Banned from Digital Point? Nearly every active member on DP has surely received an infraction or two. I’m not banned yet, but I know it’s simply a matter of time. So my thinking of late is, why be a member of DP if you are just going to get banned?

Why Am I Getting Infractions?

So you may be wondering what I have been doing to get infractions, or maybe why I think I am going to get banned? First may I say I have always been courteous on DP, and always try to follow their rules. That said, my first infraction was a real infraction if looked at today. Unfortunately, it was based on a rule that was put into action AFTER I had made the post. The moderator actually looked back and started giving infractions to members based on stuff already done prior. That is not even remotely fair.

My latest infraction was for two things that somehow occurred at the same time. It also occurred when I didn’t even make a post that day. In my email notification they stated I was spamming, and had a “Fake signature”. The email also included a link to where my infraction occurred. This lead to another unfortunate error made by DP mod because the link lead to a bad url. There infraction might have well said “For no reason in particular”. My signature is the same one that I had for weeks, and abides by their rules 100%. If they were a good moderator, and my signature was against the rules they should deleted my signature as well. It’s still up, and I am not changing it.

In regards to spamming, they could easily check my mail boxes sent folder, and see that is not true. If it’s in regards to spamming the forum with the same thread, that would seem rather strange because I did not make a post that day or the day before. Basically, I have no idea why I got the infraction.

I also did some blog reading of members that did get banned. It sound like the simple fact that I sent an email to the admin asking them why I got the infraction may lead to my banning. I saw several post where this is what happened, and it happened to seasoned regulars on DP.

Side note here: I have 99 positive iTraders  from other members and zero negatives on DP, and I additionally have several positive ups to my rep. DP members like me at least.

Is Digital Point Worth The Investment of Time?

With a ban for me looming around the corner, I started wondering if being a member of Digital Point is really worth the time. The first thing I decided to do is list why I think  I value it.

The reasons I might value DP:

• Confirm change in Google Page Rank
• WTS posts
• A way to announce new services or programs
• A small amount of traffic from my signatures
• Marketing tips

Taking what I initially thought were the top two items, traffic and WTS (Want to sell), I’m not ecstatic with what I found. First the WTS. If I were to average out what I make on a daily basis from DP, it would be under $10 a day. Using DP to make money? Not worth the time. I live in the United States, and I need to make more than $10 an hour, not a day. That means to me, I need to cross WTS value off the list.

Looking at the stats for traffic to my site this year, how much is my signature really worth? Being a little lazy I am also including the traffic I get from threads I have that link to my site. My total traffic for the past 150 days, 586. That’s just under four visitors a day average. Time to cross off traffic and signature value from the list. I get better traffic from StumbleUpon, and I very rarely stumble anything. What if I spent my DP time doing that?

The other three items listed, announcing services, finding marketing tips, and Google PR I can pretty easily do anywhere else just as effectively. I have the Google Toolbar so I pretty much always know what my sites PR is. I don’t really need to go to DP to see if the changes are true or not. In regards to announcing services, if you read my last paragraph you can see how un-effective that is on DP. In regards to marketing tips, just search Google, using their toolbar again, for “Marketing Tips”. Who needs a forum to do that? DP’s marketing tips are mostly rewrites of previous marketing tip threads anyhow.

Site Feedback

One of the items I used to like on DP was their feedback section. You could post a thread asking other member what they thought of your website. To make a post in this section you are required to give feedback on certain amount of other sites first. Sounds like a good idea, and it used to work. Now a days though, all you see is “looks great” or “I agree with previsous comment”. New members are simply making their required feedback comments as quickly as possible so they can get their link up. Crap feedback, so you can get a link up that will get you crap traffic. Note to some of you new DP members: You could get an infraction or banned for doing this. Of course you can get an infraction or banned for doing nothing on DP as well.

Banning Digital Point

So after thinking it all out, I am on the verge of banning myself from using Digital Point. It’s not worth the time, at least for me, and I don’t see the value. If you are someone that does make a good living from Digital Point, you still need to consider finding other revenue streams. One wrong post, and your life at DP could be over. God forbid if someone in your house creates a DP account as well. Two DP accounts with the same IP. Good way to get banned. My biggest problem is that I have been a member for three years. The habbit is hard to break, even if my reasoning says spending time on DP is pointless. What’s my DP name? It’s pointless.

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