Your Thoughts On Adding A Non-Adult Section To GWW?

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06-15-2005, 09:54 PM
Lee

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustMe

1. For a website that's community based to be successful, it needs to be focused. I've seen soooo many online communities start to take a nose dive when they tried to expand and generalize into areas that are outside of their original scope. The thing that makes a community work is a common thread that binds all of its members, and on GWW, that thread is that we're all adult webmasters working in the gay marketplace.

I agree with you on the taking different directions to quickly thing, many boards have failed in the last 12 months because of just that reason.

Whilst i understad your point about GWW being a community of 'adult' webmasters, why couldnt it also be just a community of 'webmasters' adult or not?

Quote:

2. Most of your advertisers will absolutely hate the idea. Again, it's about getting your ad in front of your target market. Even if you rotated different ads in the "non-adult" forum, you're still building a segment of the userbase on here that has nothing to do with their demographic. Many advertisers also intentionally want to keep their ads away from the eyes of those that aren't within their target group. What does this mean? It means that if you start heading into non-adult, adult advertisers will become less and less interested. On the other side, good luck getting large mainstream companies to advertise on a adult gay webmaster board, even if it is in the "non-adult" section.

Many of our current GWW clients actually have non-adult business interests to so i actually think that adding a new demographic on the GWW community would benefit them greatly, TopBucks for example has a rather larger non-adult program at http://www.topcash.com i also know AEBN is working on some mobile related stuff which will include a range of different subject matters.

Quote:

3. With all of the problems lately, I think GWW would be better served trying to go after new adult webmasters to participate on here, to build back up its traffic. Again, I think trying to build up traffic by heading into different market segments is a mistake.

We will always attract new adult webmasters, there is no doubt about that, at the same time, by diversifying, we also get to attract a wider group of individuals and businesses who can learn and grow with one another. lets be honest, 90% of the marketing techiques non-adult webmasters are presently using, came from adult anyway ;)

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4. I think you're going to get a lot of bleeding from the non-adult to the adult forum. The end result will probably be something very similar to the adult webmaster boards that have been virtually taken over by surfers. Off topic conversations, rantings, and the asking of questions by someone that doesn't really want to know the answers. The adult forums will be like the circus sideshow for the mainstream forum.

I understand that completely but im sure you'll agree we do a good job presently keeping the nonsense and business related stuff seperate and i personally dont see any reason why we couldnt do the same with adult/non-adult topics.

Regards,

Lee
06-15-2005, 09:58 PM
Lee

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bec

I also have NEVER seen anyone here post a question asking for an opinion, help, script, programmer, designer, links, or any other component you care to name on their mainstream interests - not get a response! A good portion of us still work in or are starting to develop mainstream interests. I would find it strange if we DIDN'T seek help here from our GWW community of friends and contacts on all of our internet adventures.

Agreed Bec which makes me beleive that adding a different target audience all together (non-adult) would be a bigger benefit to the community overall.

Quote:

But the fact remains, the original premise of the board is the thread that binds us, and that is that the members here do work in the porn industry. If you wanted a seperate forum where our community can discuss mainstream issues, then perhaps that's doable if you feel the need to seperate the two marketing venues.

I know what you are saying but, we arent ONLY porn webmasters, thats my concern, a lot of us (including many of us who have posted in this thread) have non-adult business interests, whether that be webmaster related services, movie sites, cooking sites or even online gaming sites. It just seems like common sense to me to include those various marketing possibilities on GWW in order to grow the site and the community much further in addition to opening up extra streams of business for everyone.

Regards,

Lee
06-15-2005, 10:11 PM
Squirt

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee

Agreed Bec which makes me beleive that adding a different target audience all together (non-adult) would be a bigger benefit to the community overall.

All the mainstream I know think of adult as Taboo.. You should try it and see how difficult/easy it is to get people from mainstream here. If it is Gay only, it will obviously be easier. What's your plan?
06-15-2005, 11:32 PM
Lee

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squirt

All the mainstream I know think of adult as Taboo.. You should try it and see how difficult/easy it is to get people from mainstream here. If it is Gay only, it will obviously be easier. What's your plan?

