I just have a quick word on bumping. Bumping is responding to a post for the primary reason of bringing it back to the top. It is unfair because when a conversation slows down, it should die a natural death and leave room at the top for threads that are actually active.

Bumping used to be more obvious--an inane phrase or a few extra pics that could have been put in the original topic. But sometime in 2016 the bump started to morph. Either purposely or perhaps unwittingly, some people predictably bump all their friends' threads with followup responses and praise. Internally we call it the "yay bump." It's hard to police because conversation is vital to this forum, and producers interacting is what makes it all magic. We need that fun, but where do you draw the line?

Can I ask everyone to please remember that your response will always displace other people's threads. Reply as much as you need to, but use your best judgement and try not to turn each thread by you or your friends into a personal chatroom.

Nahmean?
Messmaster

"Could you define inappropriate 'bumping' for the court please?"
"No. But I know it when I see it."

Lots of us do it. I think it's acceptable as long as something is offered in exchange. It's a friendly forum - but it's undeniably a competitive one, too. We don't put all this effort into our work to see it sink without trace. Posts often do sink - not because they're crap and uninteresting - but frequently because they simply haven't been noticed.

I strategically hold images back with the deliberate intention of posting them later to bump our post. I believe it's mitigated by salience or entertainment.

A dead horse is a dead horse, though.

m.m. you dont want me to get started on this thread...lol XD i wil say this...i have had more ppl come to me talkign about how boring the umd is now, how the threads are boring, how there is no back and forth anymore and if it is, its all dudes....


ill just leave that there.

if anyone wants me to go into detail about why....i will but i will say that m.m. has sincerely been trying to make this problem RIGHT by keeping ppl happy, seeing things he feels like are bumping and toning them down, and listening to ppls opinions. im glad that he is making this an open thread. ONE INSTANCE I WILL TALK ABOUT: WHY THE FUCK DO I GET FLAGGED FOR COMMENTING ON PATTYCAKES THREAD?? ABOUT HOW AWESOME HER VIDEO IS?? MY COMPETITION?? WHYEEEEEE??? LOL!!! SERIOUSLY, YALL!! lay off the fucking flag button!! i have NEVER HIT THE FLAG BUTTON ONE TIME IN MY OVER 7 YEARS HERE!! NEVER ONCE.

I have been receiving little or no comments on my Emi posts. I know it's not everybody's cup of mud, but if a week goes by and I post again, is that still considered bumping? I don't do it often, but I'm pretty sure I've done it from time to time. I would never post a second time after a short period though, usually it is many days before I would re-post in the same thread.
I hope this is ok.

The only truly effective and fair way to nix this problem is to do what Nigel does on his Wetlook forum....i.e. since 1996 up to 2018 The Wetlook (Minx) forum has never had a system that bumps messages based on the last message posted. His forum only lists messages by the ORIGINAL posted date,,,,and replies to that message do NOT cause the message to bump. This effectively means that messages only lasts for up to 5 days, before they disappears off the main page of the forum.....so that is a crude system that treats everybody the same.....i.e. your message has a 5 day life cycle....and then it is gone from view.

On Nigel's forum you cannot bump any post, no matter if you reply to it or even if you try to engage in underhanded tricks such as using sock puppet accounts to post a reply....because the message will not bump and will only display as per the original posting date. A "bump" on Nigel's forum could only be achieved by posting a completely new message, referencing an older prior message....but that would be frowned upon as an abuse as well.

Bumping is not a problem on Nigel's forum.....the worst problem we have over there is producers and users who post SEVERAL promotions or postings on the SAME DAY.....when they could easily just post ONE message that contains all the same info....we have some producers who promote 5-6 different site updates on the same day as 5-6 separate messages....pushing other people's postings down the page unfairly. I like the UMD rule you have for producers that says you should not make more than 1 promotion per day.....pity we do not have a rule like that on Nigel's wetlook forum as well.

It would be a simple programming change to nix the bumping so that all messages only get displayed by their original post date....and then that would not only make the forum a more interesting read, but encourage more visitors to visit more often...because they will soon learn that unless they read a new message within 5 days, it will disappear off the main page.

We live in a 24hr news cycle in today's media world.....nobody tunes in to CNN cable channel to hear about 5 day old news.....you would not want to buy a 5 day old loaf of bread from a bakery.....so 5 days is plenty of time for a message to live, and then just let it die.....so list all the forum messages by their original posting date only and do not bump any messages,

MK

Conversations are a good thing. Without discourse the forum is just a bulletin board for producers. What about a board specifically for conversation?

