Deals and Discounts

[David Weaver]

When did the deals and discounts viewability go to contributors only?

I can't necessarily remember when I bought anything based on what's posted there, but I also can't understand how it would help companies and sponsors who post there to have non-contributors not be able to see their offerings.

[Keith Outten]

David,

This is a change our Staff has been discussing for a couple days.

You hit the nail on the head....it isn't our mission to help companies that aren't our advertisers. Yet this is what has been happening....and it has been hampering our ability to market our banner advertisements.

Rather than delete the Deals and Discounts Forum we decided that limiting access to the Forum would be the best course of action. For some it might also provide an additional incentive to make an annual contribution that helps us pay the bills.
.

[Jonathan Link]

No disrespect intended, but letting people know in advance would've been nice.
Also, providing a refresh to how to become a contributor would've been even nicer. For example, I went to order a contributor setup, and found you accept only PayPal when doing it online. I refuse to use PayPal, because of some bad things they've done to friends and relatives of mine. So, now I have to wait to access the D&D forum until you recieve a check from me.

[David Weaver]

David,

....and it has been hampering our ability to market our banner advertisements.

.

This makes sense. Sometimes when we're sitting out here thinking of things as a reader, we don't really look at the banner aspect.

The contribution thing, we get fine, but we forget that that's not the only money coming in to pay the bills.

[David Reagan]

Possible that reduced traffic through the Deals forum could reduce overall forum traffic and subsequently the value of your banner ads to sponsors. If the quality of the discount forum contributions decline due to lower participation then I know I would be less likely to check in as frequently. Many days the thought of checking the deals is what reminds me to check the forum. I understand your desire to increase revenue. Just hope it doesn't get offset by lower ad revenue due to lower overall traffic.

[bob hertle]

Agree with David, I'm having second thoughts about the creek!

Bob

[scott spencer]

I realize that there are some operating expenses in maintaining the site, but is SMC intended to be a "for profit" organization?

[Keith Outten]

David,

We receive between 9 to 12 million page views per month, I seriously doubt that the changes to the Deals and Discounts Forum will cause much of a problem with traffic. The change isn't just about revenue, SawMill Creek is about woodworking not sales. The Deals and Discounts Forum is still here and accessible to those who are interested, the recent changes are designed to curb unauthorized advertising.

We are in our 8th year hosting SawMill Creek. What I have learned is that as long as we continue to support woodworking discussions and provide a friendly atmosphere we will remain the number one woodworking site on the Net.
.

[Keith Outten]

Scott,

Yes, The Creek is a for profit business owned by Northwind Associates Inc. It takes a large staff of Moderators and three paid Administrators to run a site at this level. Our expenses every month are considerable and the taxes we pay each year would probably shock most people. We also spend several thousand dollars each year on hardware, software and bandwidth.
.

[Harold Burrell]

Gotta tell ya...

This thing made me mad at first. And then I thought it over. As much as I would like to think of this place as some sort of not-for-profit, grandfatherly bunch of guys whom we can visit from time to time and jump up on their knees and pick their brains about woodworking...I forget about the expenses involved.

Yeah, I felt a tad slighted this morning when I signed on and was denied access to D&D. But it was also the very thing that reminded me that I needed to contribute.

[Richard Niemiec]

Scott,

Yes, The Creek is a for profit business owned by Northwind Associates Inc. It takes a large staff of Moderators and three paid Administrators to run a site at this level. Our expenses every month are considerable and the taxes we pay each year would probably shock most people. We also spend several thousand dollars each year on hardware, software and bandwidth.
.

Cutting access to such a benign area of the site to contributors only is non-nonsensical. I see nothing but marketing spin at work here; the Creek is a community sharing ideas, an open forum to discuss woodworking (and provide valuable content that becomes the property of Northwind), but if you want full access, you must pay. If the inexorable limiting of access is indeed a veiled strategy to boost contribution rates among users to satisfy opex of the site, and the site is a for profit enterprise, then perhaps all contributors should be provided with some disclosure on the profitability, or non-profitability, of the site. I also wonder about the logic that getting more contributors in this manner will somehow increase the ability to attract banner advertising, while allowing contributors to turn off the ads; somehow this does not compute. One might conclude, in the absence of disclosure, that the "profit" in the deal are contributor's funds. Rather than dance around the issue, it might make more sense to require contributions of all members, and discard the shopworn pretense of an open information sharing community. The risk is you may lose some members who provide some of the valuable content that makes the site the way it is, but you're doing that anyway with slowly restricting access. Perhaps I'm just used to the initial concept of the internet as an open resource. But I guess that's business, and I also guess that perhaps we're better off without the hypocrisy.

