PostLoop Review

[IlPerazzi]

There is a paid posting service known as PostLoop that has been around for a while now. Having been involved with forums (on both sides of the equation) on said site, but no longer do so, I thought I would write a review for the webmasters.

The question is does it work. By work I mean using PostLoop temporary to acquire content and activity on a new forum and then tapering off of said when ready. After seeing, literally, several hundreds of forums use this service, over a four and a half year period, the answer is unequivocal and resounding NO. Some forum owners have spent many thousands of dollars in paid content, only to have their forums just as dead as soon as they delist from PL.

The reason why is quite clear: the heart and soul of any forum is the content it contains, and more importantly, the personalities behind said content. With the exception of some solid writers (most of whom are long gone) PostLoop serves up the kind of people you don't want on a forum:

• Writers with little or no knowledge of your forum subject matter, who often post stupid or obvious content. Most won't read any introductory material or the forum rules.
• Young people with no life experience and limited education.
  
• The unemployable, burn-outs, and washed up hacks that are trying to earn less than a dollar an hour on that site.
  
• Individuals with very limited English ability. Some are also outright hostile to western nations and will voice that sentiment.
  
• Conspiracy kooks, political cranks, and other mentally strange people. (One of the most active members there is a trailer-dwelling conspiracy theorist, for example.)
• Outright toxic individuals who troll forums for fun and profit.
  
• And the inevitable genius that publicly mentions they are posting for money.
• ... and so much more.

Even the better posters rarely complete their profiles, will post in an unnatural fashion, and don't genuinely care about the community. In fairness, there is the occasional high quality writer, but they are few and are between, and they burn out fast. The simple economics is that someone willing to only earn 5-8¢ per post isn't going to write the finest material.

Once your cash is dried up, all of your PostLoop "members" are long gone. The forum owner is left with a bunch of useless blather, less funds, and the sad realization that he/she utilized paid posting on their forum. In summary, care about your nascent Internet community and avoid this so-called "service".

P.S. There is a competitor to PostLoop called The Forum Wheel. Everything written here also applies to them, except they have significantly less forums and the content actually manages to be worse.

 

[m1ne]

Try fiverr, my fiance offers posting services there and gets outstanding reviews.

 

[Lisa]

I used fiverr once. . never again. The adage "you get what you pay for" is very true for that site. I got something that wasn't designed by them but was available for free off the internet via a quick google search, something that didn't even come close to what I'd described as wanting, and even though I was refunded, you can't get the money out of the account on there.

 

[M@rc]

The only two reasons I could see it working out are :

1. If your forum has something to attract the posters to stay after they're done.
2. If they are used to get your already-existing members engaged in more discussions at the forum.

I've never used PostLoop before so I can't really comment on the quality of the content the posters write up though.

Once your cash is dried up, all of your PostLoop "members" are long gone. The forum owner is left with a bunch of useless blather, less funds, and the sad realization that he/she utilized paid posting on their forum. In summary, care about your nascet Internet community and avoid this so-called "service".

I wouldn't really expect them to magically stay after they've completed the only reason they came to your forum in the first place.

 

[tobbe]

I've wanted to try postloop but have not done so yet.
One of the ideas I got however when checking their plugin was to tag the users on my forum.
Ircc they send you a request with the users email they wanna get more stats about every once in a while.
When they do this we could also tag them on our end. If they request stats about someone@somewhere.com we could put that user into a separate postloop user group, and add additional requirements.
For example; Before they can post they'd be required to: set an avatar, fill their profile, read some stickys.
Then set a minimum word count requirement for their posts in order for it to count into their total posts, which later is sent to postloop, less (counted) posts = less money.
Or the other way: If the post gets liked by a staff, it counts as 2 posts, rewarding quality content posters.

 

[IlPerazzi]

I've wanted to try postloop but have not done so yet.

To be perfectly candid, you're better off placing your money in a toilet bowl and pressing the handle. The same amount of money will be lost, but your time won't be wasted, and a lot of headaches will be avoided.

 

[rollthebones]

Sad. I used Postloop in 2010 when posting was only good for earning posts on your own forum. Every member, save for a few that were quickly banned, was very high quality. At some point they started cashing out points and the dynamic quickly changed.

 

[IlPerazzi]

Just an update to this review: Postloop is closing down. It will be officially gone November 1st.

 

[ValH]

• Writers with little or no knowledge of your forum subject matter, who often post stupid or obvious content. Most won't read any introductory material or the forum rules.
• Young people with no life experience and limited education.
  
• The unemployable, burn-outs, and washed up hacks that are trying to earn less than a dollar an hour on that site.
  
• Individuals with very limited English ability. Some are also outright hostile to western nations and will voice that sentiment.
  
• Conspiracy kooks, political cranks, and other mentally strange people. (One of the most active members there is a trailer-dwelling conspiracy theorist, for example.)
• Outright toxic individuals who troll forums for fun and profit.
  
• And the inevitable genius that publicly mentions they are posting for money.
• ... and so much more.

