Interesting stats...

[vrocks]

There are now 3665 active members here at LinkSpun. Total trades just broke 750,000, however, only about 191,000 of them are active (meaning both links are up). That is 52 trades per member. I think I will have to pull active members as having logged in since Xmas, 2011. That makes it 1300 active users. So 147 or so active trades per active user.

I have 1500 active trades... I must be pretty active!

I have been blocked by 15 of you...

The most blocked user has 188 users who have blocked him and he has over 3,000 active trades.

I think some day soon I will come up with an acceptable percentage of blocks vs. active trades. Obviously the most blocked user is doing good with active trades and therefor has nothing to worry about. There is nothing wrong with getting blocked for simply being very active, but when you have 100 blocks and only 300 trades I think it becomes obvious you are a problem child.

Right now I am looking at someone with 107 blocks and 330 active trades. All of his pages are subdomains of one site.

Another 106 blocks and 472 trades with all subdomains.

104, 526...

96, 2447

93, 1694

86, 2565

80, 2254

72, 5540

62. 5450

61, 338

60, 408 - This user got banned because all of his link back links were from open directories... Meaning, if you do a trade with me, I simply go to a directory that accepts any link without a reciprocal link back and add you to them... This is against our TOS since you don't own the domain you are linking back from or have a legally obtained responsibility to handle their linking assignments.


So from all of this I think it is safe to say that 1:10 is an acceptable number of users blocking you to how many active trades you have. A lot of you have crookednic(sp?) or 123anddone blocked... But they also have thousands of active trades respectively.

After some research it appears that Mr. 107, Mr. 106, Mr. 104 and 61 are the same person!

And with all of the nicks combined they have approx:

500 blocks and 2166 active trades... 1:4 which is well below the 1:10 and pretty much 98% of active traders are 1:30 or more...

If I banned this person there would be about 2166 trades out there left hanging... I am not going to contact the 100 or so users... So any ideas?

[vrocks]

More numbers...

It seems the most active traders like Mr 188 blocks and 3000 active trades have about a 7:1 ratio of denials to trades going active.

The annoying guy is about 9:1 to 10:1 on each account. Most people are more like myself... I only have 73 denied trades... total!

That puts me in a 1:20... For every denied trade I have 20 go active. Of course this metric is a bit skewed because I very rarely actually ask for a trade. Usually I just accept the trades others are already offering me...

But then again... All you have to do is block an annoying trader and you don't have to worry about them ever again. Except when they add another account like this guy and keep annoying you with that account...

[Hincapie]

Its interesting stats indeed - but equally, I dont really see a need to ban even the most annoying of users....afterall, we have a one-click solution to get rid of them, the block. So, given they do have active trades, someone must like to trade with them - and I kinda think they should be allowed to.

[vrocks]

Its interesting stats indeed - but equally, I dont really see a need to ban even the most annoying of users....afterall, we have a one-click solution to get rid of them, the block. So, given they do have active trades, someone must like to trade with them - and I kinda think they should be allowed to.

Yeah, you do have a point. The only point towards curbing this kind of activity is that the most annoying REAL active trader with only one account is 180 points of annoying. This other guy is over 500 points of annoying. One third of the active traders have blocked him. If he creates another account for another subdomain he is equally annoying...

But then I guess when you really think about it he was one annoying guy to each of the 1/3 about 2 times in a year. Not really that annoying when you think about it.

[kinkybrian]

I'm pretty sure I have active trades with both crookednic and 123anddone and have had a good experience with those trades.

I've been blocking lots of folks who don't have sites in English, only because I don't want to weed through their sites when looking for trades.

[vrocks]

I'm pretty sure I have active trades with both crookednic and 123anddone and have had a good experience with those trades.

I've been blocking lots of folks who don't have sites in English, only because I don't want to weed through their sites when looking for trades.

Yeah, all German webmasters are blocked by the same 30 or so people that don't want to weed through their stuff.

[greenguy]

I know that I deny a lot of trades because people can't or don't read my "bio" :

Niche or multi-niche specific trades. English only. Not all keywords: "Joe's Anal Sex" not "Anal Sex" No popups/consoles/tubes/forums/paysites Have a nice day!

I get a lot of tube site requests & a lot of requests to pages that don't match the niche on the requested page. I also get a lot of non-English trades.

But, I will say that I don't block someone unless they become really annoying & keep requesting links that I won't do.

I've only been here for 3-1/2 months & I have 1234 active trades with 187 outgoing trade requests

That last part is just me patting myself on the back

[fetishbank]

Its interesting stats indeed - but equally, I dont really see a need to ban even the most annoying of users....afterall, we have a one-click solution to get rid of them, the block. So, given they do have active trades, someone must like to trade with them - and I kinda think they should be allowed to.

I must agree with Hincapie. This is a (great) market where people buy and sell a little bit of everything. And this market is big and nice because there's a bit of everything...

