Hiya, Kiddies!

Just wanted to give you folks a little taste of the stuff that goes on
BEHIND the scenes in getting you the swaps. This may sound like a bit of
personal "back patting", and perhaps it partly is. But it's mainly to give
you an idea of what kind of oddness it takes to get you the swaps every
week.

In an average week I spend...
5 hours doing the actual figuring out the ad swaps for the week, typing in
the swap info into the tables, and sending it up to the site.

2 hours updating the weekly ad copy sent in, adding new groups, doing fixes
of links, getting the new exclusions set up, noting who's on vacation for
that week, etc.

2 hours updating my database of "who swapped with who" so you hopefully
don't get the same ads over and over.

1 hour writing to the folks that send in the above, making sure the ad copy
is right, etc,

1 hour (in a normal week) chasing down complaints of "why didn't so-and-so
send me an ad swap verification", and trying to convince all to make sure
their verifications are standard so everyone can understand them. this has
greatly decreased since the time I put out the standardization of the
verifications. this usually also includes trying to calm down the original
complainer so they don't up and leave the program over a stupid ad
verification.

1/2 hour trolling thru many sources looking for and inviting new groups to
join up.

This all goes on behind the scenes, and you folks see it all as a single
post telling you that the swaps are ready, with an update of the new groups,
and perhaps a relevant news items I've stumbled across during the week.

That's a normal week. I do it gladly, because I really want everyone to get
more members...including myself.

But THIS week, it was decided by someone to go public with what normally
stays behind the scenes. And since it was done so venomously with no just
cause, I'm going to walk you through just one of the things I deal with.

========================
The TNT Playroomz debate
========================

A few weeks ago I received this from Mark of TNT Playroomz.

-----------------------
Hey Thorn,

Mark and Joan here.

A little number crunching has given us the idea that a majority of
the ad swap partners don't wish to swap with TNT Playroomz.
Although we make up 27.5% of all of the adult ads...since you have
taken over the program we have swapped 92% of the time with the
same group owner. We have taken turns telling each other that
maybe it will be different next week, but alas that has not come
to fruition. And, we're fairly sure that this list owners' subscribers
are just as tired of the same ads week after week as our subscribers
are. By ceasing our participitation we will be reaching almost the same
number of new eyes. We just don't see a benifit at this time.
We welcome a reply if you can offer any clarification.

Mark & Joan

TNT Playroomz
-----------------------------------
my reply
-----------------------------------
hiya!

well...THIS took me by surprise!

ok...some numbers here...

you have 19 groups you're promoting. last week we had 69 adult groups
swapping. so, you DO have a good chunk of the groups available.

MOST of the exclusions are your own lists. your smut lists are excluded by
couple that don't promote porn, yours or anyone else's, to their lists...
which is Wolf's Wallpapers and BICS Jokers Wild. I don't think anyone else
is excluded from your lists.

since I took over, these are who have swapped with each list. I'm just
giving the numbers

[here was a long list of all 19 of their groups with the numbers of each
groups swapped with for the last 12 weeks. almost all numbers were from the
below groups]

these are the lists who swap 7 ads a week
6, 11, 27, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53,
74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89

these swap 6 ads a week
8, 19, 56

so you see...what is happening is that I HAVE to cycle your ads through all
the lists that need 7 ads a week FIRST. I only have so many lists I can
swap ads with them for. and the 7 a week swappers are already on their
third and FOURTH time around swapping with some of the other lists.

so it's not that anyone else WON'T swap with you....but I HAVE to get
everyone rotated through all the other lists. since you only do one ad swap
per week with each of your lists, it takes about 10 MONTHS for each of your
lists to go through the entire rotation. whereas the lists swapping a lot
more can cycle thru the entire list in 3 months.

while the same swappers seem to be rotating through your lists, each is
promoting a DIFFERENT list each week...not the same list over and over as
you state. remember, another list takes 19 WEEKS to get through your entire
batch of lists. so you will see EACH list swapping with you for 19 weeks.