You certainly do get what you pay for. I own and operate Paid Forum Posting, and we are still going strong after 10 years because we pay more and have higher standards. (We also offer a range of content services, but forum posting is a large part of what we do.)

 

[SneakyDave]

I've used Paid Forum Hosting, and honestly, I didn't see any difference in the quality of posters between it and PostLoop

 

[m1ne]

Just hire my wife. The reviews and pricing say it all.

 

[wp_arun]

Just an update to this review: Postloop is closing down. It will be officially gone November 1st.

Sad to see them shutting down, have used in the past with out any issues. We used to have forum posting contest & have had great success with it. But you need to populate your forum with decent content to have successful posting contest & a nice reward.

 

[Crucible]

Just hire my wife. The reviews and pricing say it all.

Just hired your wife, lets see how this goes.

 

[DPF]

Sad to see them shutting down, have used in the past with out any issues. We used to have forum posting contest & have had great success with it. But you need to populate your forum with decent content to have successful posting contest & a nice reward.

Im suprised they lasted as long as they did.

 

[IlPerazzi]

Unbelievably, Postloop is back. It is essentially the same system as before. They merged the portal and support forums, which makes some sense. And there are more bugs than before, but nothing crippling. It is still a waste for the forum owner.

A good example of a content writer spilling the beans on a PL site (MySurvivalForum.com, in this case) appears below. Said genius, evidently, private messaged a moderator (not the owner) and the confused mod posted it in public for all to see.

Would you want that on your forum?

 

[Brent W]

Waste of money

 

[IlPerazzi]

Waste of money

Agreed, completely.

 

[drastic]

I spent a few hundred there and it was a waste. Their users are too generic in their responses and no intelligent conversation happens as a result of their replies. It probably turns people off as the conversations are typically dull and pointless.

If you give a PostLoop "writer" a rating of 3, because they post generic one line reply with spelling errors, they have the nerve to cuss you out because you didn't give them a 5.

I don't want the third testament in the Bible as a reply, but could they at least sound coherent or like they know what the subject matter is about?

You can always tell when a person uses PL because they have the same 10 people posting as everyone else.

People have sparked more thoughts sitting on a public toilet while reading vandalism.

It's a good service to provide, but it needs a big improvement to make it worth using.

 

[IlPerazzi]

I spent a few hundred there and it was a waste. Their users are too generic in their responses and no intelligent conversation happens as a result of their replies. It probably turns people off as the conversations are typically dull and pointless.

Agreed and I believe this is the main reason the "service" failed and, brought back, continues to fail. Forums are a highly competitive market now. If a prospective member sees a bunch of generic, even idiotic, content, is he/she going to sign up or mash the back button? I'd wager the latter.

If you give a PostLoop "writer" a rating of 3, because they post generic one line reply with spelling errors, they have the nerve to cuss you out because you didn't give them a 5.

True. This is a perennial source of whining and, in a few cases, deliberate trolling. There is an active thread right now on their support from someone positively melting down over a rating of four (4), for example. Some of the most vitriolic, deranged, trolls I've seen were those that felt slighted by a relatively high rating.

I don't want the third testament in the Bible as a reply, but could they at least sound coherent or like they know what the subject matter is about?

Exactly. Most of them have little to no knowledge, or even passing interest, in the niche. The content produced reflects that reality.

You can always tell when a person uses PL because they have the same 10 people posting as everyone else.

Indeed. Most, though not all, of the Postloop members use the same name/avatar. Anyone even vaguely familiar with PL knows right off the bat that fake members are on board. Granted, many potential posters probably won't notice, but still.

People have sparked more thoughts sitting on a public toilet while reading vandalism.

LOL! True.

It's a good service to provide, but it needs a big improvement to make it worth using.

Agreed. The current business model simply doesn't work. And, at least as of now, the new ownership appears to be even more unresponsive than the old.

 

[XnForFanKN]

We have Xenforo 1.5.15. We have Postloop Integration 1.0.2 installed on there. However, the site won't verify on postloop.com. It says "Unable to validate postloop.php". I already reinstalled the plugin, and that didn't help. I also checked the file permissions, and they are the same as on other sites where the plugin works correctly. I tried going to domain.com/postloop?action=ping to see if that was working, and it appeared to be working. I then tried going to

domain.com/library/Postloop/ControllerPublic/Postloop.php

and

domain.com/library/Postloop/Route/Prefix/Postloop.php

to see what would happen. On the site where the plugin doesn't work, I got a 500 error at both of those addresses. When I looked in the logs, it said:

PHP Fatal error: Class 'XenForo_ControllerPublic_Abstract' not found in /domain.com/public_html/library/Postloop/ControllerPublic/Postloop.php on line 4

PHP Fatal error: Interface 'XenForo_Route_Interface' not found in /domain.com/public_html/library/Postloop/Route/Prefix/Postloop.php on line 4

What might cause this error, and does it sound like that is the cause of Postloop being unable to validate postloop.php? Thank you!

Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this. I tried posting in the Postloop Intergration thread, but the thread was closed.