Beside the pure ratio active vs blocked and so on there are other factors to be considerated. At least there are 6 or 7 different kind of traders looking for very different things and all with their own specific requirements. Some examples:

- Blogs, mostly looking for pure seo links
- Quality blog looking for quality trades (with traffic)
- Paysites (with very specific linking requirements)
- Tubes (some don't want to trade with them, some look for them)
- Landing pages with nothing but advertising
- German cam sites

I suppose the 75% of pages belong to first group. People in the first group are most likely willing to trade with member of the same group. In my opinion (vrock please tell me if I'm right) this group should have the best ratio. That just because many people are looking for the same thing, so it is an easy match.

Most of you know user blogstargirl. She runs high quality blog with heavy traffic. Her requirements are obviously very high. She only can list a limited number of sites, she will send some traffic so she's aspecting to receive some back, she must only list high quality sites (otherwise will lower the value of her blog), the anchor must be suitable for a high quality blog. I assume she would never accept "The Best Site Ever" as anchor... this just to name a few requirements. I bet 95% of requests go denied. User Hincapie, who run mostly paysites, has probably similar requirements.

I'm in another niche. I run a directory, I've many pages and a single domain, so most blogs looking for pure seo traffic will be probably denying my requests. Also, a good amount of them are not interested in getting listed in pages with a lot of outgoing links, even thought my page have real traffic. lol. I'm most interested in listing quality sites rather than getting good spots, as the links on my pages are the content of my site. I can only list sites that are in context with the page (category), with a fair title (anchor) and whose conent can be interesting for my users. I think user greenguy, who run similar sites, will agree with me.

I've been here for three months and I have about 500 active trades. Most of them came from my own requests. I sending a lot of trades request. I try to send one for user, but when doing intensive campaigns, first or later, you "spam" somebody who will ban you. I'm sure I've got an over-average % of ban. What I'm trying to say is: the more request you send, the most likely you risk to got banned. You won't get banned, if you never ask for a trade.

There are many profiles without description. Description help to choose the linking partners, so guys, go and fill your profile! I try to remember who are the guys who are willing to trade with me and the ones who replied saying "no, thanks because bla bla bla"... That's much appreciated, I try to comply not sending mismatching trades, but sometimes it's hard to remember all the users by nick! Much easier if the profile has an avatar, so, again, guys, go and add your avatar. It helps doing better business. Not convinced ? Vrock spoken about user 123anddone and crookednic. I do remember 123anddone because of his avatar, boxes with bottles. I do remember I set some trades with him, while some went denied. I probably have traded with crookednic but I can't remind him...

To make a long story short, I would not change the system.

We are having an interesting conversation, though...

[123anddone]

i do deny trades that i request because then i check if site is even indexed by Google, and how much real outbound links it has.

because there are users that have few thousand active trades, but 40% of their sites is not indexed by Google.

also i think that LS should have option to select language of your sites, because now we have army of Germans here, and they should be separated from all us with English sites, because it's annoying to block few Germans each day.

blw what is highest number of active trades ?

[anexsia]

I have been using Link Spun for awhile and just now started using the block button lol . I've been denying a lot of trades lately because of several reasons: Lots of dating, penis pill, and webcam sites asking for links from my micro-niche specific blogs, traders having pages that are nothing but hundreds of links and no content (seriously...some people setup sub pages that are plain html sites with just outgoing hardlinks!), non-english trades, and some people that have just really low quality websites.

Thankfully though, there's a lot of good traders here and you kinda start remembering/becoming familiar with the users that have quality websites and are good people to trade with.

[Relentless]

Is there a way to see how many people have blocked you?
I like the idea that it is anonymous, but some users I am guessing have no idea how annoying they are since people block them rather than telling them.

It would be helpful on the profile page to show 'You have been blocked by X users'
At least as some kind of private feedback for people to see.

[vrocks]

Going to add this in...


On a side note:
Should having a block on me get you a ban?

Germans really don't like me for some reason... 90% of my blocks are Germans...
And I don't make requests... I basically only accept/deny requests made to me...

[vrocks]

One user has favorited 470 other users.
After that it is
114
67
47
and slowly tapers off from there.

Most favorited users:
26
26
28
34

By far more people get blocked than get favorited...

The second most blocked user is also the fourth most favorited.

The most favorited user is German. Odd because he is also one of the few users I have banned. lol... He isn't banned anymore.

The most favorited users list somewhat follows the members list in the forums sorted for most posts.

[vrocks]

Is there a way to see how many people have blocked you?
I like the idea that it is anonymous, but some users I am guessing have no idea how annoying they are since people block them rather than telling them.

It would be helpful on the profile page to show 'You have been blocked by X users'
At least as some kind of private feedback for people to see.

Your profile will now show this information. I can see that either Jdoughs or Drocd was putting something in place to also allow you to edit your blocked list from the Manage Profile screen. As I have more time I will finish what they started.