Squirt i agree with you, we tried that a few years ago on another of our resources and it wet down like a ton of bricks LOL

At the moment i have no solid plans for this im just trying to gauge the type of response such an addition to the community overall would have and you are right in saying that it would be easier to get gay mainstream site / company owners over here, that was my intention for this, build the gay community we have already established and grow it into a much wider reach than just 'porn' ;)

As i mentioned above, having people you can contact to do business with at places like the Gay Times, Attitude, Planet Out etc etc can only increase everyones bottom line profits :)

Regards,

Lee
06-15-2005, 11:37 PM
basschick

i was originally going to write well thought-out responses like JustMe and Bec, but since they already did, i don't have to. i agree with what they said tenfold.

i don't like talking with mainstream webmasters. they seem to run the gamut from condescending to accusing us of being into a lot of illegal stuff. they're a lot less friendly in general, and tend more toward clique-ishness. very close to all i've met consider themselves superior to porn webmasters, and the rest think we're some kind of amazing, exotic entertainment.

the gay porn webmaster community doesn't seem to hang together as well as the str8, and i hope that in bringing in a group of people who are not involved in what we are, it does not shatter the one gay board that seems to stay community-oriented.

also in my work, i'm a BIG fan of niching, and this applies to everything.
06-15-2005, 11:57 PM
tombarr

Working my way down the list...

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustMe

The thing that makes a community work is a common thread that binds all of its members, and on GWW, that thread is that we're all adult webmasters working in the gay marketplace.

The thread that binds us together is that we are all gay webmasters, or webmasters working in the gay market place, using GWW as a central educational, communicative, and beneficial resource to research issues, run ideas by other fellow gay like-minded webmasters, have sites reviewed, discuss business ideas, share stories..all without having to fear any kind of subjective predjudice that often times is directed at gay webmasters who post and speak freely on non gay boards or forums....the thread is not only that we are adult webmasters, many of us are both and many of the ideas we discuss are relative to both sides of the same house. The most common thread of all is that we are webmasters, mainly gay/lesbian/transgendered, working in a sometimes very hostile and anti gay society seeking refuge and common bond in a community where our lifestyle does not have to be hidden....business models aside.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustMe

Most of your advertisers will absolutely hate the idea. Again, it's about getting your ad in front of your target market. Even if you rotated different ads in the "non-adult" forum, you're still building a segment of the userbase on here that has nothing to do with their demographic. Many advertisers also intentionally want to keep their ads away from the eyes of those that aren't within their target group.

Disagree with this premise. I think that as long as the two forums are separate, and ad rotation is segregated and not mixed then this is a non issue. As an advertiser, i would value the extra ad resource targeted to the same audience of like minded webmasters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustMe

I think you're going to get a lot of bleeding from the non-adult to the adult forum.

yes, to a degree, there will also be bleeding the other direction as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustMe

The end result will probably be something very similar to the adult webmaster boards that have been virtually taken over by surfers. Off topic conversations, rantings, and the asking of questions by someone that doesn't really want to know the answers..

I think the focus of conversations will be as well managed on both as it is presently on GWW. The problem with other boards is not enough monitoring by moderators, perhaps under moderated overall, that do not keep the rif raff postings relegated to their proper forum rooms. There are other gay adult webmaster boards that operate as a "clique" and seem to be more of a let's stroke each others ego board, and some boards you can't seem to find a topic on business without having to wade through tons of off business postings..however this board seems to be properly channeled, sufficiently on the topic of business, with fun areas as an added resource whose moderators seem to have a good handle on "guiding" the conversations, stimulating responses, and general housekeeping that makes this board one of the best gay webmaster resources on the net....and i think that non adult webmasters in the gay market will realize this for what it is .. a gay business resource board. (notice the absence of the word "adult")

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squirt

All the mainstream I know think of adult as Taboo..

Gay.com for years shunned any representation of adult on their pages and would turn up their noses at anyone requesting to run any kind of advertising that was not vanilla..... now they have a whole section of adult sites, pictures, ads, and are using adult as an upsell to their membership. yes, there will always be those in any community who have very narrow views and who want to try to remake everyone in their own image, but I think there are many many webmasters for whom having a segregated adult/non adult gay oriented board would be a very valuable resource.

Is there a gay webmaster forum presently for the non adult gay side of the internet business? If so, how successful is it? If not...then it's long overdue to have one.

As for being able to run the two side by side.. yes that is very perceivable. Some very big gay retail websites very successfully run both adult and non adult side by side without any reprisal from their advertisers or surfers. These same websites make it segregated such that you can even link to which ever section of the site appeals to you in their webmaster programs. On our wehovideo.com site, we do the same thing, and have never ever heard a single word of complaint about both being at the same domain ...

Non adult gay webmasters need lovin' too!

