To be honest I was here for the sig-bomb. Until the new BST comes out, there is not a lot of options.
But on a serious note, the first clue that you were an outsider pretending to be one of us was wezcountry's post and your follow up reply. [Reference: above interaction]
Anyone that's an insider would know this comment was actually neutral and even a compliment to your story. But you being an outsider didn't realize that, and your follow up comment is what ensued Julian's trolling.
I can go in-depth into how you fucked up the OP and why people think you are a spammer, but simply not understanding what wezcountry meant is enough for the general audience to come to the conclusion of why you are here - shit it's why I'm here - to get exposure for would be customers. We're actual marketers and even marketers get marketed to. Out of curiosity I did browse your website, but seeing that I know I eat up up-to 2TB a day in new storage, there is absolutely no way I would go with your service, besides showing your professionalism by you making a fool of yourself and getting caught in Julian's trolling whirlwind. I never heard of you. Maybe I setup my operation at your place and then you go out of business in a month, I don't know you. I know Linode, Rackspace, LiquidWeb, fuck even Hostgator is more reliable then an "unknown".
So Julian's first post literally explains what a dickroll is, but you harped in on the spamming part. If you were smart you would have done several things differently. First in the OP of this thread you would have written about your own experience and started a dialog, that way any would-be thread de-railer would have a higher barrier to entry to derail the thread. You opted for the lazy 1 fuck sentence of linking to the story and "What do you think?" - I think you are a fucking spammer that's what I think... Xrumer can't create more interaction then your 2 sentence post. Imagine that, a fucking automated robot software can create better interaction then your attempt in your OP.
But let's say you went and gave a 200-1000 word story of shit you've experience or been in, you are now "ADDING VALUE" to the story and now there is a reason to discuss further and take this thread into a positive direction. I'm sure every single person here can tell you campfire stories of horrible operations they've been at or heard about, you went with the lazy spammer route of linking to a story and stating "What do you think?" - I think you are a fucking spammer with shitty cheap service. You might even have good service, but 50% off the bat in your sig, that tells me you think we are cheapskates and have no other value while selling your servers - not even being able to at the very least offer reliable support with a competitive edge.
Rackspace is a bit busy hosting seminars that actually help web developers like this one where Twitter talks about how they're scaling with Redis... versus posting about nonsense pretending to be an insider in a community.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP9EKvWt0zo[/ame]
That's what they do "ADD VALUE", I know marketing and engaging a community might be lost upon some, but gather around children, let me give you a step by step break down.
1. Don't spam ANY forum with useless threads. If you "ADD VALUE" to an article you saw on the outside, your Shooting the Shit thread will go a lot further.
2. Don't use your company name as your username, that screams spam to anyone with half a brain.
3. Don't annoy the shit out of every single person with your shitty threads and absolutely NEVER pretend to be an insider when you are in fact an outsider. [Reference: "dickrolling" explanation]
4. Create content that "ADDs VALUE", Example If I'm a hosting company, I first would create a unique piece on the different benefits of hosting environments, and post it in the newbie section (or another appropriate section). *cough*Hosting & Domains*cough*. "Why linux is great for this environment, why windows is horrible for anyone with a brain, etc". That would be my first piece. If anyone comes in trying to troll, I ignore them, and keep posting useful post in the thread. Trolls will soon realize they will not get a reaction. The first thing you should have done with Julian's first post was just ignore it and post a second experience that you knew of about working at a horrible place - moving the conversation along. If a troll saw that, they might try again, but would risk being seen as a de-railer to a good thread (but you have to start out with a good foundation in the OP - yours was a spammer's OP, a lazy spammer too - no added value).
5. Next I would look for "RECENT" threads where I can help people that might be stuck on something, whether it be .htaccess, wordpress blank screen, blocking IPs using IPtable, or some thing that a hosting company can add value to. If there is none, I would create a second helpful piece, and continue this cycle of helping people in the community, while writing great content or at least newbie guides for people shopping around for hosting, cloud space, storage, or anything that I might directly be a part of OR just can help with - this is called "community engagement". I know, you may have seen some of these "authoritative members" do the same...
Whether you are posting a STS or newbie guide, or helping out a lost other member, "ADDING VALUE" is the key to becoming a member people can trust, respect, and eventually go to for services in ANY community.
--
Take away, I think you should read my Market Research thread. You would quickly realize that your target audience might just well be at WarriorForum - the people selling the WSOs and ebooks need reliable hosting - versus selling directly to the crowd of people that have no clue how to make their first dollar online and are starting out.
