rather than trying to research the site topic (as the instructions clearly say to do), and making good on-topic posts.
SO - imo, Postloop is a good service, IF people will use it correctly.
Some of the post loop people that have subscribed to my forum have spent nearly all of their time in off-topic, rather than trying to research the site topic (as the instructions clearly say to do), and making good on-topic posts.
SO - imo, Postloop is a good service, IF people will use it correctly.
Ryan
Well-known member
Thanks for the feedback.
Edrondol - You only made 19 posts via Postloop and received 49 in return. The formula is set up in a clever way to benefit forum owners who are there to exchange posts. Having only made 19 posts, it's hard to argue that your forums ran out of points/stopped receiving posts too quickly. If you would like to keep your forum actively listed, you've got to actively supply it with points. You can't post 20 times and expect your forums to then receive posts until the end of time. The poster who you received the most posts from did indeed post and never return...but you ran low on points and eventually ran out - where is his incentive to come back? The only reason that people do in fact join your forums via Postloop is for the points. While in a perfect world, they would all join because they like your forums, the honest truth is that there must be something in it for them. You said it yourself - you no longer post in one of the forums that you subscribed to because it's inactive. The reason you're not posting there is because there is no longer any incentive to post there. The forum owner ran out of points.
The poster who you said had broken English...definitely not an exagerration. I've looked at his posts, and those are not the kind of posts that are acceptable at Postloop. That particular user joined before we introduced our "screening" process - he went idle for a while and came back recently. I've removed him from Postloop and returned the points you lost from his posts back to your account.
If quality is very important to you, then the minimum required rating to subscribe should reflect that. Yours is currently set to 3.5. The average user rating at Postloop is 4.06. This means that you are, in theory, opening your forums to below average posters. Raising the minimum required rating to subscribe will rule out a lot of posters from your forums. Your forums will receive posts slower than otherwise, but the posts will be of a better quality - in your case, I think that you'd like both.
Peggy - Postloop is not for all forums. If I had regional forums, I would honestly never list them at Postloop. When you're talking about regional forums, you're talking about a tiny percentage of the global population. Your target audience is about 0.007% of the global population (very quick and dirty math). Given that there are roughly 100-200 active users logging into Postloop daily, odds are against there even being 1 from your region. You're not likely to gain a member from Postloop who is actually in your region, and I wouldn't expect people to actually do research on your region before posting. It's just so much easier for them to join other Postloop forums where they don't have to do research and get the same credit for the posts that they make.
Postloop isn't a silver bullet. It works for some forums and doesn't work for others. It's also a lot of give and take. If you stop contributing to Postloop, you'll likely stop receiving from Postloop. You may get lucky and gain a member from Postloop who sticks around after your forums run out of points. It's happened quite a few times through Postloop (some people even gain staff members), but it's not common.
PS: I'm sure that a lot of people (OP and everybody else reading) would really appreciate if this discussion were taken elsewhere. I'm not entirely sure the XF forums is the right place for it, and I'd be more than happy to continue in the Postloop support forums.
Edrondol - You only made 19 posts via Postloop and received 49 in return. The formula is set up in a clever way to benefit forum owners who are there to exchange posts. Having only made 19 posts, it's hard to argue that your forums ran out of points/stopped receiving posts too quickly. If you would like to keep your forum actively listed, you've got to actively supply it with points. You can't post 20 times and expect your forums to then receive posts until the end of time. The poster who you received the most posts from did indeed post and never return...but you ran low on points and eventually ran out - where is his incentive to come back? The only reason that people do in fact join your forums via Postloop is for the points. While in a perfect world, they would all join because they like your forums, the honest truth is that there must be something in it for them. You said it yourself - you no longer post in one of the forums that you subscribed to because it's inactive. The reason you're not posting there is because there is no longer any incentive to post there. The forum owner ran out of points.
The poster who you said had broken English...definitely not an exagerration. I've looked at his posts, and those are not the kind of posts that are acceptable at Postloop. That particular user joined before we introduced our "screening" process - he went idle for a while and came back recently. I've removed him from Postloop and returned the points you lost from his posts back to your account.
