Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


What's happening with LEB? - Page 2
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

What's happening with LEB?

2

Comments

  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @Jonchun said:
    If that's the case, why are legitimate offers not being accepted? I know for a fact 2 people who have not been posted but the crap that OP mentions somehow got through.

    Well if that happened... Then should be reported to @mpkossen? I dunno. It makes no sense tbh.

    @Jar said:
    What I do know....is that I've been drinking red bull and vodka all wrong this whole time. It's much better when it's half and half.

    Don't drive when drunk!

  • MrGeneral said:

    @Jonchun said: If that's the case, why are legitimate offers not being accepted? I know for a fact 2 people who have not been posted but the crap that OP mentions somehow got through.

    Well if that happened... Then should be reported to @mpkossen? I dunno. It makes no sense tbh.

    Well ... probably they mainly post providers that are (A) hosting with colo-crossing or (B) going to make providers in category (A) look good by comparison.

  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @Jonchun,

    So there was no further explanation?

  • @Jonchun said:
    If that's the case, why are legitimate offers not being accepted? I know for a fact 2 people who have not been posted but the crap that OP mentions somehow got through.

    I'm assuming (I have zero knowledge of what goes on at LEB btw) that successful or not, there has been a concerted effort to move away from the same ol' repeated offers to different providers who aren't active around LE*, hence why some of the submitted offers aren't being used (and to be fair, it's never been a given that submitting an offer means it'll get posted).

  • GM2015GM2015 Member
    edited October 2015

    People can always make a drama thread on lowendtalk about a provider if they're crap.

    There was a lying 10 year old a few months ago who had a post on lowendbox and got it removed after some people bitched on here and spammed lowenbox with comments pointing over the thread here as well.

    The kid had minecraft faces on their about us page and got ridiculous amounts of comments over a matter of hours.

    Jonchun said: If that's the case, why are legitimate offers not being accepted? I know for a fact 2 people who have not been posted but the crap that OP mentions somehow got through.

  • vfusevfuse Member, Host Rep

    @MrGeneral said:
    In this case, he's from Portugal. Any company has a VAT number.

    If he's serious about his business he should request a VAT number voluntarily, you can even do this with no turnover.

  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @vfuse said:
    If he's serious about his business he should request a VAT number voluntarily, you can even do this with no turnover.

    In Portugal you get a VAT number when you register the company.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    I just don't bother with LEB any more, quality of posts, quality of provider, all gone south.

    Thanked by 3MikePT k0nsl netomx
  • mpkossenmpkossen Member
    edited October 2015

    @Nekki said:
    I'm assuming (I have zero knowledge of what goes on at LEB btw) that successful or not, there has been a concerted effort to move away from the same ol' repeated offers to different providers who aren't active around LE*, hence why some of the submitted offers aren't being used (and to be fair, it's never been a given that submitting an offer means it'll get posted).

    Indeed, the reason we list so many new hosts is because repeating the same old offers over and over again wasn't benefiting anyone anyway.

    And an offer submission is indeed never a guarantee for listing, though judging on the perspective (and sometimes attitude) of people that isn't really clear to all.

    With regards to PredatorVault: the WHOIS information was checked when they were scheduled and it was public at the time as far as I remember, or I made a mistake. That they changed it later or that I may have made a mistake is something that can happen and it's great to see the community pick up on that.

    We have no set way of dealing with these things, mostly because it's not really straight-forward: how long after an offer has been posted do you check whether WHOIS is still public and do you remove the offers when it's not public anymore are questions that come to mind. That's something that should be worked on and I've just added a reminder to do something with that some day.

    With regards to the e-mail notifications on comments: a year back I've looked into a plugin that could do this and would not require registration. I was unable to find that at the time.

    Right now I'm looking at a plugin that works with registration and I'm waiting for a development node to give it a test on LowEndBox. If it works, we'll have that functionality back.

    Other than these two specific cases I've been working on a different format and way of featuring hosts on LowEndBox. I've ran something past the Community Advisers and I'm going to establish a timeline for implementing that soon. I've got some other ideas as well which I'd like to write down this weekend. Hopefully I can implement those soon. One of them is providing regular updates on what's going on behind the scenes, why we do certain things, etc. I'm a big fan of transparency (within reason, naturally) and I hope to be able to create more of that.

    As always, I value community feedback so if you have any, feel free to share it in the Feedback & Suggestions thread (it's not limited to LowEndTalk) or send me a PM.

