Got your attention with my subject line, didn't I? Well it's not just an attention getter. It is 100% TRUE as of the time of this blog posting!! (I am sure the admin will be wearing out the delete key on his keyboard after reading this.)
Let's review a few facts first and remember the areas noted in Red.
Exhibit A
As we ALL know HauntSpace claims to be 'Family friendly'. The admin claims impeccable integrity. The admin of HauntSpace in a response to his own latest forum topic claims "I have to iron fist here". He also claims to have the best hand picked moderation team he has ever had.
Exhibit B
On to a direct quote from the Terms of Service on the site:
SOLE RE-DIRECTING is strictly prohibited! Definition: Any member that posts, places links or banners on any part of HauntSpace with the SOLE intention of directing members to another social network, blog, forum or social site of ANY kind will be in violation of Terms Of Service. An occasional mention of a network of such kind will be acceptable. Members that contribute appropriate information and material on HauntSpace will be taken into consideration if they have links to email lists or forums. The key to this TOS is "sole" intention. At NO TIME will the promotion of another HauntSpace style network will be appropriate.
Profiles must NOT contain or link to sites, blogs or photogalleries, that contain nudity, slander, pornography or sexually seductive material. Racism will not be tolerated. Such members that violate this policy will be deleted without notice.
Exhibit C
Here we have an excerpt from his latest forum post:
3. REDIRECTION is NOT appropriate here.. If you have a web-site, link it to your page. If you come here and CONSTANTLY direct people to your site, you're going to get the boot. When I say promotion, I mean this.......
A) I have a new business and need some exposure. (as long as you don't go out of control with spam)
B) Haunt promotions, Haunted Yard locations, Haunted Attractions and stuff like that are ALWAYS welcome.
Exhibit D
To which SpookyMadison posted this reply:
I AGREE...THE CONSTANT REDIRECTS ARE A PAIN IN THE BUTT
Before we go any further, let's remember that SpookyMadison is one of the admins hand picked members of the best moderating team he has ever had.
Wellllllll... what you are about to see is going to contradict EVERYTHING that was posted by the admin of HauntSpace & one of his favorite moderators SpookyMadison. It also is in direct violation of the Terms of Service of the site.
Exhibit E
Let's start now with SpookyMadison's incessant links to her off-site page.
She has a link to her "Spooky Madison's Halloween" page, on not only her own personal page on HauntSpace but in 5 of the 7 groups she created on HauntSpace. (The Xs before & after the groups shown below, indicate the groups listed on her page, also containing the off-site link.)
If you click on her link, which looks like this:
It will take you to her web page.
Scroll down, not even half way, and you will see her "Recent Blog Entries" on the right. Click on the blog titled "Guess Who's Coming For" and you will see this:
Exhibit F
Now that you are done either puking, picking your jaw up off the floor and/or pushing your eyeballs back in their sockets, I have to ask you...
Does Exhibit F appear to be "Family Friendly" in any sense of the term? Would you want your 13 year old daughter reading this trash? Is it even Halloween related at all? Absolutely NOT!!
If the admin had ounce of real integrity he would "iron fist" on HauntSpace, starting with booting SpookyMadison from the site as per the Terms of Service Violations quoted in Exhibit B & Exhibit C and the violations displayed by her in Exhibits E & F. However he continuously ignores the numerous & flagrant violations by her while booting members from the site who have NOT violated the Terms of Service but simply for his own personal reasons.
SpookyMadison contradicts her own actions of posting numerous re-directs as in Exhibit E with her comment under Exhibit D.
As for the claim in Exhibit A of having the best moderating team he has ever had, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that you rarely even see them on there & when you do, it is the same few. Who could blame them?!! How are they, in all good conscience, supposed to impose the Terms of Service of the site on other members when at least one of their fellow moderators violates them openly & repeatedly and in fact, with the blessing of the admin himself on at least one occassion?
I can honestly say that if I were a sponsor on the site, I would be taking note of things such as the member Susan, who used to be the top blogger & commented frequently to postings, now hardly posts anything at all. That other, once highly active & noticable, members are also virtually invisible on the site. The targeted demographic of true haunters that were once a potential buyer of a sponsor's goods, have all faded into the background.
Just looking at SpookyMadison's page a sponsor can see that she is not likely to buy from them. She does not have so much as a single picture of one solitary Halloween decoration in her home. She does not have a single picture of her in a Halloween costume. What she does have on her page are countless violations of the Terms of Service of the site and many friends who are only there for the social aspect of the site, with no sale potential either.
After noting all of this, I would make one more note, that being part of the welcoming statement on the main page...
HAUNTSPACE.COM IS, the ELITE, WORLDWIDE Halloween, Haunted House Social Network without exception. The members here are compassionate and continue to STRIVE for excellence.
Home Haunters, Yard Haunters, Garage Haunters, Pro Attraction Owners and Halloween Buffs are ALL welcome here. Our community has a ZERO tolerance policy and absolute TOS adherence.HauntSpace is your WORLDWIDE connection to those that take the industry, season seriously. The only Elite part of the site is that it's administrator seems to cause more drama with his rants than any of it's members & all of the other Halloween site administrators combined.
The Zero tolerance policy and absolute TOS adherence is an outright lie because if it were the truth, I would not have had to consider noting the items related to SpookyMadison previously.
Is SpookyMadison an example of one of those on this Elite site, who take the industry & season seriously? I can see with my own eyes she and probably more than 3 quarters of her friends list are NOT!
So taking all of my notes into consideration and the fact that the client base & strictly focused demographic that I thought I was getting for my advertising dollar on HauntSpace is no longer what it was, what do I do? Well, there is only one logical answer to that. With the economy in the state that it is in and the numerous Halloween sites that are out there, I would have no choice but to take my limited advertising dollars and put them to where they will be more beneficial to my business. I can either:
A. Increase my advertising on another site that I already make sales on.
or
B. Start advertising on a new site now, so I have time to acquaint more serious buyers with my products, adjust my inventory based on their specific industry needs and have a greater potential for sales.
*For previous blogs concerning the controversies of HauntSpace go to my MySpace Blogs
