286 replies to this topic

[N/A-PWR]

To keep my shirt on,

 

 I would like to be able to give at-least 10 "like Buttons" per day

[tinkers]

Talk about a bunch of Whingers. How about being thankful for the forum.

[N/A-PWR]

Haven't actually decided what yet

Open to ideas though

[dattoman]

Ideas please

But be realistic about the abilities of the forum to have those ideas written in

[Covert]

There are members of all ages on the forum, some of you might want to remember this.

Sent from my E2353 using Tapatalk

 

 

Just saying

[StephenSLR]

maybe those who chip in a bit could have their name "up in lights" by some sort of banner

 

Yep, that's called advertising, it was suggested before, most forums have ad banners by sponsors.

 

s

[StephenSLR]

There have been instances here where businesses were named and sometimes shamed

The businesses found out and threatened the admin team with lawsuits

Those businesses were in no way on the forum beforehand and only created a user name after searching themselves out on google and finding people bitching about them

 

Can they actually sue if the person was telling the truth about them being shonky? The Whirlpool forum is full of gripes about businesses. This sort of thing keeps businesses in line imo. The business can chime in if they feel they've been hard done by and explain the situation and I have seen them do that.

 

 

Unfortunately... the admin team/forum owners are directly responsible for the opinions of forum members whether they like it or not

 

This is where you put a disclaimer on the home page that the views expressed in this forum are not those of the administrators. Sometimes the talk here gets a bit colourful and what I've seen on some websites is an 'I am over 18' button you have to press to enter.

 

s

[Cook]

I think that as a first step, and I assume the Administrators know this, is to give us an idea of the required budget to keep this amazing forum opened and maintained.  We would then get a sense of the size of the requirements and at present I think we are jumping at shadows a bit.  Cheers Ron

[S pack]

Can they actually sue if the person was telling the truth about them being shonky?

People have sued for less.

Never let the truth get in the way of a lawyers next new Merc or BMW etc etc

[IMORAL]

I for one enjoy the banter but as for the homo stuff ? Well you can keep that for ya self thanks

[joeseph]

Some of the banter is great, some of it, not so much.

 

Personally I'd be happy to chip in every now & again to keep the forum running. Nowhere else in the world will you find such a huge wealth of knowledge.

[EunUCh]

StephenSLR , what i meant about names "up in lights" was referring to those members who chose to pay a bit to keep the show

on the road and get  their user names listed or advertised  in some public way as paying members (which was suggested also somewhere a while ago).

The adds. we see are from companies that pay to advertise , some members who pay could have their business logo added as an advertiser ,could be  just me, but just a simple "sponsored by members" in small print without all the hoo haa of who payed what 

keeps things simple and the other advertisers get the banners.

 

In other words, those who choose to pay a bit don't get their user name plastered all over the wall when viewing or replying to topics or otherwise.

The advertisers get their logos displayed for advertising reasons.

"IF" there ends up some sort of "back room " for paying members then so be it , but like TB said sometimes if things get a little to "private" then some might "shy away" which would not be good for the general audience and info. we are "privy to" on the general 

"sign in" feature ?

Guilty as charged for some of the color full words and otherwise , but it seems to work ok, although it was mentioned in another thread

that "sometimes" when "things go missing" it can take away from the context of the thread , but that's ok

 

This place seems to work ok  as is , by the the sound of it, it just needs a very small help to keep things running.

Not much good at numbers but 7000 plus members @ $10 a year equals a lot of something?

This is Australia , let's not an ozzy icon forum die in the arse.

Highly unlikely that the running costs will be public knowledge to members , by no means "suckin up" but i think we all should appreciate the time we get here , regardless of our whatever  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tiny]

First things first, there is way too much dribble in this post to wade through it all to pick out the important and good ideas, though we ARE watching for these tidbits of information to help to form our decisions.

 

Unfortunately while there may be 7000 registered members, there would be around 100 active ones... and as we are not planning on limiting access to what is already here, this means there is little incentive for any of those 6900 odd who just want to use the "mark as read" cookies type feature to keep track of what they have and haven't seen to chip in for the forum.

 

This is the reason for the Google Adverts system that gives SOME payment simply based on website hits - which we have a good volume of.

It harms NO ONE.. and it's hardly annoying to be honest to have a few little scrolling images generating income to keep this place going.

Typing this post in the quick reply box there is a small energy Australia advert owl looking at me (Yep... i was just on their website to pay my power bill to type this post.....) and honestly.... there is WAY more advertising on Facebook and news websites that i'm sure we get a lot less gain from.

Frankly, I'm a bit peeved at those who take offence to the adverts and want to use the ad blockers, and whinge and moan about them.... I hope that those who do refuse the advertising do take up the membership to help keep this place going.

 

The costs are mounting, and they will not be discussed, and nor will any income be discussed. 

I think it fair enough to know that the forum will continue, be safe, and get the maintenance it deserves, if the funds permit.

 

If the income does not reach the required level to maintain the forum on a yearly basis then we will have to look at other means, or other options and we will again then reach out for further discussion.

 

As for all the closet homo banter.... I wouldn't have called it closet!!

But banter is what made this forum appealing to me in the early days.. I hope that doesn't go away.

[Tiny]

Skap: you are correct, I own the domain and all costs that were not covered by previous income (rare spares sponsorship a long time ago, and recently street dream shirt sale "profits") have been paid wholly by me.

As you know though there are other admin on here who are much more active in actually running the place, hence I refer to we.

Bomber: I know you are amongst those who have not only been here longest but have also contributed a lot, and who have definitely offered support previously.


The main reason I refused help before was that I was not confident of being able to ensure the forum WAS right, was safe, was reliable.... and I couldn't bring myself to accept money, and not be blue to provide what would have rightly expected!

Having enlisted the help of Direct Support Hosting - Chris has given me the support I needed to feel confident that the forum could be all that stuff, and potentially even enhanced from what we have now.
This did however increase ongoing costs significantly, to the point where it was becoming unsustainable for me personally and with the reality of upgrades required for security- the costs are mounting.

That's why I.....We..... have initiated this discussion and solutions to try and ultimately ensure the forum proceeds and all this information is not lost to the ether.....

Hope that clarifies things a bit for all.