Making the forum private?

The Free For All Lounge
#1

I haven’t been here for long, but having been part of many (and I mean many) forums online, I can say that this is one of the best communities I’ve come across.

Not only are the people incredible, but the level of information being shared is quite high.

Which makes me think that all of this should be made private (not accessible via Google and only available to customers of MP).

Here are my main reasons:

  • some of the tactics here are pure gold and I don’t think everyone and their cousin should know about them and share them around the black hat communities
  • some of the information shared here is more of a personal nature - who is from where, how they got started in IM and that should not be accessible to outsiders
  • there are tools and resources shared here that if go out to the masses will become unusable for all of us. All it takes is for one of the more hard core spammers to abuse a tool for a month and we are all in the ditch after that
  • if you are not a customer of MP and are not a part of the community, you should not have access to it

What do you guys/ladies think?

EDIT: To make things easier / clearer, scroll down to this reply and put your vote there.

22 Likes
Why do so many start with trust level "regular"? :thinking:
Why getting to 2nd level is so much frustrating?
#2

Thank you for the kind words. The forum is great because of users like you and many others that contributed. We do have a private section which only level 2 users can access and there’s a lot of advanced thread there as well.

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#3

I know about the private section and that is awesome. My thoughts are more for the general forum.

And I’m not saying make it private with fingerprints access private, just make it that you need to be a member to read it (or least not to be able to read the entire thread).

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#4

Noted. Was about to get some padlock on ebay and finger print scanning software :joy: We will see if this will be implemented in the future.

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#5

I get what you mean, we thought about this before starting. The thing is that there are also people that do not use mp or don’t have money for it but can still provide a lot of useful information. We want to give everyone a chance to learn and share with others and limiting it this way would mean some will be unable to do that.

Also, you know the thing about free info, many people won’t use it. You can give people 100% what they want to do, most will read it and say it’s interesting, but not implement it, because all these strategies also require a little hard work and dedication.

You do know about the private part of the forum, that will be used for sharing the most sensitive information, as for the others, spread the love and you’ll get it back when you least expect it :slight_smile:

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#6

Hey @MojoJojo

MassPlanner is a business. All of these forum posts boost up the SEO for MP. More clicks on search engines = more conversions = happy MassPlanner team = happy users :smiley:

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#7

Even if the group is private, if some people want to share / steal the method to other forum, they will do it anyway. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#8

My thoughts are more on random people finding the information through google. If anyone wants to share a tactic, noone can stop him/her.

No doubt about the general logic of this, but I do not agree 100%. The forum is a community, not a promotional tool for MP, at least not directly. There are no banners, no ads, nothing to say “hey, go buy MP” which makes me think it wasn’t set up to generate more users, but to keep the current ones happy.[quote=“Johnny, post:5, topic:3979”]

The thing is that there are also people that do not use mp or don’t have money for it but can still provide a lot of useful information.
[/quote]

This might sound mean, but if someone is not willing to spend the peanuts that MP costs per month, one should not be here as one cannot be serious about building a business :slight_smile:

Anyhow, I stick to my opinion on the topic and I just wanted to hear what others think. At the end of the day it is all up the the staff.

2 Likes
#9

It’s good when everybody is happy :slight_smile: Though we didn’t create this forum just for MP, but rather as a social media community, to share and learn everything related about social media.

yes, but some of those random people can prove to be very good at this in time and help others in their turn.

well, we all have to start from somewhere :slight_smile: there are people with $0 to their name that are hardworking and want to join ( at least that’s what I hope :slight_smile: )

Anyway, for now it seems to be good, we’ll see what this develops into though and if we start having such problems we’ll take action against them.

2 Likes
#10

I have to say that I agree with @MojoJojo here and I am starting to feel it stronger every day that goes by.

With this forum we are opening ourselves up totally to the anti-spam team of Instagram and Facebook, and basically serving them everything we do on a silver plate…:confused:

This is damaging the usability of MP for everyone and basically just speeds up the “arms race”, even for those who use MassPlanner for responsible marketing.

Why not just set up an autoresponder series to new (or all MP customers) instead where you show off short snippets or headlines from some of the tastiest threads from people like @BrandonBerner and others who have contributed so much, and explain the massive value that is being provided here.

This wouldn’t eliminate the risk, (since its easy for the IG and FB anti-spam teams to buy MassPlanner and they probably have several copies already!), but it MIGHT slow things down or make it slightly less accessible to them?

