These pesky adverts

[GBMUD]

Well put Steve.

Chris

[tuko]

To secure the forums future, maybe a change of thinking is needed by the A&M team.

It has been suggested to the A&M team on several occasions that self hosting and running the forum would save £££. There are trained professional users on this forum who have offered their expertise and time to help run this forum. I realize that money is needed for the domain name, hosting and forum software but why isn't those who has the knowledge, expertise and experience exploited to the forum betterment?

Instead of having several running threads on how to raise and use money's, how about rotating the thinking caps to how to save money's and reduce running costs for the security of the forum.

Todd.

[leon_81]

s/o set up

[Bowie69]

In the first post it says 'only post here if you are pledging a SO', other comments are probably more welcome over here: http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=62870&st=60

[Happyoldgit]

To secure the forums future, maybe a change of thinking is needed by the A&M team.

It has been suggested to the A&M team on several occasions that self hosting and running the forum would save £££. There are trained professional users on this forum who have offered their expertise and time to help run this forum. I realize that money is needed for the domain name, hosting and forum software but why isn't those who has the knowledge, expertise and experience exploited to the forum betterment?

Instead of having several running threads on how to raise and use money's, how about rotating the thinking caps to how to save money's and reduce running costs for the security of the forum.

Todd.

Good points Todd, the fact is that the situation has been and continues to be regularly reviewed

The following is what was sent to a member who raised similar issues via PM:

The costs include professional managed server including OS, MySQL and expert IPB management with support on a 24/7 basis. Having considered and regularly reviewed the options our present package comes up pretty competitively.

The above puts the forum on a firmer professional and secure footing than would perhaps be the case if was hosted casually on a members server over here.

I agree that the International has become confusing due to numerous threads dealing with funding or similar forum issues. Purely by coincidence the matter is currently under discussion by the A&M team as only yesterday I suggested we create a new section just to discuss such things along with technical queries such as posting problems etc.

[BogMonster]

Personally, I think the decision to allow the current ads was really stupid. It may have been done as a shock tactic and you may or may not view it as successful, but it was still a ridiculous decision. I'd like to know who suggested that one.

I did.

Because it works extremely well on another non-LR forum I use regularly which is remarkably similar to this one in a lot of ways, and it raises revenue without becoming directly linked with any of the advertisers so there is no loss of independence. I think you have been around long enough to know the history of this forum going back to the LRE days and why we would not wish to go down that route again.

It is not a "shock tactic" it is a reliable way to raise quite a lot of money that we require to run an extremely popular forum with fairly significant hosting costs.

It is all in a very early stage and we have nowhere near finished yet so with respect as you are not party to all the discussions going on behind the scenes, I suggest you hang fire on wading in with the slagging until you see and can judge the final result.

For the majority who appear to trust us, thank you for your patience and I think in a few weeks most will probably be fairly happy with the end result

Todd - we have looked at that on a number of occasions but the fact is most people have a life and there is only so much time you can expect people to give up freely before a managed resource becomes the only realistic option.

[SteveG]

Hi Stephen

I still stand by my original personal opinion that implemented in the way it has, it was a stupid idea as it completely screws the site up. The implementation is the same as you say on Ribnet, but the better context of the ads and format of the page reduces the effect there ( a bit, not entirely). Here it just ruins the usability of the site - again my personal opinion.

Since when have we just had to trust the management team? Why can't major decisions like funding, forum format etc be made with forum involvement and input?

I suppose that statement about not being party to all the behind the scenes decision and to hang fire just says it all really. Shame

As to the historical references to LRE. The problem then was personalities and their actions not sponsorship.

Cheers

Steve

[BogMonster]

Hi Stephen

I still stand by my original personal opinion that implemented in the way it has, it was a stupid idea as it completely screws the site up. The implementation is the same as you say on Ribnet, but the better context of the ads and format of the page reduces the effect there ( a bit, not entirely). Here it just ruins the usability of the site - again my personal opinion.

Since when have we just had to trust the management team? Why can't major decisions like funding, forum format etc be made with forum involvement and input?

I suppose that statement about not being party to all the behind the scenes decision and to hang fire just says it all really. Shame

As to the historical references to LRE. The problem then was personalities and their actions not sponsorship.

