I’m going to make this one an article, because it’s over 1000 words, but I’ll share it here first. Feel free to critique or offer commentary so I can make it better

Blogs vs. Messageboards
by TDavid

One thing that has really impressed me about the blogging community to date and the process of blogging is the amount and frequency of interlinking

Some would say that this is the blogging Achilles heel, in that it is nothing more than a SE spam technique, but actually, I’ve found that it is more akin to personal recommendations; a personal web of people’s journals sharing what interests them. This is very similar to co-workers, associates or friends sharing tips with each other face to face.

One of my frustrations over the last year or so is that some messageboards have become very internal political. By this I mean that there are all these ego-driven moderation rules and one of which seems to be declaring what is spam and what isn’t spam very, very liberally in both the text of posts and even in signature/taglines.

For example:

If I surf by your blog and read something interesting and comment or trackback you to my blog, that is smart, acceptable and encouraged in the blogging community.

However, if I surf by (some) messageboards and read something that interests me and point to something on one of my sites that is relative or has been inspired from the thread(s) in question then that could be considered spam. At some boards if I point to things which aren’t even on my websites or websites that I’m affiliated with but are still relative to the thread that is labeled as spam. On some boards if you link anything through a tracking URL that is considered spam because, oh no not this, it could be a money-making sponsor link

Huh?

spam is … the crap that fills my inbox daily, which makes me want to move away from ever even accepting unsolicited email from the general public, and moving towards strictly a whitelist-only setup.
spam is … the reason I’m writing this post instead of sifting through the 739 filtered emails I’ve received recently where the vast amount of them is spam. These days I pretty much dread the inbox instead of embrace it because of the BS I must endure to get to the legitimate email — and I use heavy spam filtering.

spam is … mindless, off-topic, undesirable advertisement for one’s website, product or service. Related and/or inspired information is not spam. Never has been. Who thought up the idea of calling relative linking spam?

I realize one of the duties of a messageboard moderator is moderating those not-so-random, real spam posts but moderators should take heed that not every post containing links to third party websites should be interpreted or over-analyzed as spam.

Not too terribly long ago, one board where I had posted at hundreds of times over a couple month period (which at most boards would make me a regular poster), and had given away prizes, and had promoted it to webmasters on my sites, actually chastized me for a single post I made as “being spammy” because in the body a single link contained a tracking code. The moderator went so far as to remove the link altogether and alleged that I started the thread with the sole intention of spamming its members. LOL! Actually, I started the thread to get others thinking creatively and out of the box as I have many other threads in many places and the tracking code was for me, not a clickthru sponsor! Thinking of other ways of doing things can lead to new opportunities in business and those who choose to moderate this type of creativity will lose at least my posting activity and my guess many other webmasters who feel the same kind of restrictions.

BTW, I don’t think Netsurprise messageboards are moderated this way, I’m just saying this about messageboards and moderation in general because I have seen and experienced this firsthand.

The competition in the messageboard arena as far as webmasters getting frustrated with having their signatures/taglines (which I thought were supposed to be for advertising?) or the body of their posts being anal probed by overzealous moderators could ultimately drive posters away to other ways to interactively communicate (like blogging), as it has pretty much done to me.

I’m just one regular poster who doesn’t so regularly post at some of the messageboards any more. Who wants to have their contributions labeled as spam and their motives for posting scrutinized? It’s ironic that some boards want to pay you to post and when you post they call into question your motivations for posting!

Ultimately, from a business perspective this messageboard experience has been a good thing for me because it has opened up doors to new opportunities that otherwise I may not have benefitted from.

I’m not totally down on the messageboard model, no way, I think there are some boards (like Netsurprise) where business is being conducted or where news tends to hit first (GFY) or I would have stopped posting at messageboards altogether, but I am seeing some things about messageboards in general that can detract from doing more business on the web:

1) most search engines ignore most messageboards (ANS boards are a rare exception).

Blogs on the other hand tend to rank high on the search engines, so high in some cases that it has angered webmasters who feel that they aren’t real websites.

2) the political climate on messageboards is shaped by the moderation. The emphasis on pay (or incentive) to post models, I think, has helped to generate today’s professional posters and has driven away those professionals in business who posted. The problem with pro posters is that they don’t do much else except post — they don’t get much real work done, they don’t swap links and trade traffic, they mostly sit around and bag on those webmasters who are productive. Sure, there are exceptions, but throw money into the mix and suddenly everybody wants to get fat financially being a recognized posting whore. Self-admitted thieves can leave one board and join another, be posting productive, and be a recognized board celebrity. No thanks.

Blogging on the other hand can be done in your spare time, when you want, and is subject to only your own moderation and editorial guidelines You can still be a celebrity if that’s what you want to be, but it is better to just be yourself and speak from your heart.

So what does this all mean? That messageboards are dying? No, I don’t think so. I do think some of them will die and be replaced by groups with their own blogs instead. Blogs and messageboards share many similarities in terms of content but some of the defects of a messageboard community are the strengths in a blogging community which I find fascinating from a business perspective.

When I read posts and see where webmasters could have linked up relative sites, articles and useful information but hesitated perhaps because they didn’t want to be seen as a spammer, I know that things have to change someday in the messageboard model for it to continue to be viable for webmaster interaction.

For me the change started when I starting removing bookmarks, stopped surfing to some of these messageboards and spent that time and effort in the blogging community instead.

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