  • Minor update: it seems I have indeed made a mistake with this one, for which I'd like to offer my apologies.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @vfuse said:
    If he's serious about his business he should request a VAT number voluntarily, you can even do this with no turnover.

    This is not legally possible everywhere.

  • For once a non-clown post by op. Kudos. Totally agree. Posting crap like this on LEB between serious/good hosts is an insult to the latter

  • @GM2015 said:
    Everything else were posted by Jonathan Tan, whether he's a real or person or not, is for you to decide or management to confirm.

    Jonathan Tan = @jcaleb

  • Dylan said: Jonathan Tan = @jcaleb

    He is one of the most loyal, nice and sweet, person in LEB/LET. You give him your address, and he will send you a postcard.

    Thanked by 2vedran netomx
  • jcalebjcaleb Member
    edited October 2015

    GM2015 said: Everything else were posted by Jonathan Tan, whether he's a real or person or not, is for you to decide or management to confirm.

    I am a real person. Here is my facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.tan.399041

    Here is a picture of my family

    image

    Here is the baby pictures of me, my wife, and my son

    image

    A picture of me having video call with my son

    image

    Here is my mom, you don't mess with her. She can take your head off

    image

    For LEB post. Yes I write most of the offers in LEB because that is my role. I am a bit inactive in LET, because I am very busy taking care of my son who has special needs.

  • MrGeneral said: The offer was posted in 23th, Oct, 2015, by Jonathan and I wrote a reply stating the above information in the 24th. No reply from Jonathan at all. It seems LEB staff doesn't even bother to read the replies, nor to obligate the companies to follow the rules.

    Let me explain a bit. In my point of view, I only write offers tagged in the ticketing system as ready to write. I write offers with information available at the time I am writing it. I don't choose which host gets through the filtering process, etc.

    I have not clarified with Maarten, but it is my personal preference not to handle complex stuff. I am only willing to do minor edits that don't need decision making. From the original ticket of Carlos, I read all the information that you are pointing out about VAT etc. But it was tagged as ok to write - and so I write it. People have concerns in the comments section yes, but I leave it to others to decide, as I have nothing to do with the selection process.

  • jcalebjcaleb Member
    edited October 2015

    MrGeneral said: Well, according to what @mpkossen wrote a few weeks ago, they're paid to do it, so that's their job. in this case, I'm highlightning an offer that was posted that doesn't obey to LEB rules, and even wrote there about it, ended up being ignored. I do agree that LEb needs more interesting offers.

    Yes, I ignored your comments on purpose. That is because I distance myself with decision making. I don't even change pricing when the provider changed their minds, I let someone else decide if that's ok. I don't even publish my posts automatically, I just put it under "Pending Review" status. I only edit things that are very minor. Just explaining my position so that you don't expect too much of me :p

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @jcaleb,

    Sure thing. I have no doubts you're a great guy, and you do a great work.

    Until now, the post is still up, wasn't removed at all. Should have been.

    In the time you posted it, you double checked if WHOIS was private or not. If no valid VAT was provided and WHOIS is private, then it should be your decision to not post it or, at least, to inquire about it. It's a false lead. You never know what may happen with a serious company, and that's even worse with a random company, that sounds nothing but a scam.
    It's just a SYS server, with a bare whmcs installation, no contacts in their website, nothing at all.
    If you're paid to do so, then you should put a little more effort IMHO. I'm not judging you, or saying you do a bad work. I said it was a mistake and until now, it wasn't corrected yet.

  • Eh, I remember the time when LEB had all sorts of fishy offers, and people reading already knew it's not up to LEB to tell them if it's legit or not, it's up to readers to decide if they want to give it a shot. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The day LEB become a place where you expect to see only 100% verified offers is the day LEB started dying.

    Most obvious example, BuyVM. Look up their first offer on LEB.

    Thanked by 1vRozenSch00n
  • MrGeneral said: Until now, the post is still up, wasn't removed at all. Should have been.

    You think it should have been.

    How would removing it benefit anybody but the host itself? The warning is out there now. If we remove it, there's no warning anymore. What happened happened; let's more forward.

    MrGeneral said: In the time you posted it, you double checked if WHOIS was private or not. If no valid VAT was provided and WHOIS is private, then it should be your decision to not post it or, at least, to inquire about it. It's a false lead. You never know what may happen with a serious company, and that's even worse with a random company, that sounds nothing but a scam. It's just a SYS server, with a bare whmcs installation, no contacts in their website, nothing at all. If you're paid to do so, then you should put a little more effort IMHO. I'm not judging you, or saying you do a bad work. I said it was a mistake and until now, it wasn't corrected yet.