I will start rotating some of the other lists through yours. but then you
WILL be seeing EACH of them going through 19 weeks each also.
---------------------------

the next day I seriously looked at this all again, and went back to Fogie's
original instructions on how to set up the swaps. and there it was...in
black and white pixels...
---------------------------
Step 8:
I proceed in the same fashion w/ the "2-swap" groups, then the "3-swap"
groups and so on. The theory here is that if you do the lowest swaps first
then they will rotate through the entire list; if you start w/ the higher
swaps, then the groups that only do 1 or 2 a week will continuosly get the
same swaps and never get a chance to expose themselves to all of the groups.
---------------------------
yep, I had been doing it back-assward, starting with the "7-swap" groups
first. so I dumped the entire database I had been using and starteed fresh.
I wrote to Mark....
---------------------------
Dear Mark & Joan!

I'm sending this note to humbly APOLOGIZE for the last 12 weeks of swaps.
your note made me look at the entire way that the swaps were being
done....and I was doing it bass-akwards! I'd totally turned around the
instructions Fogie sent me when I first took over, which ended up placing
all the importance on the lists with the most amount of swaps each week.
instead I should have been running groups like yours thru the rotation
FIRST.

it has now been corrected, and won't happen again.

humbly...

Thorn in everyone's side
---------------------------
that week I wrote to all in the EAZY AD SWAPZ announcements....
---------------------------
I'm re-doing how I figure these out. Seems that old Fogie was a lot better
at this than I am...so I'm going back to the way he did it. Nothing changes
for the way you handle the swaps...so don't panic. But the distribution
will end up getting you a wider variety of lists you're swapping with...so
enjoy.
---------------------------
so, that was out of the way. then this week I get a note from another
ad-swapper, who will remain anonymous.
---------------------------
after being assigned to swap with basically the same nothing
group for the last 3 to 4 weeks, my conclusion is that I am
just giving away free advertising. a thought I find quite
repulsive. While I do not mind helping a small group once in
a while, I really find it distasteful when they didn't even
bother to run my add this last week. Sorry to do it, but I
am pulling out of ad swaps ...just is not worth the
aggravation.
----------------------------
a deep sigh to myself....another verification gone wrong. turns out it was
some of the TNT groups that were being swapped with. the 3 to 4 weeks he was
assigned different TNT groups, and the one that didn't send him a verify was
the TNT Playroomz Tiger Purrz list. but it started a research campaign for
me, and I checked out the past issues for ALL 19 of their groups. (that was
about 1 1/2 hours shot there). so I sent a note to the original person
explaining that each TNT group was different, then sent this off to Mark.
-----------------------------
hi, Mark!

got a complaint about not getting an ad swap back with Tiger Purrz from
someone, so I checked it out.

weird. it's a monthly mag (although it skipped September), yet only runs
two ads. that's 2 ads a month not run....and none of the Sept ones were run,

so I looked around, and most of your groups are running the ads just fine.
but there are a couple exceptions.

Playrooms is a bi-weekly ... running only one ad an issue.
(2 ads a month not run)

Naked Saturday is a bi-weekly...only running one ad an issue.
(2 ads a month not run)

the kind-of-weekly TV Bloopers hasn't had an issue since 27 Sept.
(3 recent ads not run)

at least now I understand how you have so MANY cool lists, yet only run one
ad each....some are only monthly or bi-weekly. of course you wouldn't want
to double up the amount of ads in those...it would be way too many per
issue.

please do get back on track with the above mags, tho. folks DO notice.

and PLEASE PLEASE get Tiger Purrz to run an issue with last weeks ad for
[name excluded] ...as well as make sure this weeks ad for him gets in your
next Noiz Playz. his panties are in a bunch now over this.

concerned,
Papa Thorn
------------------------
here's his reply
------------------------

Hey back Thorn...

I kinda' knew this would come up. If I can explain my problem I hope this is
just between you and me for the moment.

Tiger and I work independently on most of our lists. I do the following:

Cool Linkz
Playful Artz
Just Girlz
Tunez and Stuff
Nasty
NoizPlayz
Soup2Nutz
Manzine

And Tiger does these:

Trivia
Just Boyz
Xtasy
Recipeez
Fun & Gamez
TV Blooperz
This & That
Tiger Purrz

On the other 3...

Playroomz
Naked Saturday
Jokez and Toonz

...I do the first half and send it off to her to finish. and then she posts.