Just my 3 1/2 cents worth.
06-16-2005, 02:21 AM
gaystoryman

I tend to lean towards what tombarr has said. I think inclusion is something we should consider, and given the way the board is moderated, I think many of the pitfalls mentioned by Justme won't happen here. But things change, but right now I am ambivolent on this... but heck, worth a shot in time I'd suppose. :thumbsup:
06-16-2005, 10:30 AM
Dzinerbear

The more I'm thinking about this, the more I'm leaning towards: it ain't going to work. Like others have said there's too much misconception and misunderstanding about what we do and what we're about. I can't tell you the number of times people have said, "Is it legal?" when I tell them what I do.

I wanted to put a link in my webmaster section to WebLogExpert and join their affiliate program, but they don't allow links on porn sites. And while WLE is not a gay mainstream company, I think their policy is quite normal.

I even approached gay.com six months ago about doing some advertising with them and was told that they didn't accept advertising from porn companies. Okay, so the biggest online gay pick-up joint is porn-phobic, well maybe they're not, but it just seems like an odd policy when you've got rooms full of horny guys trying to pick one another up and you don't try and sell them porn.

It's kind of like trying to get gays and lesbians to work together on a community event. It's a nice idea, there are similarities, but there are very big differences and they usually just end up fighting. It would be nice to learn something about gay mainstream marketing, but it probably won't happen here.

dzinerbear
06-16-2005, 01:42 PM
curiousbunny

Quote:

Originally Posted by tombarr

The thread that binds us together is that we are all gay webmasters, or webmasters working in the gay market place, using GWW as a central educational, communicative, and beneficial resource to research issues, run ideas by other fellow gay like-minded webmasters.

Agree :playboy:
06-17-2005, 12:10 AM
tombarr

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Like others have said there's too much misconception and misunderstanding about what we do and what we're about. I can't tell you the number of times people have said, "Is it legal?" when I tell them what I do.

Then a resource like this, run as professionally as GWW is, will go a long way to dispelling this myth, deflating the stereotype of an adult webmaster, and generally serving as a community building tool, strengthing our community through outreach and communication, which is a much better approach to coexisting together than sitting in our own little corners of the world and pointing fear generated fingers of misconception, rumor, and innuendo at each other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

I wanted to put a link in my webmaster section to WebLogExpert and join their affiliate program, but they don't allow links on porn sites. And while WLE is not a gay mainstream company, I think their policy is quite normal.

Yes, unfortunately, there are those who do and will always see "porn" as a stygmatized dirty legion of crazed oversexed people who have no reason to exist and should be shunned to the nether regions of some dark hell somewhere. And when they get horny, these same people will be out buying it or surfing it on the net later that night. Just because there are those who disagree, and shun our links does not mean we should bury our head in the sand and not try to lead by example.... and a resource like a community forum such as this can go a long way toward busting through some of their predjudices..and to those who don't accept it...well, i will be willing to bet for the one who won't there are 5 who will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

I even approached gay.com six months ago about doing some advertising with them and was told that they didn't accept advertising from porn companies. Okay, so the biggest online gay pick-up joint is porn-phobic, well maybe they're not, but it just seems like an odd policy when you've got rooms full of horny guys trying to pick one another up and you don't try and sell them porn.

Well, while companies may not like to be linked to, or put our links on their sites because of the nature of our business does not mean that we can't sit down in a community forum and exchange ideas. Ideas that you and i can take and apply to our sites and make money from, without having to have them link to us.. ... and further, I took a call from gay.com about 6 months ago because they were putting together an afterdark segment of adult content for their premium membership and wanted to include our asianguys.com site alongside ran..blue...and others spread across a broad spectrum of market tastes for the gay adult surfer...and there is this nice big link across the front page of gay.com "Tell them how you like it. Update your adult profile, and watch the men line up." ... pretty saucy for a "pornphobic" company wouldn't you think? I think there are those who work at gay.com that will gladly participate in a gay non adult forum, and their participation doesn't mean they are going to let us run banner ads for "cum dripping slut whore twinks" on their site, but it will certainly be a nice exchange of ideas between people in a like minded gay business community. After all, it is just business, we're just selling different products.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dzinerbear

It's kind of like trying to get gays and lesbians to work together on a community event. It's a nice idea, there are similarities, but there are very big differences and they usually just end up fighting. It would be nice to learn something about gay mainstream marketing, but it probably won't happen here.