    It's not Jonathan's job to do that, it's my job. So don't take this out on him. He's a great guy and he's doing an amazing job writing the offers. No need to take shots at him.

    You make it sound like the end of the world, while it's just a tiny mistake that has meanwhile backfired on the host. I think there's no way this could have ended better: the host seems to try to hide who they are, they get some bad feedback in return.

    @vedran said:
    Eh, I remember the time when LEB had all sorts of fishy offers, and people reading already knew it's not up to LEB to tell them if it's legit or not, it's up to readers to decide if they want to give it a shot. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The day LEB become a place where you expect to see only 100% verified offers is the day LEB started dying.

    Most obvious example, BuyVM. Look up their first offer on LEB.

    Exactly this! The community is our power and I'm working hard to give the community the tools they need to use that power (like e-mail notifications on LEB comments).

    Fishy offers will always be on LET occasionally, just like offers from established hosts. It's been like that for years and that's one of the things I don't think we should change.

    Thanked by 3jar vRozenSch00n vedran
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited October 2015

    The most well intentioned way to kill something is to "improve" it into oblivion. No one would read LEB if it were an automated rotation of repeat offers from the top hosts. Shady offers spark discussion, they encourage investigation, they keep community interested. This thread is only evidence of that.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited October 2015

    mpkossen said: He's a great guy and he's doing an amazing job writing the offers.

    We're not questioning if he's a good guy (I know he is indeed), but @jcaleb is arguing that he will not question anything if an offer is marked as ok to write about. I don't think that's amazing when crap like this clearly breaking your own rules gets repeatedly published.

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • @Nyr said:
    We're not questioning if he's a good guy (I know he is indeed), but jcaleb is arguing that he will not question anything if an offer is marked as ok to write about. I don't think that's amazing when crap like this clearly breaking your own rules gets repeatedly published.

    The company you refer to in that thread seems to be using Blesta, not WHMCS. I wonder how that makes you conclude the use a nulled WHMCS?

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    mpkossen said: The company you refer to in that thread seems to be using Blesta, not WHMCS. I wonder how that makes you conclude the use a nulled WHMCS?

    They seem to have switched after being called out instead of paying. Can check for yourself, the links in the August offer point to cart.php and they are now getting redirected to Blesta.

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited October 2015

    mpkossen said: You make it sound like the end of the world, while it's just a tiny mistake that has meanwhile backfired on the host.

    People possibly loosing money is no joke.

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • @William said:

    It seems like you're insinuating it's somehow our responsibility how other people spend their money. You make us sound more important than we are.

    Thanked by 1retry
  • So, since we're almost on the subject, what do people actually want? Bearing in mind time and resource is a factor, would you rather have thoroughly researched offers with a much lower number posted, or loads of offers but you have to do your own due diligence?

    Thanked by 1mpkossen
  • Nekki said: So, since we're almost on the subject, what do people actually want? Bearing in mind time and resource is a factor, would you rather have thoroughly researched offers with a much lower number posted, or loads of offers but you have to do your own due diligence?

    I think I would prefer fewer offers that are less likely to be scams but also are among the better deals .

    E.g. OVH resellers suck 99% of the time, cut the 99%. Or "50% off" 10->$5 512MB RAM VPS's in DE/FR/NL etc. you get my point.

  • NekkiNekki Veteran
    edited October 2015

    @4n0nx said:
    E.g. OVH resellers suck 99% of the time, cut the 99%. Or "50% off" 10->$5 512MB RAM VPS's in DE/FR/NL etc. you get my point.

    So you're happy with less offers, but you'd restrict the offers to a certain set of criteria that would require extra review time (meaning less offers still) around suppliers and some metric around value for money based on current market conditions?

  • Nekki said: So you're happy with less offers, but you'd restrict the offers to a certain set of criteria that would require extra review time (meaning less offers still) around suppliers and some metric around value for money based on current market conditions?

    Hmm I guess it would be difficult to make up a set of criteria that is easy to review and understand... :(

    But you probably agree that "$5.04/month 512MB and $6.57/month 1GB OpenVZ in France" resold from OVH does not exactly make sense when you can have this?: https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/vps-ssd.xml

    So maybe only very few criteria that slightly limit the amount of offers, but greatly enhance the average offer quality? :>

    Thanked by 1rm_
This discussion has been closed.