I am very diligent with the ad-swap program on the lists I do, and I'm sure
that if you'll compare with the above information you'll agree. But
I get many e-mail and messenger messages from Tiger informing me of various
problems that prevent her from posting on time. I continually expect that
they will be sent out late, but sometimes they are not. And
I'm not sure how to handle the problem.

I wish I could apologize to all the members about this, and now I know that
I have to take care of it.
I promise I will bring it up to her in earnest.
A partial solution will be that for the 3 lists that we share I will insert
the swaps myself before I send them off to her to finish.
And I will tactfully impress upon her the importance of sending out the
swaps regardless of her lists content.
I'm sorry that you have to deal with fallout from my problems...and I
promise you that I will take care of it.

Sincerely...and with apologies,

Mark
--------------------------------
so that was explained. and now Mark has finally had his wish granted to
apologize to you all that didn't get a swap back.

so I wrote him this back....
--------------------------------
my GAWD...such groveling! get up off the floor, man...quit kissing my
shoes! that's just demeaning!

Mark, I'm not one to get down heavy on anything. just wanted you to check
into it and see if you could patch it up. it sounds like your idea to put
the ads in yourself quite handles a good chunk of it.

I totally understand about working with a partner. things just never get
done right if you don't do them yourself.....but you haven't the time to do
EVERYTHING yourself.

do have a NICE chat with Tiger, and give her my love!

Cheers!
Papa Thorn
---------------------------
so, a nice friendly note back, starting with a bit of humor to lighten the
levity of the situation.

so, then I get the following...showing, to my surprise, that a listmaster
who puts out a humor list HAS no sense of humor.
---------------------------
Hey Thorn...

Everyone has an idiot moment every once in a while, but
you have once again proved to be an arrogant, pompous
son of a bitch. I gave you the first one, but your recent
pile of garbage has only confirmed my guess that you just
don't have a clue... not only about how the swaps should
be run...but also about your actual importance in it. You've
ruined what was once a great vehicle for list owners to
enhance their membership.

In a reply to an answer I wrote to you in all sincerity, you replied:

my GAWD...such groveling! get up off the floor, man...quit kissing my
shoes! that's just demeaning!

You must have SHIT dribbling out of your collar. I made three (3) attempts
to
either reply to a situation or point out to you a much needed correction.
You
finally heeded on the second count and started fairly distributing the
swaps.
After twelve (12) weeks of doling out the same swaps to the same groups you
suddenly had a revelation. C'mon...admit it. You screwed up, and instead of
sucking it up like a man you showed your weenie side. Yeah, it was all your
idea.
Take the credit and pretend you're something you're not.

What a JERK!!!

Well, your job just got a lot easier. TNT Playroomz and all of it's 19 lists
will no
longer be participating in Ad Swaps. If someone who really knows how to do
this properly takes over the Swaps we will gladly return to the program.

We consider this sufficient notice so as not to inconvienence the other
groups.

Until then, any list owners who wish to swap independently with TNT
Playroomz...Just drop us a line. You have our addy's.

Mark and Joan

TNT Playroomz
---------------------------
WELL.....first time reading through it I got a good laugh.

the second time through, I realized that he must have taken this PUBLIC, and
sent this out to other ad-swappers on the list. that was really sad, as now
I had to actually do something to clear up this distorted pile of drivel
with whoever received this. not having a clue WHO he sent it to, I had no
choice but to send it to you all in this format.

what i DID notice is that in this very public announcement of his, he gives
NO mention at all about some of his groups not running ads for other groups.

I haven't actually responded to Mark on this, since he considered his note
"sufficient notice" in itself. and, frankly, there was just no way to
respond to it sanely.

so, let it be publicly mentioned now that all TNT Playroomz ads are now
cancelled, and they are officially removed from the program.

as a reminder, Mark and Joan are still willing to swap with any of you
independently. just drop them a line...you have their address. but in case
you don't, here they are...
Mark (Noiz)
noiz5wayz@...

Joan (Tiger)
joandegrave@...
-------------------------------

so ends this chapter in the weekly behind the scenes running of this list.
I wonder what fun I'll have next week...heh heh heh....

Cheers!
Papa Thorn