Cheers

Steve

Page layout is not something fixed in stone and will probably change - what you see is the first incarnation and yes there has been some fair and reasonable criticism of it. I don't actually like it too much but there's nothing like introducing something controversial to get people to wake up and take notice

The trouble with forum-wide discussion is that if you frame a "what should we do" question in very general terms you get a thousand shades of grey in the answers and the discussion rumbles on and on and on for ever - which is then not much good for taking a decision because there is no clear answer.

Content of the ads - I am no expert on it but I think this can be tweaked, sometimes it seems to be forum-relevant, sometimes not, hopefully it is something that can be adjusted with a little experience.

You may view it as a mistake but in reality I think the only way to move the situation forwards was to discuss in the relatively small A&M group, make some changes and judge the feedback from members good or bad, and then we can fine tune it accordingly. Otherwise we would go round and round and round in circles and nothing would ever have been done and ultimately the forum would have run out of money and maybe closed down. The time to do it was now while we still had money in the bank, not when we were down to the last 1 month's hosting costs in the kitty.

What you see now is almost certainly not what you will see in six months or even one month's time and constructive feedback from anybody is good. Personally I hope that in six months time, 99% of the membership will look back and think that we did the right thing.

[Quagmire]

Donated £20.

[trendkill]

Where do you guys want the £5 a month going to? -PM me bank details & it shall be done!

Without this forum (especially for the first year) i doubt id have a 90 running on the road today!

The adverts also suck!!

[western]

PM Nige Hybrid_from_hell, he' will reply with the relevant details,

[V8 Freak]

Where do you guys want the £5 a month going to? -PM me bank details & it shall be done!

Without this forum (especially for the first year) i doubt id have a 90 running on the road today!

The adverts also suck!!

Details sent.

Thanks

Neil

[Mo Murphy]

Hmmmm, No posts since this thread is moved to LR4x4 Matters Thanks for moving this chaps, you certainly know how to kill a fund raising thread !

Mo

[western]

it can still be found & read & it's not stricly LR/4x4 subjects like the International/vehicle specific forums.

[Mo Murphy]

Thanks chaps.

Right roll up, don't be shy ! Standing orders and donations required post haste to get rid of these adverts that I can't see but that are so annoying to all the other chaps who come on here.

Thanks to all that have pledged and donated so far

Mo

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

There you go Sir Mo

Back to International, could pin it if you would like ?

Let me know

Nige

[Mo Murphy]

Thank you, Good Sir Nige

Right roll up, don't be shy ! Standing orders and donations required post haste to get rid of these adverts that I can't see but that are so annoying to all the other chaps who come on here.

Thanks to all that have pledged and donated so far

Mo

[landroversforever]

There you go Sir Mo

Back to International, could pin it if you would like ?

Let me know

Nige

no disrespect to whoever moved it here the first time, but going by the old nutshell of some people only go into certain sections of the site its going to get more views I think in the International forum.

Ta for moving back

[Steve Warman]

Well I've had enough value out of the tech archive, general help and suggestions and Westerns personal knowledge of things part number related (and all his other help) made me realise that an SO was well in order so it was setup about 6 months ago.

I don't mind the google ads for the time being, I can ignore them on other sites and will do so here.

If they help keep us going then I feel I'm old enough, and just about mature enough, to deal with the ads.

Good on you Mo for starting this thread, I think if everyone who regularly uses this site chips in then we can get it back the way we want, until we step up then I think the whinging should stop. I appreciate we have some problems to deal with but if we can't be constructive

As for not finding this thread being buried in different forums, I use the 'New Threads' link or view the threads updated in the last 24 hours, all available from the front page.

[Mo Murphy]

Gosh thanks Steve, I think I'm blushing

I've asked for this thread to moved back to the international forum because I felt there would be more traffic here because not every one uses the links that you do. I figured the more people that read this the more chance of standing orders or donations being made.

So come on people, set up a standing order for a couple of quid or donate something, the cost of a landy mag perhaps (don't use your jazz mag money ) there's a great deal more to read here and not quite so many adverts

Regards

Mo