If quality is very important to you, then the minimum required rating to subscribe should reflect that. Yours is currently set to 3.5. The average user rating at Postloop is 4.06. This means that you are, in theory, opening your forums to below average posters. Raising the minimum required rating to subscribe will rule out a lot of posters from your forums. Your forums will receive posts slower than otherwise, but the posts will be of a better quality - in your case, I think that you'd like both.
Peggy - Postloop is not for all forums. If I had regional forums, I would honestly never list them at Postloop. When you're talking about regional forums, you're talking about a tiny percentage of the global population. Your target audience is about 0.007% of the global population (very quick and dirty math). Given that there are roughly 100-200 active users logging into Postloop daily, odds are against there even being 1 from your region. You're not likely to gain a member from Postloop who is actually in your region, and I wouldn't expect people to actually do research on your region before posting. It's just so much easier for them to join other Postloop forums where they don't have to do research and get the same credit for the posts that they make.
Postloop isn't a silver bullet. It works for some forums and doesn't work for others. It's also a lot of give and take. If you stop contributing to Postloop, you'll likely stop receiving from Postloop. You may get lucky and gain a member from Postloop who sticks around after your forums run out of points. It's happened quite a few times through Postloop (some people even gain staff members), but it's not common.
PS: I'm sure that a lot of people (OP and everybody else reading) would really appreciate if this discussion were taken elsewhere. I'm not entirely sure the XF forums is the right place for it, and I'd be more than happy to continue in the Postloop support forums.
Edrondol
Well-known member
If they want me to move the discussion I certainly will, but I believe that this is germane to others here. I'll leave it up to the mods.
My main issue is I feel like I'd be spamming for no other reason than to get points. I have strong reservations against that. I get what you are saying and am not denigrating your service at all. I'm wondering if it's right for me and stated early on that I'd give my reflections on it. You are more than welcome to rebut and tell me why I'm not getting the full benefits of the service and I freely admit I may not be, but I also believe that it is so because I don't feel that I'd be contributing to the other boards for anything other than self gratification and the points. I'm still looking around and giving it a try.
My main issue is I feel like I'd be spamming for no other reason than to get points. I have strong reservations against that. I get what you are saying and am not denigrating your service at all. I'm wondering if it's right for me and stated early on that I'd give my reflections on it. You are more than welcome to rebut and tell me why I'm not getting the full benefits of the service and I freely admit I may not be, but I also believe that it is so because I don't feel that I'd be contributing to the other boards for anything other than self gratification and the points. I'm still looking around and giving it a try.
Rho Delta
Well-known member
Hey all, I'm the owner of Postloop. I appreciate the kind words that everybody has to offer. Very much appreciated
Brett - just curious if you don't me asking, which forum of yours did you submit to Postloop?
Quality did used to be a big problem at Postloop. I'll be the first to admit it. The past month or two, however, we have introduced quite a few features and processes that have turned that around significantly, and if all you know is post quality at Postloop from 1-2 months ago, I invite you to come take another look. We (Postloop) almost hand pick posters now. They have to go through our forums before they are approved for posting in any other forums. We do have to find a happy balance somewhere - we don't require everybody to be the next William Shakespeare. If we did that, we couldn't offer the low prices that we do offer. We still do sacrifice a little bit of quality in order to keep our prices down...but I honestly do think that the post quality that you find at Postloop will be significantly better than the quality you'll find in any paid posting service or post exchange, and Postloop is also significantly cheaper than any paid posting service I've ever seen. We also expect our forum owners to be proactive in encouraging and policing quality in their forums. There are a lot of tools and features at Postloop that you can use to garnish higher quality posts...and if you don't use those tools properly, you may not get what you're looking for.
If nobody ever mentions Postloop in your forums, how will anybody know? The Postloop forum listings are blocked from search engines to ensure that your forums never show up on Postloop when somebody searches for them on Google.
Just joined! Hope it works well! I would love to trade posts with anyone!
TheLaw
Well-known member
Unfortunately much of this defeats the purpose of your forum, doesn't it? The search for compelling content.