Most of the gay pride organizations are events that do just that..blending the gay/lesbian and trans communities in organizing and putting on the events...and i think most people will agree that they seem to be relatively successful. And Michael, I don't mean any disrepect here, but I think your outlook on this has evolved from supportive to defeatist and for a moderator on this board one of your focuses should be on how to increase participation and foster community growth, and burying our head in the sand because some people don't like us when we have a great opportunity to reach out and show them we aren't all a bunch of sick demented whackos is simply the wrong approach for me as a gay man, and certainly you as a representative of this board.
06-18-2005, 02:32 PM
dannyz

I tend to agree with Bec and Just Me for all the reasons they stated, I don't think mixing adult and mainstream on the same domain is a good idea. This is the only gay Webmaster board I visit and post on regularly, and that is because it is the only one that really has the most interesting posts with regards to the topics I'm interested in and I think it should keep that focus.

I think you should just create a new board, maybe 'allgaywebmasters.com' or something, and then link the two toghether...on the homepage of gaywidewebmasters you could have an entrance page that said 'mainstream webmasters click here' and 'adult webmasters click here' for example. This would make it possible to increase your business and advertising opportunities, without detracting from the current community that is already in place.

Just my 2 bananas. :)
06-18-2005, 03:24 PM
Dzinerbear

Quote:

Originally Posted by tombarr

And Michael, I don't mean any disrepect here, but I think your outlook on this has evolved from supportive to defeatist and for a moderator on this board one of your focuses should be on how to increase participation and foster community growth, and burying our head in the sand because some people don't like us when we have a great opportunity to reach out and show them we aren't all a bunch of sick demented whackos is simply the wrong approach for me as a gay man, and certainly you as a representative of this board.

Wow! Did you ever misread me. I'm not suggesting we bury our heads in the sand at all. I'm just not going to spend a lot of my time and energy explaining or justifying porn to people who are afraid of it. And if I'm on a board looking for ideas or help I want to be able to say "big cock" if I have to and have everybody getting in a flap about it. And it's been my experience that when you mix the two markets, there's flap.

If you knew me, you'd know that I'm very open about porn and what I do. I'm not ashamed of it. What I don't have patience for is people looking down their noses at me because I'm in the biz.

So, I'm sorry Tom, you made some excellent points, but you totally didn't get what I was saying, and that's my fault.

cheers
dzinerbear
06-18-2005, 04:14 PM
tombarr

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

....I'm just not going to spend a lot of my time and energy explaining or justifying porn to people who are afraid of it. And if I'm on a board looking for ideas or help I want to be able to say "big cock" if I have to and have everybody getting in a flap about it. And it's been my experience that when you mix the two markets, there's flap.

Perhaps I am envisioning this incorrectly and I get that impression from reading several previous posts in reply to the thread.. I envision two very distinct sections of gaywidewebmasters.. separate, but accessible to both audiences, where one membership carries to both, where the user most probably can select a board choice from a master menu and post topics particular to that board. I see where you are coming from... but I just can't see anyone that joins the board that is not adult related yet sitting along side a gay adult board having a problem with mentioning "big cock" in the proper context, i.e. discussing SE ranking, page optimization etc..as opposed to a graphic story of who you might have copulated with using a big giant cock...etc.. My point here being the context and usage of the words..

I also think you would find a heck of a lot less rejection, badgering, "looking down noses" from a gay board posting these types of words in conversation than you would on any other non gay board..

Quote:

Originally Posted by dzinerbear

If you knew me, you'd know that I'm very open about porn and what I do. I'm not ashamed of it. What I don't have patience for is people looking down their noses at me because I'm in the biz.

I actually believe we met before at the AVN show in vegas where i was repping our video line, asianguys.com videos. But I do understand your point and share your frustration on this topic, however, i am also an advocate of trying to break down walls and overcome stereotypes and I believe that communication with those we are hesitant to converse with for whatever reason is a sure way to show them that we are not what they perceive and perhaps we're not such bad people after all.

And i firmly believe that a cross platform community gay forum is a good way to do this. And i do think there are enough open minded and like minded webmasters in gay businesses that would find significant common ground with us on this type of board and that it would, in a long term view, have a moderate to great amount of success contributing nicely to the growth of both boards.
06-18-2005, 05:39 PM
dannyz

Quote:

I also think you would find a heck of a lot less rejection, badgering, "looking down noses" from a gay board posting these types of words in conversation than you would on any other non gay board..

I disagree there...there are plenty of gays and lesbians, especially in the mainstream gay world, who will reject, badger and look down noses just as much if not more then straights.

Quote:

And i do think there are enough open minded and like minded webmasters in gay businesses that would find significant common ground with us on this type of board and that it would, in a long term view, have a moderate to great amount of success contributing nicely to the growth of both boards.