Anybody can reply to any thread whenever they happen to have something meaningful to add. Happy comments are the lifeblood and entire purpose of this forum. I don't want to intimidate people from having good conversation or giving simple praise, even if they find themselves replying late. There's a reason why threads don't time out until 3 months (2 weeks without activity).

It's just that some people are so aggressive with back and forth replies to certain others that it can seem like they're doing it more to increase their own visibility rather than out of a genuine need to respond. I'm not singling anyone out, because everybody talks differently and I feel that we just need to get on the same page. Therefore any issues will be handled privately.

Users can already sort the forum that way by clicking the "Born" heading. But our default has always been "Last Post."

This board is for conversation. Even if we made a forum specifically/only for that, the rules about bumping would also apply there. Please don't misread this thread as a complaint about conversation! We need more of it. There are only a handful of folks who seem like they're being conspicuously chatty as a tool to promote their threads over others.

Please do not do this. Adding extra pictures later is great if you're following up from a shoot you announced, or maybe you just found some later that you wanted to add. But it's not a loophole to let you strategically bump if you had them all to begin with. I personally appreciate you adding the content to UMD whenever you add it! But there are a lot of people with a lot of content who would love to split their plugs like that as an excuse to bump. You can imagine the shit show and complaints if I let them all do it.

The thing about the flag button is that it is cumulative. All flags are recorded, and a lot of times I do nothing, but when a history of patterns builds up over months or even years, I can be better-informed about a person's m.o. In other words, it's not always just about that exact message you were flagged on.

By the way, you're not a snitch if you hit the flag button because you are giving me data and helping me to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on!

The problem is we have a very uneven playing field. Anyone who is female or posts with an ambiguous or female-sounding name will always get tons of followups and feedback - this is natural, lots of guys hoping to attract the attention of a female wammer. A producer with a neutral or male identity gets far less response even if they post almost identical female content. TBH if I could go back in time and advise myself on setting up as a producer, the first piece of advice would be "Give the business a singular female name, because lots of new members will think it's a girl posting even when it's actually a guy and you'll get way more followups." If I'd made it something like "Messy Lady Jasmine" instead of "Saturation Hall" I think I'd have had way more post bumps from fans, and way more sales over the years.

I noticed a couple of years back that posts generated by the UMD's promotion tool no longer allow the thumbnails to be enlarged straight off the post, you have to click through to the actual sales page. ISTR this was done about the time you (MM) brought up the issue of people just downloading all the previews, and it makes sense - if people want the big pics make them at least go to the sales page with an "Add To Cart" button visible. Since then the way I've tended to promote has been to first post the scene with just one attached image (which becomes the thread avatar image), and then, some days later, to post the rest of the promo photos as enlargeable ones, as a freebie gift for the forum but after the scene has had a chance to sell a few copies from the initial launch.

I do feel it's important to put the full set out, because the way the UMD crops everything to landscape mode the most important parts of many of my promo shots (the girls' legs and lower bodies) are cropped out of the thumbnails, plus as I've always believed, it's the freebies that keep visitors coming to the site, so it's kind of important that all producers should contribute to that. But I also want to work with the way the promotional tools are designed.

On top of which there's the issue of the official way to keep things visible - the UMD paid-for ads - not being shown to the VIPs who are the ones most likely to pay for WAM content. It might only be a few hundred out of thousands but they are the main market and the system is stopping us from advertising to them. I don't accept it's like cable TV - on TV, even if you're watching a show about cars, the ads will be for funeral plans, insurance, sun cream, and lots of random stuff. Here on the UMD all the ads are for the kind of content and products that the site is about - would anyone really object to seeing those images?

Given the absolute floods of positive responses that the big producers' posts, and the solo-female-models' posts, always get, it seems reasonable to allow smaller producers to self-bump their own threads once or twice, say no less than a week apart (and only if no-one else has responded to the thread), just to even out the competition effects?

Sorry just had to say liked the nahmean refefence! I have been teaching exchange students from japan hip hop slang and went over differences from the east coast nahmean nahimsayin and west coast Bay Area yadidamean yadidasayin.
But sorry if this is a bump!

I want to be extremely clear on this: I am not talking about real fan responses and threads that naturally get a lot of buzz. They're awesome. Models and producers can and should respond to their fans when they're given praise, even if the thread has gotten a bit long in the tooth or if they happen to be a bit late. It also does not matter if some people get more feedback than others.
That's just natural and that's not the playing field I'm trying to level.

It's not hard to differentiate true enthusiasm from the deliberate obligatory followups that over time seem to come from the same handful of people.


I didn't do that to prevent larger image view. I did it mainly because the copy-n-paste code can end up somewhere other than the forum, and outside of UMD's javascript framework that allows the images to show up in a little window. So they wouldn't work off-site anyway.