Not to knock any of these "paid posting" exchanges but if you want to attract visitors, don't expect any of these to invest any more interest in sharing content than you have. Nice looking site but you don't have much up in the way that any enthusiast would care to comment.
1) I don't care to introduce myself until I know I want to register to post something.
2) I need to be attracted to the site by some interesting content, more than "This is gonna be epic!" Right now it's some stuff thrown on the wall. There isn't much there.
My suggestions:
1) If you don't care to make a real effort to write, why should anyone else? Write a few short articles/first posts of at least 150-200 words that might give someone the desire to express their opinion. E.g., I think 2006 Camaros suck because they aren't made by Apple.
2) Solve the problem ^^^^^ .Don't bother joining exchanges or hiring someone to slop 20 responses on the site as if it's active. So what's the value of you providing 10 posts on Barbie dolls and 5 more on cute purses in exchange for 12 posts on Camaros by someone who doesn't even own a car?
Not to knock any of these "paid posting" exchanges but if you want to attract visitors, don't expect any of these to invest any more interest in sharing content than you have. Nice looking site but you don't have much up in the way that any enthusiast would care to comment.
1) I don't care to introduce myself until I know I want to register to post something.
2) I need to be attracted to the site by some interesting content, more than "This is gonna be epic!" Right now it's some stuff thrown on the wall. There isn't much there.
My suggestions:
1) If you don't care to make a real effort to write, why should anyone else? Write a few short articles/first posts of at least 150-200 words that might give someone the desire to express their opinion. E.g., I think 2006 Camaros suck because they aren't made by Apple.
2) Solve the problem ^^^^^ .Don't bother joining exchanges or hiring someone to slop 20 responses on the site as if it's active. So what's the value of you providing 10 posts on Barbie dolls and 5 more on cute purses in exchange for 12 posts on Camaros by someone who doesn't even own a car?
Ryan
Well-known member
TheLaw, what are you basing this off of? Being that you haven't used Postloop yourself, you don't know what kind of posts are contributed. That's like looking at food you've never had before and saying you don't like it. You don't know that until you try it.
I guarantee that the post quality you see at Postloop will exceed your personal experience with post exchanges or paid posting services. Please do not assume that because you've seen post exchanges in the past, that Postloop is the exact same thing. It may still not meet the quality expectations that you have, but it is much better than you are making it out to be.
Does Postloop represent genuine content and genuine members? Absolutely not, and nowhere do we claim that it does. It is only to be used as a supplement and a way to spark activity elsewhere in your forums. Postloop is not for everybody, but those who do use it need to understand how to use it...and if they rely on it to solely drive their forums, they will not benefit.
I guarantee that the post quality you see at Postloop will exceed your personal experience with post exchanges or paid posting services. Please do not assume that because you've seen post exchanges in the past, that Postloop is the exact same thing. It may still not meet the quality expectations that you have, but it is much better than you are making it out to be.
Does Postloop represent genuine content and genuine members? Absolutely not, and nowhere do we claim that it does. It is only to be used as a supplement and a way to spark activity elsewhere in your forums. Postloop is not for everybody, but those who do use it need to understand how to use it...and if they rely on it to solely drive their forums, they will not benefit.
a legacy reborn
Well-known member
PostLoop brings in some high-quality comments for my blog(hope it's ok to share it, http://www.alegacyreborn.com/general/how-forums-will-hold-up-in-the-future at the end you can see a pretty nice comment, I have some people who show up repeatedly but some decide not to, which is totally fine.)In total I now have like 86 comments, the only downside of postloop is that my blog has been attractive spammer attention, I had a couple thousand blocked by CloudFlare but 385 spam comments did make it through, although I have to say I don't mind the attention 
.
.
TheLaw
Well-known member
My only point was that he hasn't made the effort to make his menu appetizing enough to attract regular passersby who glance at the menu to come in to eat. That's a prerequisite for anyone opening up a restaurant. That's all I said. Now of you're insisting to all of us that you'll provide people willing to patronize that very bland menu, I'll question whether those patrons have a clue as to how food is supposed to taste.
