AaronM

It runs a bit deeper than that.

People complain that GFY is not what it used to be. They bitch about the trolls and surfers turning the place to shit. Recently Eric has been working to clean up the image of GFY and make it a better place for business. I've talked with both Eric and EB about this issue today and as far as I am concerned, this is a VERY easy BUSINESS decision.

Option A: Ban somebody who has trolled GFY for years and who rarely, if ever, posts any business related threads. This option lets you keep a long time GFY sponsor and get rid of somebody who contributes nothing but hate and drama.

Option B: Allow the trolling to continue. This option will cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue as well as losing a long time member who posts actual business threads and contributes to the overall growth, well being, and true purpose of GFY.

Here we have a company who has dumped 6 figures into GFY ad spots, multiple skins, etc... Those paid spots generate the revenue that lets GFY pay for things like hosting and all the free shit they have given away to webmasters, not to mention commission dollars. I don't care what business you are in, when you loose a major client/sponsor/whatever, YOU LOSE MONEY.

If I buy ad spots from a newspaper and that paper allows an editorial to go to print that bashed my business, me personally, or just harasses me in general....I'm not going to continue to do business with that newspaper. If you think that is weak of me then you have zero business sense yourself.

Back in the day, nobody could compete with GFY. These days there are other options. If an advertiser feels that they no longer want to support a forum that allows people to continuously troll their legitimate threads then they can and will take their advertising dollars elsewhere.

If you have a LEGIT complaint about somebody that's one thing...Post about it all you want as long as you can back up your complaint. This happened to EB about a week ago when somebody made a thread about poor conversions. Did EB pull ads then? Nope.

Standard GFY ad rates are 2.5k per month for top banners and 25k per week for skins. Using those numbers, that means that EB has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 30k on GFY so far this year. Keep in mind that EB has been advertising here for many years and has skinned GFY multiple times. Why should anybody continue to pay out thousands of dollars to support a forum that allows their paid advertisers to unjustifiably treated like shit?

I like and respect both Eric and EB. I hate to see EB leave GFY but the real tragedy here is that while Eric has been working hard to make GFY a better place for business, GFY has just lost EB's direct business and a member who brings indirect business to the board.

Posting my opinions in this thread could very easily cost me business. Although I hope it does not, I feel the need to stand up for what I believe in. That being said...It is my humble opinion that GFY would be MUCH better off by adapting the rules to cut out the trolls.

I feel sorry for those who say things like: "This is what made GFY what it is today" Truth be told...GFY is complete shit today because these things have been allowed to run rampant for FAR too long. Traffic is down, obviously that means posts and page views are down as well. ADAPT OR DIE.

I'd rather not see GFY die.