Pointless forum threads

Some forum threads are totally pointless. They have been referred to as "dead on arrival" (DOA). They can waste a lot of members time for no reason and should be avoided.

Departure posts

People who are unhappy with their web sites' ratings sometimes start threads to tell other forum participants that they have uninstalled WOT and will not be visiting the forum again. Usually instead of mentioning the site they consider misrated or the particular thing they think WOT should do differently, they call the entire WOT system worthless. It's sure to get an angry response from people who volunteer a lot of time contributing ratings to WOT.

There's no point continuing a thread if the Original Poster (OP) has quit and won't read it. It's best to ignore such threads.

Trolls

Trolls amuse themselves by creating inflammatory posts just to watch people get angry and argue against them. They have no interest in sharing or learning new information. Although they aren't completely absent from the thread, they might as well be.

There's no point spending a lot of time creating a carefully crafted rebuttal to a position the troll doesn't even believe himself. Again, it's best to ignore such threads. They only make the forum less welcoming to new people coming in on the middle of angry and pointless discussions.

How NOT to be mistaken for a troll

Plenty of people come to WOT forums with legitimate concerns and grievances. A productive discussion can improve your website and get you a strongly positive WOT review. But a discussion that starts out badly can get worse quickly. Tips for starting a thread when you have a problem:

• Read the Forum Guidelines

• Read the wiki. (We recognize it can be difficult to find. If you found this page, congratulations, you're in the right section.) There is a lot of information in the wiki about how WOT works and about what criteria people will use to rate your web site. They are called "Frequently Asked Questions" for a reason. If you ask people to spend their time addressing a complaint that is already answered here, it is disrespectful of forum members' time. If you ask for your website to be rated before making sure you have appropriate privacy and security, it makes your site's shortcomings seem more significant than its strengths.

• Mention the website you're concerned about. Don't make vague complaints that there are misrated websites. Of course there are misrated websites. Otherwise there would be no need for anyone to add their own ratings. If you want YOUR web site's rating to be corrected, let people know what it is.

• Be specific and honest about your problems. Don't pretend you have no idea why there's a bad rating. If your site was hacked and had a phishing page on it, hey, it happens to the best of us. Tell us how you addressed the vulnerability and secured your site. Tell us what other rating sites and blacklists you've contacted to remove the negative ratings. Give us a timeline so we can correlate the problems you've corrected with the dates of negative comments.

• If you have complaints about the behavior of any particular people, post evidence. For instance, if all the members of a rival forum discussed trashing your forum's ratings, post a link or screen shot of the thread. If a political blogger made a suggestion that people should express their opinions on your WOT scorecard, post a link to that article.

• If your site is controversial, try to maintain distance on your own views. Tell forum members what the issues discussed on your site are and why you feel your site is making a valid contribution to the public debate. You have a right to free speech; other people have a right to consider your site untrustworthy if they feel it is distorting or concealing facts. People who vote your site down just because they don't agree probably will have very little weight to their reputation. Ratings from them won't have much effect.

• Use your head before you type, and read your message several times in "preview" mode before you post. The WOT members with the strongest reputations -- the ones whose ratings can help your site the most -- contribute a lot of time here. If you tell them you think WOT is a complete waste of their time, you're not starting out on the right foot. If you have an argument about something a particular member wrote, be respectful and understand that most people are trying to help you. Members with high reputations get them by being quick to correct any errors that are pointed out to them. If you are belligerent, you're not likely to effectively communicate the reason you feel they have made mistakes, and you won't get corrective action. And you won't gather sympathy from other members who do respect them. WOT forum members have more sites asking for ratings than they have time to rate; you don't want your site to be the last one on everyone's list for review.

• That being said, it's true that there are some people with high activity scores who can be disagreeable. Activity score is not the same as reputation, and being "Platinum" doesn't mean your ratings are more meaningful. There are people who are quick to take offense over things that are merely problems with machine translations between your languages. There are people who have personality issues. If they can't get past those shortcomings to rate objectively, they aren't likely to have high reputations. They aren't the people who can change your site's reputation much one way or the other. Don't be too quick to become defensive and get sucked into arguments with such people; just make sure you are stating your position clearly and let the other members help you steer the discussion in a more moderate direction.