I have just read a new thread that people aren’t getting the emails from IG anymore when trying to do photo recovery of their accounts. It just makes me wonder if the “gloating” here about some people being able to recover 30 accounts in a day or two with the same photo being a man with female accounts etc. possibly hasn’t contributed to this?

Things like that would certainly piss me off if I was part of the team trying to uphold the 5 accounts per person IG limit.

Btw, I’m not in any way criticising the posters in that thread. The opposite actually. I just think that there is so much sensitive information being shared on this forum that really would be better kept in a more private setting…

I do understand the arguments from the MassPlanner team and in particular the value of this forum to spread the word about the benefits and value of MP.

However, I’m sure that you are equally concerned about the long-term survival of the tool and the usability of it for “ordinary users”.

Even if some of us will learn to adapt and roll with the punches as we lose accounts, more and more users are going to find it too hard to adapt the harder it gets I think.

Anyway, this is just my personal view, but I thought it was worth reviving this topic to see if the MP team is willing to reconsider their view. :wink:

8 Likes
#11

100% agreement.

1 Like
#12

100% agreement also.

Our enemy is Instagram. If they can easily access the forum, and or abuse the system to get to Trust level 3, they can see everything we are up to. We are basically free vulnerability testers for Instagram at this point, and we are burring each others graves.

I totally understand that the forum generates lots more traffic & sales to MassPlanner since forums are so well respected and ranked on search engines. In addition its a great bonus for those who want to get MassPlanner and get the support from the community, however if Instagram makes it so difficult for us to manage accounts with MassPlanner, you would loose more sales then you gain to the point MassPlanner becomes obsulite, or your staff are working 2x longer hours to keep up with Instagram’s improvements. Both will end up costing more money; loss of sales, or paying more staff to keep MassPlanner ahead of Instagram.

This change will only get harder over time as the forum continues to grow at the rate it is. Depending on how you choose to proceed, you may need to demote users back to level 1 and make them work harder with more difficult objectives, or an invite only system. The more users that are level 3, the more of them who will be upset for getting demoted causing you some upset emails. The more popular this forum becomes, the more upset people who will email you about getting demoted. If this was a step you need to implement, it would be best to do it sooner than later. I for one would completely understand and be content with getting demoted as a small sacrifice for something so much greater.

MP Team, if you have concerns about this, or are worried about the effects it would have for different users, create a poll outlining the changes that would have to be made, and see if people are willing to loose ranking, or privileges for the sake of heightened security.I for one would be adaptable for each and every change; even if it sucks.

  • I would like the forum to be private
  • I would like the forum to be public

0 voters

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  • I dont mind paying a slightly higher monthly cost for MassPlanner to make up the lost sales for making the forum private.
  • I do not want to pay more/month for MassPlanner, and would like the forum to still become private.

0 voters

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#13
  • If my account needs to be demoted to level 1 again, to make MPSocial more secure, I will not complain.
  • If my account gets demoted, I will be mad at MassPlanner.

0 voters

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#14

Hi, I’m new here. In fact, I’m new to all of this. I’m not an internet marketer, I don’t work for Instagram, I don’t have a hundred Facebook accounts and I just run MP off an old computer in a spare room to promote my Facebook community.

For what it’s worth, what you have here is gold. It’s been eye opening for me to learn, over the weeks, of the incredible tool the team have developed. I’m grateful for what I’ve learned here, but your goldmine depends on its secrecy.

As far as I see, you don’t really need to hide from Instagram and FaceBook. If you think multi-billion dolllar companies don’t already know every trick in the book, well I think you might need to reevaluate. What you are hiding from is market-knowledge saturation (yes, I made that term up). The more people use your techniques the more companies will be forced to respond to what they already know you’re doing.

Yes determined people can take tactics from here, if they really want to, but increase the barrier to information leakage and protect the clandestine techniques you have developed. At the same time, keep nurturing this forum from within, creating an environment that is more or less self contained. Think more walled garden than public park.

Well that’s just how it seems to me. Oh and plz add me to tha supa-trust list so I can get all the FaceBook secrets! :wink: Anyway, thanks for all your hard work team and contributors :+1:t2:

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#15

Vouch for private forum. :hamburger:

Regardless if IG and FB already have insight about how MP strategies and insights works doesnt mean they can or will override it. They know the benefits of having MP users - it speeds up their mass audience reach and connect users at a faster pace.

