OK to duplicate discussion on WebmasterWorld?

[pleeker]

I have a question about policy, and I hope to not start some of the same snippy exchanges from a couple months ago in the "2 sides of WebmasterWorld" thread....

I should start by saying I am not a WebmasterWorld subscriber, though I would like to be. I'm about the only one carrying the SEO torch in our company, and I haven't been able to convince the bill payers of the value of membership. And the cost is too much for me to pay from my own wallet. (Besides, it should be a company expense!) :)

Anyway, this is about the 3rd or 4th time this has happened for me since the opening of the Supporters' Forum, and I figure it's time to ask. I searched through a couple months of archives here in the CC and couldn't really find this discussed.

This morning, I was going to post in the Google News forum, or maybe the Cloaking forum, an article from an auction-related newsletter I get that has an interesting story about a guy who is using cloaking to get "half a million" pages to the top of Google's rankings -- and he was doing it with the content of eBay auction listings. Interesting stuff.

Of course, this is also the top teaser thread on the home page here, but it's in the Supporter's Forum.

So the question is, is it okay to start a duplicate discussion outside the Supporter's Forum?

[pendanticist]

Just because those who subscribe post a subject within "Supporters", should not preclude it from being discussed in any of the open forums as well.

'Subscribe' forum sometimes deals with the same subject matter as we do, but more "in-depth".

Pendanticist.

[pleeker]

Thanks pendanticist, I hope that's the official policy. I'd kinda like to have a response from a moderator ... don't want to overstep bounds next time this comes up, which I'm sure it will.

[pendanticist]

You're Welcome.

Brett Tabke moderates this forum and while he doesn't allow much dis-information to go unchallenged, why don't you just sticky him and ask?

Let us/me know what you find out.

Pendanticist.

[Chndru]

Hi pleeker,
i posted the same in [webmasterworld.com...] just to find out that it was in the index page of the WW later. As you can see, that post didn't attract many posters, as they might have already discussed it in the supporters forum.

[pleeker]

Brett Tabke moderates this forum and while he doesn't allow much dis-information to go unchallenged, why don't you just sticky him and ask?

Brett does a heroic job of replying to stickies, and I thought about it, but figure it might be something best out on the board here -- figuring that I'm surely not the only person who has wanted to post something to start a discussion "out here" only to be thwarted at the discovery that a discussion is already underway "in there." :)

As you can see, that post didn't attract many posters, as they might have already discussed it in the supporters forum.

Thanks for the link, Chndru, I obviously missed it earlier. And there's the problem with duplicate content -- people don't want to repeat themselves, so one thread has to suffer.

Hey Brett -- how about a Non-Supporters Forum where we can openly duplicate the threads we see advertised on the home page that we can't get to? :) (Kidding.......)

[pendanticist]

Kidding?

Uh, "Read-Only" sounds like a wonderful concept. That way lurkers/readers would furthur be inticed to join once they sip the nectar so-to-speak.

:)

I like the logic.

<added>
Related Thread: Paid Forum? [webmasterworld.com]
</added>

Pendanticist.

[TheDave]

I'd probably fork over if I knew what was going down in there, so I like the idea of read only too. I'm sure Brett doesnt tho ;) He'll just be patient until we finally snap ;)

Perhaps if we could see the titles of the threads we might snap a little quicker tho ;) Maybe this could become a privelige once you reach a certain post count. While some of the front page threads that are in the supporters forum have caught my eye, I still havnt seen anything I *really* want to read or discuss. Heck, the most enticing thing so far has been the pic of GoogleGuy ;P

Anyway, I dont really care I think WebmasterWorld is just dandy supporters forum or not :)

Oh, and as for the original question, I dont see any reason you can't begin another discussion outside of the supporters forum

[Brett_Tabke]

Yes, duplicate threads are occasionally ok. We generally don't have a problem with dupes - often "triplicates" are another story though. The particular story in question had about half a dozen mentions of it.

No, there is not set policy on it. Dupes are not frowned upon at all, but sure - some topics, we'd like to discuss a bit more off the radar (like the thread in question).

[pleeker]

Thanks for the response on this one, Brett. Now we know.