I still don't feel right showing all those ads to people who are paying for upgraded service, even if they are on-topic. I could build an option to for a VIP member to keep ads visible, but nobody is exactly clamoring for that. They signed up with the promise of reduced ads and that's what they get. There are tons of other places to get word out about your product on UMD, but I'm always trying to give VIP users a special experience.


The problem with granular rules like that is that nobody understands them and they are imposing. And they are impossible to moderate, at least without being a rules-spouting douche. How do we define who is small or big, and how would they know which category they're in. How would I explain to the next producer that this other guy is "small" enough to allow bumps? My inbox would go nuts. A reply is always fine if you really have something to say. I just ask that everybody use their judgement and not turn their friend's plug into a chat every single time for no reason.

Messmaster

I honestly have no idea whether Messmaster is including my useless shitposts in this so I'm just going to assume .... nope!

if i go on a rant on how i feel about this...its gonna be long and fucking hostile. not towards you, m.m. but towards this WHOLE THING IN GENERAL. so, im just gonna sit back.....keep on NOT commenting to ppl i want to bc im scared shitless of getting flagged OVER AND OVER AND OVER and getting messages about how i need to tone it down.....A FETISH MODEL AND WAM ENTHUSIAST GETTING ON THE FORUMS TO TALK TO GUYS AND GIRLS ON HERE?! OMG!!! YOU WOULD THINK PPL WOULD ENJOY THAT! this is the place i can talk about what i love to do and now, im fucking scared to say thank you too soon on a forum post. check the first page. how many posts do i have up? okay. im gonna stop.......

*reads thread about bumps*
*gets wrong mental image*

[LOL loved the image, but had to remove that drug reference due to... Epoch -MM]

That already is an option. Click on the "born" header on the forum and messages are sorted by original post date. We have the option to sort messages by original post date or by last post date. I don't see why we need to take an option away (and, I, personally, prefer to sort by last post). Maybe changing the default would be something to consider however.

Edit: After posting this, I see that MM has already pointed this out. Again, changing the default may be an option to consider, but the ability to sort either way certainly should not be taken away.

I think this is the heart of the entire thing. The VAST majority of the Wetlook and Messy Forums ARE in fact threads started by producers to post and advertise their work. Plain and simple.

SO what happens here is that for instance if one particular thread garners a lot of back and forth conversation between parties, EVEN IF IT'S ON POINT, it will keep that thread at the TOP, even if it's a week or more old. See "necroposting", every now and then you'll see a thread a year or more older pushed to the top because someone commented on this.

Very rarely do you see a "messy" thread about a question etc. but they do happen, for instance the recent one about getting stuff in your bits, and Candy's winning post about "chocolate in your chuff".

A decision needs to be made with regards to the purpose of the Wetlook and Messy Forums, if they are to be for the purposes of advertisement, then we need separate forums for discussions etc. We have a whole "Groups" section that is essentially a graveyard much like the "Personals"

If people are going to comment on advertised threads, and we are concerned about "bumping" because some producers have more friendly banter and conversations than others, we need a system where those threads do not "bump" when someone posts something to them.

Maybe that means making a separate group for "discussions" where people can just yak and it doesn't make any difference on someone's $$$ vs. visibility outlook.

Otherwise, there will continue to be these kinds of gripes between producers that post more often and those that don't etc.

What MM is mainly taking about is when 2 people who work together do something like:

Monday
Charlotte: Check out our latest update

2 days later
Lisa: That was amazing, you look hot

Another 2 days later
Charlotte: thanks, yeah we had this amazing outfit

Yet another week later:
Lisa: honestly that shoot was so much fun, can't believe you did that.

That bugs me as well, sorry, really I am.
Sensible replies and conversation with customers are not the issue and fair play if interacting with customers boosts your posts, I don't think anyone has an issue with that?

We all have posts that drop off the bottom of the forum with no replies, we get loads, it can be very disheartening, but we don't all do that sort of bumping, it would be a mess in here if we did.

The fake accounts incident recently has made a lot of people very weary of tactical posting etc.

MM has a tough job which is why he has rules to keep it fair for all.

From the sounds of it some people may have been a little too heavy on the flag button though.

Yep. I *knew* those two were sketchy!!!

They will be punished with pies and custard.

Um, I'm not sure if that will have the desired effect?

Seriously, I see what you mean though.

Respectfully, I avoid purchasing from producers who I think over-promote their material. I understand a certain amount is necessary, but when it comes to tactics I view as direct marketing attempts, particularly when no one else is engaged, you've gone too far. My general guideline is you get one thread per shoot/video, then one post to respond to each comment made on that thread.