You aren't going to necessarily find it here since most people are going to go with known brands they can trust and rely on since they know they won't go out of business in the next week and leave people scrambling to move whole operations. Linode, LiquidWeb, Rackspace - those are guys I don't know directly but I've seen give presentations and help within their communities, versus just spamming for sig-bombs.
You talk about me with this "authoritative members" label - but you don't seem to take cues from any direct knowledge or indirect actions I take. There are times I'm constantly in the newbie section helping out new users, cause those newbies can be future powerful allies or customers - you never know. I've met undercover trillionaires and people that run agencies that needed a source for topics I've written about - but they only approach me cause I've added enough value to the community whereas they don't think I'm just some random spammer with a sig-bomb talking about my new latest feature... or maybe I am - it doesn't matter, you simply don't reply to trolls dumby... They'll make you look like you are going in defense by every reply trying to counter their troll. [Reference: this whole thread]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP9EKvWt0zo[/ame]
That's what they do "ADD VALUE", I know marketing and engaging a community might be lost upon some, but gather around children, let me give you a step by step break down.
1. Don't spam ANY forum with useless threads. If you "ADD VALUE" to an article you saw on the outside, your Shooting the Shit thread will go a lot further.
2. Don't use your company name as your username, that screams spam to anyone with half a brain.
3. Don't annoy the shit out of every single person with your shitty threads and absolutely NEVER pretend to be an insider when you are in fact an outsider. [Reference: "dickrolling" explanation]
4. Create content that "ADDs VALUE", Example If I'm a hosting company, I first would create a unique piece on the different benefits of hosting environments, and post it in the newbie section (or another appropriate section). *cough*Hosting & Domains*cough*. "Why linux is great for this environment, why windows is horrible for anyone with a brain, etc". That would be my first piece. If anyone comes in trying to troll, I ignore them, and keep posting useful post in the thread. Trolls will soon realize they will not get a reaction. The first thing you should have done with Julian's first post was just ignore it and post a second experience that you knew of about working at a horrible place - moving the conversation along. If a troll saw that, they might try again, but would risk being seen as a de-railer to a good thread (but you have to start out with a good foundation in the OP - yours was a spammer's OP, a lazy spammer too - no added value).
5. Next I would look for "RECENT" threads where I can help people that might be stuck on something, whether it be .htaccess, wordpress blank screen, blocking IPs using IPtable, or some thing that a hosting company can add value to. If there is none, I would create a second helpful piece, and continue this cycle of helping people in the community, while writing great content or at least newbie guides for people shopping around for hosting, cloud space, storage, or anything that I might directly be a part of OR just can help with - this is called "community engagement". I know, you may have seen some of these "authoritative members" do the same...
Whether you are posting a STS or newbie guide, or helping out a lost other member, "ADDING VALUE" is the key to becoming a member people can trust, respect, and eventually go to for services in ANY community.
--
Take away, I think you should read my Market Research thread. You would quickly realize that your target audience might just well be at WarriorForum - the people selling the WSOs and ebooks need reliable hosting - versus selling directly to the crowd of people that have no clue how to make their first dollar online and are starting out.
You aren't going to necessarily find it here since most people are going to go with known brands they can trust and rely on since they know they won't go out of business in the next week and leave people scrambling to move whole operations. Linode, LiquidWeb, Rackspace - those are guys I don't know directly but I've seen give presentations and help within their communities, versus just spamming for sig-bombs.
You talk about me with this "authoritative members" label - but you don't seem to take cues from any direct knowledge or indirect actions I take. There are times I'm constantly in the newbie section helping out new users, cause those newbies can be future powerful allies or customers - you never know. I've met undercover trillionaires and people that run agencies that needed a source for topics I've written about - but they only approach me cause I've added enough value to the community whereas they don't think I'm just some random spammer with a sig-bomb talking about my new latest feature... or maybe I am - it doesn't matter, you simply don't reply to trolls dumby... They'll make you look like you are going in defense by every reply trying to counter their troll. [Reference: this whole thread]
WickedFire >> Hosting & Domains
How about you go in there and help people out or create some useful UNIQUE ORIGINAL content about hosting and various problems and how to solve them...? Actually -
Carry on...
) with oneliners or really brief comments and worked just fine. Sometimes it had no impact, sometimes it started a discussion. I know I should have worked my ass off to impress you guys, but this was not the original intention. 
