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Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

How does $10/year sound to participate in this Forum?


Hi-Power Jack

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25 minutes ago, GrumpyOne said:

 

The forum dealers are paying our gracious host for the privilege of having a vendor tent, which is separate from the upkeep/cost to run the forum....so, members should drop asking about that. Brian asked for donations, vendors pay for a privilege.  Whether it (the vendor fees)  covers the cost of upkeep for the forum is immaterial,  that is Brian's profit for his hard work.

That seems like an important fact to note and It was left out of the original donation post by Brian.  I dont have a problem with helping support the forum hosting costs. I don't think it's fair to not give all the facts involved in the money equation when asking for donations.

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17 minutes ago, Nimitz said:

Hmmmm .... Not looking to get in an argument over this but I look at the expense of running the forum as business overhead expensive.  Forum dealers paying for a vendors tent to me is just an additional revenue stream in addition to what he makes on his store front.  Let's face it, the forum is a great marketing tool to support his business website ....

And it is a much greater source of information...

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34 minutes ago, GrumpyOne said:

 

The forum dealers are paying our gracious host for the privilege of having a vendor tent, which is separate from the upkeep/cost to run the forum....so, members should drop asking about that. Brian asked for donations, vendors pay for a privilege.  Whether it (the vendor fees)  covers the cost of upkeep for the forum is immaterial,  that is Brian's profit for his hard work.

Grumpyone,

 

since hipower jack clearly isn't going to answer (and thus we can guess at the clear answer)--did the site owner, admins, or moderators ask him to float this idea for a revenue stream?   Especially given that the site winter has clearly advised expenses were covered?

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48 minutes ago, funkymonkey1111 said:

Grumpyone,

 

since hipower jack clearly isn't going to answer (and thus we can guess at the clear answer)--did the site owner, admins, or moderators ask him to float this idea for a revenue stream?   Especially given that the site winter has clearly advised expenses were covered?

No, Brian, nor the mods asked Jack to do anything of this nature (or anything at all). This was all Jack.

And the expenses were only covered for 2 months...

 

And guess what? Those 2 months are almost up!

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12 minutes ago, GrumpyOne said:

No, Brian, nor the mods asked Jack to do anything of this nature (or anything at all). This was all Jack.

And the expenses were only covered for 2 months...

 

And guess what? Those 2 months are almost up!

Yikes!

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Cars, motorcycles, jiu jitsu, movie collectables, art. Any of those forums I belonged to that went to a pay model I stopped visiting entirely.

I work one of the vendor tents here and would do that as we paid for it, but my personal contribution would end in a pay to post/don't see ads/host pics model.

I'd much rather just scroll past ads every other post. It's my visit that adds value, not my dollars.

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Asking for donations is a delicate balance. 

Those who have had the privilege of being involved in the management of a benovolent organization will tell you that setting clear goals based on a transparent budget is the key to success. 

Absence of fact and objective is the breeding ground for malfecence, I wish our host well, and hope that everything works out  

 

Edited by Ultimo-Hombre
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6 minutes ago, Garmil said:

So the more you help others the more you pay? 

I don't know what the answer is . Or if there even is one. lol  I get a lot of enjoyment out of the forums. 

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14 minutes ago, Sarge said:

I don't know what the answer is . Or if there even is one. lol  I get a lot of enjoyment out of the forums. 

Oh sh!tballs,

i know you were kidding, I hope everyone else does too?

Theres a lot of good dudes here ( and some wankers ) who really want to keep this thing going. 

It will work out, or not. 

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18 minutes ago, Ultimo-Hombre said:

Oh sh!tballs,

i know you were kidding, I hope everyone else does too?

Theres a lot of good dudes here ( and some wankers ) who really want to keep this thing going. 

It will work out, or not. 

oops! I forgot the smiley face! :)

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I am on the fence about this subject. I donated to the cause because I find value in having it around and have gotten a lot from the knowledge on this site. But I also think that expecting people to donate on a regular basis isn't going to work in the long run.

There is a tremendous amount of valuable content that already exists on this site that is free for anyone to research and read. There are also many who support this forums membership on a daily basis in providing excellent content and help with specific issues. These two things combined create value.

This forum is a known valuable service and that service cost a certain amount of money to run. I don't mind if the forum needs to add a membership fee, advertisements, or whatever else to generate the income to fund the site. The challenge is that there are a lot of freeloaders that want to have free content and technical support for their shooting challenges. There will always be whining when you take away free stuff. But the members that know there is value in the site shouldn't have an issue with reasonable steps taken to generate the income needed to keep the forum running. If the freeloaders whine about a new free or advertisement structure does that really matter?

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I'm, as the saying goes, "on a fixed income" (SS) and my primary interest is in NRA Action Pistol (Bianchi Cup).  That's not the main focus on here, and I understand that.  I only post infrequently but this is pretty much the only online forum that supports, in ANY way NRA AP shooting.  I donated for that reason alone, and am willing to keep it up and unless the "real shooters", i.e. USPSA/IPSC & IDPA aren't willing to help in some fashion I don't understand!  

I think the people who get the most from this forum are the newbies who monitor the site and have very little that they feel is important enough to contribute.  That's pretty much where I started years ago.  I spend more on magazine subscriptions (AH mostly) than a few dollars less would help keep this thing going.  

For me, it's worth a donation to keep things as they are.....ad free and informative for all.  I've only bought/sold  in the classified once or twice but always ran into great people.  Even shipped before receiving payment a time or two and NEVER had a problem.  Donate if/when you can according to how you value the forum, but don't shortchange the host because you think you "deserve" a free source of knowledge!

Just my $.02, and it probably isn't worth that much!:eatdrink:

 

Alan~^~

Edited by Alan550
typos
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What I would suggest is to charge for the classifieds if you wanted to have your add listed on the front page for say a week or so. One of the Golf forums I belong to will charge $10 for your add to be pinned to the front page for a week. During that time frame you can add items to it so you can sell multiple items from the same listing without having to make new listings.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 8 months later...

I'd pay 10 and I don't even have my 50 post.  But I hate ads.  I'm member of many car forums and have been for years.  To many ads will ruin a form just as fast as asking for $10. I've stopped using forums because the ads they run in between each post. I don't want to be on my phone and all a sudden here in Nissan commercial. It's aggravating.  Just my 2 cents though.  I'm new here but would support either decision because I really like the Forum. I like the classifieds as well and that is the main reason I came here. I wanted to find a limited gun and this was the best resource I could find.

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  • 1 month later...

The NJ Gun Forum's model keeps forum access free for all, but if you want to post in the For Sale section, or if you want to post photos anywhere (rather than have them hosted externally), you must pay $3 month/$36 year for a premium membership.  It seems to work pretty well.

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  • 1 month later...

Three thoughts --

  • Charging a fee up front (other than for classifieds) is a huge barrier to entry for new shooters -- all those google results would suddenly hit a pay wall, and what new guy is going to say "I just wanted to learn a bit about USPSA, why would I buy a membership on a site I've never heard of?" It would be a self-defeating policy, and leads to the death of the forum in the long term.
  • I can't understand the $330/month hosting cost for this site, sure it's relatively high traffic, but hosting plans just aren't that expensive these days. I think the current host is on a gravy train....
  • Last time I looked at the donation form, it wasn't even set up with any SSL encryption, so anyone who's donated had their credit card info transmitted in plain text across the internet. Brian's subjecting himself to substantial financial liability if something gets compromised; Visa and the other brands are getting very aggressive with their fines lately. Starting in 2018 most browsers are going to start throwing more aggressive security warnings for sites that aren't running security certs.

 

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