I'd assume the experience that matters most is the discount on the download stores. But I'm genuinely curious, other than ads (which VIPs don't see) and forum posts (which if get no follow-ups vanish in days), what other methods to get the word out here are there?

On the occasions I've been a VIP from heart-clicks, I've felt the forum experience was diminished, not enhanced, by the lack of messy pics down the side. Visually it makes things a lot duller.

Ok, one other avenue is "What's New" on the front page, but that's incredibly transitory plus whenever I was VIP I found it horrendously frustrating as you get a "Preview of tomorrow's scenes" but can't click on anything as they all lead to "this scene is not available yet". And on a day when "tomorrow" has lots queued for release, you then have to page down endlessly before you get to "Today" and can see stuff that's available. There was one day a while back when someone had like 30 releases all set for the following day, and it literally took ten presses of "Page Down" on my keyboard to get to the actual "what's new and available now" that I could actually buy from. Most people aren't going to page down ten times, they'll just go look at the forums instead.


My bad - ignore the "big vs small" bit - what I'm meaning is if something gets no replies, even if it's from the Moomins, it's reasonable that one followup post a week later should be OK, esp if it adds free content - just to be fair and make sure things are seen.



That (and as explained by Leon) makes sense.


Mostly I agree - the problem is when a post gets no followups to reply to. Given the cost of producing WAM scenes (I estimate at least $100 to $120 per single-girl scene once you factor in all the costs), I think it's reasonable that someone should be able to make one followup bump, esp if they give away some decent free material with it, a week or so later, especially when we are systemically prevented from using the official ad mechanism to reach the people most likely to actually buy something. After that, yeah, dead horse, put the flogger away.

This I can certainly appreciate. I've always believed that one of the most valuable votes you can cast is with your dollar. If more folks would have a note attached to their dollars as such, I think producers and advertisers would probably get the point pretty quickly. As an adult content producer, the primary thing I've had to overcome is what seems to be the shame that some people seem to feel as consumers of the product, preventing engagement. I can only sharpen my tools against the grindstone my client base provides.

There are other forums that aren't so commercial, ECGunge, Splosh etc.

If you took all of the commercial posts off this forum it would be a very slow and boring place. There would be like one or two posts every couple of days. People also like interacting with Jayce and Ariel and all the other females who are mostly here to promote their media (not all, I know).

Also remove the commercial to leave the forums for the WAMers makes no sense, when commercial WAM is completely on topic in a WAM forum, particularly as lots of freebies/previews are given away.

Not to mention the fact that feedback is a great thing, good and bad. Feedback of a type only a forum can give.

I don't think anyone would be annoyed or hold it against you if you posted about all your new media here when it's available.

That decision was made back in 2000, and commercial posts and non-commercial posts have been kept together deliberately, mostly because it's their synergy that makes the forums work. A separate forum for discussion wouldn't help because it's always the commercial posts where producers and their friends create the back-and-forth. I also want to say, again, that it's not long discussions that are a problem. They can go for months and be great, so long as it's real comments and not strategic banter. I think Leon outlined it perfectly in his response. This is only a handful of folks we're even talking about.

Yes, some good counterpoints here. Just putting the idea out there. I must confess, I wasn't aware of the other forums.

I don't think the 5% discount is the largest selling point. VIP's seem to mostly use convenience features like ZIP downloads for the galleries and posts, unlimited archive views, etc. I don't have data that shows VIP's are more (or less) likely to respond to ads and buy scenes, though I can't say for certain.


Good question. Other than forums and ads, we post all your updates in What's New. We also send out an email blast at midnight about your content to all store followers. We have an entire separate free advertising system that automatically rotates content from all UMD producers throughout the entire site. The whole Downloads section is for your exposure, and half the Videos section shows trailers, which are also shown in your profile. You profile is a major springboard for user interaction, and we link to it near your every comment and post. I built all sorts of tools for personal interaction--look at your sales and you can send loyal customers personal coupons, and on and on and on. I built the virtual stores system so you'd have an entire slice of UMD to do whatever you want, and part of their purpose is to allow you to market your store off-site like any other store--advertise them on social networks or Google ads or whatever you want. The forums are easy to plug your stuff in, but they can only do so much and I fear that people have gotten too reliant only on them. It's not the only way to get your word out.


In isolation for that producer that seems fair, but what about all the others, what if everybody does that, and how do I get them all on the same understanding? Now I've got to judge who can do it, and spend all day explaining things to the producers who complain, or moderating their posts when they assume it's okay and do it anyway. This is why consistency is paramount.

Posts are supposed to rise to the top so that visitors know there is a new real response to check out, generated by someone who has taken real interest. For a producer to forge that just to push their message back on top of everybody else's is disingenuous and unfair. If natural responses don't come, then it's time to move on.