By making a private forum that only allows MP users and invites only keeps committed readers and contributors even on the general forum. This forum has a great niche community and I would like to keep it that way vs having it become like a general BHW forum where it’s dominated by their marketplace and tons of begging users.

2 Likes
#16

Yes thats true, however from past examples, they continue to make it more and more difficult to create accounts, manage them on proxies, verify using phone numbers (TextNow and other providers were all banned just a few months ago), and more people are having a lower success rate with reactivating banned accounts. Sure they may not block every method we use, however they can implement speed bumps which makes us (MP users) have to contently spend time researching new workarounds, and spending higher amounts of money to bypass their updates.

For example, TextNow and other online free texting services were banned just a few months ago. Then the majority went to online SIM verification’s. Lastly Instagram has been counting how many different numbers are used to verify the same account. They are now starting to ban accounts that use multiple numbers to verify the same account. Since these online SIM providers provide you with a unique number each time, you cannot request a previous one that was used previously to verify your account, so continual use of their services will get your accounts banned, Now we need to buy our own SIM’s. This is where things get more difficult, and cost more money. For one, SIMs are very expensive in most places in North America. Second, its more of a manual process which wastes time, and money. Just a few months ago, phone verification was so easy, and now its almost impossible without SIMS.

With all pros, there are cons also. Yes, having automated accounts will keep Instagrams post counts higher, and keep more users engaged on their platform. However there are more people that use automation software to re-post other users content and not give credit to the owner which drastically increases the amount of employees that need to receive all the reports. In addition to this, there are lots of users who use automation for spam. This will have the opposite effect on Instagrams audience, which will lower the amount of active users on Instagram (just look at what happened to Twitter). Lastly Instagram is public and therefor they have lots of shareholders. They would loose many of them if they dont remain in control over automation software which is the main source for spam. So it comes down to whether or not they gain more than they loose with automation. I think they are losing much more, and therefor prefer to put an end or make it close to impossible to use automation software.

I totally agree with you.

There are some polls a few messages above yours. I noticed you have not voted there yet. If you would like, please do so as it would show those who want the forum to be public.

2 Likes
#17

It would be helpful if the people who make the decisions about the future of the forum weigh in on the recently brought up points.

@Johnny, grand master of all things MP, chime in whenever you get a chance.

#18

Facebook/Instagram already know the ways we do stuff…I follow 500 to 800 people a day and unfollow the same amount. I think its safe to say…they let us…millions are on both platforms…and the vast majority don’t even follow 50 a day…we stick out. What we do here I think is find kinks , the little holes they have…and as soon as one gets fixed…we find another…sometimes they don;t really know about the holes until we advertise them…by then they fix them. A example…3 months ago a glitch in the Instagram system…anyone that put SINGAPORE SINGAPORE on the location on a post got 50% more likes than any other post they did…I think it was fixed…they only found about it when it was overused by all the engagement groups…it spread and that is not good. One day somebody here will discover a major glitch like the one I mentioned…stuff like that should be held private as not to be advertise and overused.

1 Like
#19

It is very true about how they continue find ways to slow MP users down. It also true, what MP does is consider black/gray hat methods which is against IG TOS so I believe IG has to and will always continue to update new security measures to keep their app “as clean as possible”. It’s bound to happen what IG has been doing and if they didn’t take those measures the IG world would be a bot heaven and the user appeal would be gone making the app pointless and unprofitable. Which leads to why the MP community is fantastic that we can come together to find ways to reduce risk, stay up to date and share important ideas.

You make an excellent point about the automated software. With today’s technology, wouldn’t you believe Instagram & Facebook would have the money,power and smarts to put an end or close to automation software? I think itll be a long time (at least 5+ years) before they can make it close to impossible to use automation. I can imagine everyday some person is waking up and saying “f yeah, I’m building a IG bot today! lets’ go!!!”, one day there will be a prophecy child of finding a way around IG and building a new bot and the loop continues until technology and their algo can get to a point where they can be close to mistake free.

Ill def cast a vote. Thanks Brandon for being a staple of the MP community.

1 Like
#20

100% Agree
As a monthly subscription customer, I hereby strongly recommend for admins to make the forum private and make it not accessable by outsider & leechers

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