Holy shit - the last few days have been a fucking nightmare!
Let's start with the program that gave me a verbal commitment to advertising on here when I saw them in Miami. Jim & I said that was great, we'd get them the info & whatnot & they asked if they could do a little pre-ad promotion on the board, so we allow them to post threads about the program here in the main forum, assuming that they'd be starting to advertise on Sept 1st (remember, it was in Miami in Aug, so that was the next ad cycle)
Sept 1st - nothing. More posts that we let slide. Oct 1st - nothing. More posts that we let slide. So Nov is approaching & we really want to get the ball rolling. So we call our contact who tells us to call their boss & guess what? The boss has no fucking clue who we are & no idea what we're talking about. Just fucking great.
So in the main time, the person that said they were going to take out ads gets into a few little pissing matches with moderators, which happens from time to time, but instead of asking Jim or me to take care of it, the take it to the boards. One mod is no longer around, partly because of this. The other mod doesn't post as much, again, partly because of this.
Now they're not taking any ads, because the rates we quoted them for the package that they wanted were too high. Mind you, they have been "advertising" their program on the board for months & that they got the same package price that everyone on the board is offered.
Money clouded my eyes & I probably lost a lot of trust in 2 people that I considered close friends. <to self> Way to go, asshole!
***
We also have an advertiser that pulled their ads July 1st that thinks they deserve to get the same treatment now as they did back then. I didn't want any of this to come out in public, and even got on ICQ with the owner so that it wouldn't. But one of their employees felt the need to tell Jim & me how to run our fucking board. This board is not a fucking hobby! I'm not gonna lie - I can live without the money this board makes, but Jim would be on hard times if this board wasn't around. I do truly wish that this board was ad free - no banners, no referral links, no sig files, etc - but it's not. A board like that does not exist. Jim & I have to do our best to take care of our paying advertisers & for an old advertiser - and someone that I consider a friend - to call me out on my own fucking board is horse shit!
You know what? A "friend" wouldn't assume that they could post in a paid ad spot. A "friend" wouldn't let his employees shit on me on my board. So much for that "friendship" I guess.
The term "professional courtesy" was also thrown around a lot during my ICQ conversation. I don't see a link to here on there site, but I do see links to 4 or 5 other boards/resources.
I'm not even going to touch on the shit that I let them know about that they fucked up behind the scenes - that I did not go to the board with as a "professional courtesy"
***
Then I get an ICQ from another friend that wants me to break my submit rules on LOR so they can have their workers submit multiple sites to me in the same 24 hour period - 100 of them! And it's not like they are personal sites, they're for the program this person works for. Sure, I let all my friends spam up my link list with sites for the program they are working for with no revenue to me.
I tell them that if they're making free sites, why not make Hosted Free Sites for all affiliates - this way, they avoid the submitting process & the sites are eventually all listed (I'd be fucking nuts to throw an extra 100 links onto my site in one day) Hell - they already have Hosted Galleries - you'd think this would be the next logical step, right? The reply to this (from my friend's boss) was that the only credit I'd get would be the recip link, but that they can give me content to make my own sites to promote their program.
***
And I haven't even touched on the amount of people that post, but can not read. Go to the thread that I started asking for webmaster referral programs & count the number
posts (there are 9 as of this post) - I can't believe this many people are so greedy to make a few bucks off referring me that they can't take 5 fucking minutes to read my 1st post!
I have to make rules for these type of threads because if I didn't, there'd be people signing up to the board just to spam their program - that's not what I'm looking for! I want to help those that help me & help this board. That's why I have all these silly fucking rules in the thread & why I had to put in big bold letters how many posts you needed to have before you could promote yourself.
***
...and to top it off, in the middle of typing up this little fucking novel, I get a call from someone we banned from the board because they were spamming a lot. He's confused as to why he can't log into the board - and he wants advertising rates!
***
I'm going fucking nuts & I'm taking some time off - fuck this board - fuck the people I posted about above - and most importantly fuck me for thinking I could put out a board that people can do business on without being spammed to fucking hell with idiotic ignorant posters.
Be With You