That's a pretty low bar to set but, again, that's not my point. It's only that he can't expect anyone to cure his problem of not having any compelling content good enough to attract any reasonable person to make a comment. GIGO. In order to get any type of good UGC, you need to at least plant the seeds to make it grow.
Ryan... where did I ever criticize the service? Read my post again... slowly. Your being defensive about post quality is all your own doing.
CTXMedia
Well-known member
It seems people experience Postloop differently.
My personal experience was that I made quality, on-topic, experience driven posts at other people's forums, and in return mainly received short, uninformed, broken-English posts to my own site. I purchased credits that were very quickly burned up on poor quality posts, and then when I did down-rate the posters who I felt were poor quality, I got slated via PM with personal abuse for not giving them 5 stars (exactly the thing you're NOT supposed to do as a forum owner - you are encourage to be honest and fair in your ratings. This obviously isn't happening with all owners as some of the poorer posters had reasonably high ratings!!).
Honestly - I think Postloop is seen as a potential cash-cow by a lot of non-English people who are registering to post whatever they think will get them enough credits to bail out with some cash.
This is no reflection on the team running Postloop - I understand they put in a lot of hard work trying to vet everyone and trying to find a fair and resonable balancing point, but I think the temptaion of earning some cash is too great for some of the get-rich-quick mob to resist (and if you search around for "postloop" you'll see it being promoted in this way all over certain web sites).
I suspect if you changed the model a little, you could potentially remove the chaff overnight.
Instead of having people clambering to earn cash for posting - simply remove this element of the equation. Offer owners the ability to earn posts on a like-for-like trading basis. Post on another owner's forum, you earn one back for you.
If a forum owner wants "extra" posts, allow them to buy them, but instead of giving the cash to the Postloop marketplace, take the cash yourselves and make the posts yourselves - so instead of every Tom, **** or Harry earning points/cash, only the Postloop staff/team would earn the cash.
If there are too many requests for paid posts for your in-house Postloop team to manage, you can recruit other board owners to earn cash for extra posts!! (who's quality of posting will be almost guaranteed)
I think this would address the quality control issue and potentially earn you more for the work you put into Postloop.
Just my humble opinion of course ...
Cheers,
Shaun
My personal experience was that I made quality, on-topic, experience driven posts at other people's forums, and in return mainly received short, uninformed, broken-English posts to my own site. I purchased credits that were very quickly burned up on poor quality posts, and then when I did down-rate the posters who I felt were poor quality, I got slated via PM with personal abuse for not giving them 5 stars (exactly the thing you're NOT supposed to do as a forum owner - you are encourage to be honest and fair in your ratings. This obviously isn't happening with all owners as some of the poorer posters had reasonably high ratings!!).
Honestly - I think Postloop is seen as a potential cash-cow by a lot of non-English people who are registering to post whatever they think will get them enough credits to bail out with some cash.
This is no reflection on the team running Postloop - I understand they put in a lot of hard work trying to vet everyone and trying to find a fair and resonable balancing point, but I think the temptaion of earning some cash is too great for some of the get-rich-quick mob to resist (and if you search around for "postloop" you'll see it being promoted in this way all over certain web sites).
I suspect if you changed the model a little, you could potentially remove the chaff overnight.
Instead of having people clambering to earn cash for posting - simply remove this element of the equation. Offer owners the ability to earn posts on a like-for-like trading basis. Post on another owner's forum, you earn one back for you.
If a forum owner wants "extra" posts, allow them to buy them, but instead of giving the cash to the Postloop marketplace, take the cash yourselves and make the posts yourselves - so instead of every Tom, **** or Harry earning points/cash, only the Postloop staff/team would earn the cash.
If there are too many requests for paid posts for your in-house Postloop team to manage, you can recruit other board owners to earn cash for extra posts!! (who's quality of posting will be almost guaranteed)
I think this would address the quality control issue and potentially earn you more for the work you put into Postloop.
Just my humble opinion of course ...
Cheers,
Shaun
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