I think that if we get the two different webmaster groups too mingled toghether, we'll lose focus here. There's no reason why if someone wants to mingle with the 'non-porn' crowd they can't go to another domain linked to from the front page of gaywidewebmasters.com, register, and sign in. I would! But I would just look when I was in the mood to research that market, on my terms. If we give all these mainstream folks access to our adult board, it will be harder to find topics of specific interest to our little segment of the Webmaster community. It's the same reason if I go to a dinner party with people I don't know too well, I don't tell them I do porn sites. I just don't want to sit and defend myself and answer potentially stupid questions. In the case of non porn Webmasters, let's not invite them to the table unless they truly want to be there.

Instead of totally openning our community up to them, why don't we just have one special board on BOTH websites, and call it something like

'the gay adult and gay mainstream meeting board'

That would narrow the focus and work well for all intents and purposes.

Cheers,
Daniel
06-19-2005, 12:30 AM
tombarr

Quote:

Originally Posted by dannyz

I disagree there...there are plenty of gays and lesbians, especially in the mainstream gay world, who will reject, badger and look down noses just as much if not more then straights.

And you will find discrimination anywhere you go, in any community you go into, no matter what the topic or makeup of the community, that seems to be the general nature of human beings. Noone is forcing every gay non adult webmaster to join a board such as this. It is an optional community, where people who want to join in CAN, and those that don't want to...well they can take their ideas and predjudices somewhere else and miss out on any good ideas that are generated by conversations in this community. You can't please all the people all the time...sure, but we can sure try to be accomodating to those that are simply business minded and view it as a community, and not just a place where "porn" people go.

Quote:

I think that if we get the two different webmaster groups too mingled toghether, we'll lose focus here.

how do you lose focus? because we have more postings on a separate section of gww? That doesn't seem to take any focus away from the adult board if someone decides to click on a tab, go to the non adult section, and post in that forum too. Too mingled together? I don't believe anyone is suggesting that we should just include this non adult area in the present forum rooms list...

Quote:

There's no reason why if someone wants to mingle with the 'non-porn' crowd they can't go to another domain linked to from the front page of gaywidewebmasters.com, register, and sign in.

And they can just as easily keep the same username and password as they presently use on gww and click on a possible non adult board tab, or link, or section header to go over to that board, and do their reading/posting there

Quote:

But I would just look when I was in the mood to research that market, on my terms.

And you can, with two distinct, separate "areas" of gww, accomplish the same thing.

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If we give all these mainstream folks access to our adult board, it will be harder to find topics of specific interest to our little segment of the Webmaster community.

The already have access, they already can join, they already can post and read, reply, ask questions..on the present board. Just because many don't at this time (assuming it's because the board has not been marketed to them) doesn't mean that they are not at least lurking and reading now...
as to finding topics of specific interest to our little segment.....well, i suppose we should also limit the number of members gww could have in it's present form so we don't grow it too much and have too many postings so it's hard to find topics that i'm interested in as well. specific to your little segment of the webmaster community? what's specific to our community that's not applicable to non adult webmasters when it comes to discussing traffic, keyword optimization, video encoding, linking strategies.. ?

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..... our little segment of the Webmaster community.

yes of course, let's keep it small, keep it isolated, and by no means try to mingle or invite anyone in that might have ideas that we can both learn from.....you don't learn unless you ask questions... you can't ask questions without someone to answer you...the more people there are to ask and answer is a very good breeding ground for lots of shared learning experience.

Quote:

In the case of non porn Webmasters, let's not invite them to the table unless they truly want to be there.

Some of them are already sitting at this table and reading the posts, and you don't know it because they just don't scream out and say "hey, i'm a non adult webmaster and i'm reading your board!" And yes, let's definately not invite them to the table and let's check ids at the door, and pre screen to make sure that noone outside the porn business reads or posts on this board....come on...that's just the wrong approach to building community.

noone is advocating that all webmasters have to join this board. noone is advocating simply just mingling the two topics together in the present forum topics lists, remember this request, in the original thread starter post, was from non adult webmasters wanting to discuss business and inquiring as to when gww might have a section on the board for them.. and come on, if the marketing reps from someone like planetout, or gay.com, or advocate, or other gay non adult sites were posting in this new forum section, you can't honestly tell me you would not read their posts and join in their conversations and maybe learn from their experiences, and as i stated earlier, they are already at this table, reading, sometimes posting, and I haven't heard a word of "looking down noses" or "discrimination" yet. and if there are those that don't agree with posting in a section of a board that also has an adult section, well, let them sit on their own island in the internet while we all get together and share ideas and grow from it.

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