Jun 10 2008
People on Message Boards Can Be Scary
As anyone who read my last post knows, I’m working on a Beijing website at the moment. I’m attempting to build an area guide to make it easy for new arrivals to see what the main residential areas are and where they’re located in the city. This kind of information would have been great when I first arrived but I couldn’t find anything like it. So I guess I’ve got to build it myself! Yay!
To build this section of the site I need a list of the residential areas and I need to know where they are. I’ve been here for over a month but I’m still wandering around in a semi-permanent state of confusion. So I need some help. I made an initial post on Beijing’s main forum community, The Beijinger, and got some good suggestions for areas. Then, after having complied a list, I made a second post to the forum to see if my list seemed ok and if anyone had more suggestions for other areas I could add.
Well most people have been really helpful and full of suggestions, a couple have been arseholes, which can be expected on any forum, and one guy has suggested that I shouldn’t be using the forum for free information since I will be profiting from my website in the future. The guy is sort of a dick, but it got me wondering whether he has a point.
Is it fair to hit up internet forums for information that I will eventually be using to earn money from? Would it be better to make it clear from the start what my motives are and then go from there? I eventually listed exactly what I planned to do with the information since I’m not aiming to hide anything and I’ve only been met with interest and more suggestions.
I get free help all the time from sites like Digitalpoint and the Google Maps people but is it different when a forum is aimed at webmasters? Other people post events all the time to the Beijinger forum with an aim at making money, why should asking for help on a website be any different, especially when my site’s information will be free?
Is this guy just being a jerk, or does he have a point?
I’m curious to see the reaction when I make a post looking for paid writers. I bed there will be plenty of suspicious people rearing their heads. I’m not sure what it is about the crowd on these forums but they’re a testy bunch. The people on the London forums never gave me so much hassle!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
He’s being a jerk - he doesn’t have to help you if he doesn’t want to.
Hell yeah it’s ok to “hit up internet forums for information that [you] will eventually be using to earn money from”. You’re compiling information which people will pay a “fee” for. They’re not paying for that one specific bit of info from one specific forum. People will be paying you for the compilation of data as well as all of your blood, sweat, & tears you poured into the site.
I don’t think its anything to worry about. You’re consolidating the information and placing it into an easy-to-read format. Forums tend to be hit or miss in terms of helpfulness, and I’m convinced that there’s at least 2 or 3 people on any forum who’s sole purpose is to antagonize and make as many people as possible have a miserable experience.
Totall agree with the above.
Legally you’re not doing anything wrong. You are not violating copyrights as long as you don’t copy the whole forum or longer excerpts from posts. Second, the money part. You are adding value by compiling freely available info and giving it a structure, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t earn some money from it. That’s what gidebook companies like Lonely Planet have been doing for ages.
There are a lot of weird people on that forum. Although I have had plenty of laughs by some posts. I also get ideas for posts reading through the forums. I have my signature in my url and I don’t think I have ever had a referral from that site. People really seem to think you have an ulterior motive. They should check out some internet marketing forums.
The person who runs the forums is making money from people writing there for free, is s/he evil?
That guy (the jerk) uses the forum to vent his arseholeness, he should be using a shrink for that, not a free forum.
I depends I think I had a big run in with someone who was writing an ebook on how to write hubpages on both the hubpages forum and warriorforum. I was furious because the hubpages forums are great for getting dumb questions answered and I felt exploited because she asked dumb questions and then got responses from some of us then at the same time she was over at warriorforums saying she was writing an ebook as a hubpage expert!
I think what you did was fine because u were upfront which as others say: also u are developing a website not an info product so that others can see the info without paying upfront.
Also Id be a little bit wary about mentioning a website with Adsense on it if there are jerks on the forum - if you know what I mean
Meh…
On the one hand, I’d be a little offended if you came into my community whether virtual or real and started asking me and my neighbors to give you information and help before you had contributed in some significant way to said community. That’s not to say you hadn’t contributed on that forum, but the first post you mentioned was made a couple of days after registration…
On the other hand….It’s not like you’re compiling the information that they’re giving you (or that you could get anywhere for that matter….for free) and then selling that information. If the site will be similar to the London site, then it will clearly be a place that has clear and concise information that is FREE for the reader. As Webjourneyman said, the forum is making money off of what others write…seems a bit ironic that people are complaining about what you are doing. I can’t see investing energy in something I take a negative view on…it’s a waste, so my conclusion is that the complainers are jerks and not yours to worry about.
Ok good to know. I suspected he was just a wanker.
Lissie that’s pretty rotten… passing yourself off as an expert, taking information from the true experts and then packaging it into a product! Pretty cheeky.
Will I know what you mean. I think I’d made a couple posts previous to that one but nothing really contributing, always asking stuff. I could probably stand to contribute more and certainly will once I get the knowledge. I will certainly be linking to that forum because, besides the roaming packs of arseholes, it’s packed with amazingly helpful info.
That guy is being an ass, I wouldn’t sweat it - then again, I doubt if I would post that I’m compiling data for a book/site whatever either.
You are putting the work into compiling the data into a site, maybe the guys just mad he didn’t think of it first
The guy is a jerk in my opinion! What you were doing is perfectly reasonable!
I’d say that as long as you’re follwoing the Forum’s stated rules and arn’t being spammy you’re just fine. The guy is probably one of those bitter people who troll the internet to make others feel bad.