[Keith Outten]

Every woodworking forum here is open to everyone to view and post without any fees.

Honestly I can't see how anyone could complain about access to woodworking information here considering that we pay handsomely every month to provide this service. Those who are willing to donate 50 cents per month receive a few extra perks, certainly you can't find anything sinister about that.
.

[glenn bradley]

No complaints here. Once we broke the 10,000 member mark one has to consider the things that go on in supporting and moderating a group of that size. We are way past that now and the same rules and requirements don't apply that might on a board a few thousand. The benefits outweigh any issues I have seen. Rock on.

[Bryce Walter]

I'll add my perspective.... I am _brand_new_ to woodworking. I'm spending a lot of time prioritizing order of tool purchase, figuring out how much to spend on specific tools, and figuring out quality level of different manufacturers of a given tool. The Deals and Discounts forum provides a lot of collective wisdom to somebody new such as myself on the subject of tool acquisition. I've been using it to help build my knowledge on what a good/reasonable deal really is.

The value of the D&D forum goes way beyond just 1 person being able to pick up a planer for a great price as the result of a specific thread. If I wanted to know the pros and cons of a Jet vs Grizzly planer, that's one of the forums that I'd visit/search to see opinions on how the 2 stack up. Sawmill Creek being such a open resource of a lot of knowledge is what attracted me to visit the forums. It's immediately obvious to a visitor that there is some amazing knowledge that is being shared here. By closing off non-contributor access to D&D, that open-ness seems to diminish.

For the last several days, I've been verge of pulling the trigger and going to contributor status. I'm further from that point now. As someone that does not have a long history at Sawmill Creek, I can't help but wonder whether the direction will result in the open sharing of information slowly closing off. What's the next step?

Oh, and by implementing the change without any type of notice (either in advance or when it was implemented).... let's just say I expected better from a quality forum.

[Jim Rimmer]

This whole thread is amazing to me. One comment that "I've gotten a lot of information here but not sure I want to pull the trigger and become a contributor." Come on, you spend more than that on coffee at Starbucks.

This forum has some of the best ww'ing information, finest people, politest atmosphere, and lowest contribution costs you will find anywhere. If you can't afford 50 cents a month, move on. <RANT OFF>

[Richard Niemiec]

Every woodworking forum here is open to everyone to view and post without any fees.

Honestly I can't see how anyone could complain about access to woodworking information here considering that we pay handsomely every month to provide this service. Those who are willing to donate 50 cents per month receive a few extra perks, certainly you can't find anything sinister about that.
.

Nothing sinister implied, "contributor status" is simply a business model for revenue that should be recognized as such, and if an acceptable return on investment was not present, the site would close; Capitalism 101. Let's just not pretend its an eleemosynary institution.

[jake hayes]

to market our banner advertisements.

####

Advertise at The Creek
Click Here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/announcement.php?a=19)


Probably should fix that link in your sig then. It takes me to a page reading "Invalid Announcement specified."

[Glenn Vaughn]

There are several points that need to be considered:

There is a cost to providing the forum. I am aware of how expensive it can be; I am a partner in an internet game that we have been running since 1994. We have servers in Colorado and Maryland plus one hosted server from a service. The total expenses are in the neighborhood of $800.00 a month. We currently have 49000 users – we do not charge for access and never have. We have no paid staff – all are volunteers. We do not receive any revenue from advertising because we do not do ads.

SMC receives income from contributors and from advertisers (and Friends of the Creek). This income needs to cover expenses and provide a profit.
In order for SMC to be successful it needs to be attractive to the advertisers. The only way it can achieve this is by having a large active member base. Without the members SMC is not viable for long.

In one of his replies Keith stated:
“The change isn't just about revenue, SawMill Creek is about woodworking not sales. “

The change IS about revenue; As Keith said in another post:
“You hit the nail on the head....it isn't our mission to help companies that aren't our advertisers. Yet this is what has been happening....and it has been hampering our ability to market our banner advertisements.”
The implication of this statement is that the mission of SMC is primarily to generate revenue from advertisers; the woodworking support is only secondary.

Woodworking is more than just technique; it also is having the proper tools and supplies for projects. The exchange of information between members regarding the availability of “deals and Discounts” is an important function of SMC.
The exchange of information about products or services provided by other than advertisers is a benefit to the users. The advertisers are competing for our (members) dollars; banning or restricting this information has two affects. First it causes dissatisfaction among the membership. Second it gives no incentive to the advertisers to be competitive in pricing.

Advertiser protection cn be carried too far. I belong to a non-woodworking forum that was doing very well – until they banned all reference/links to suppliers that were not advertisers. Activity has dropped from hundreds of posts a day to 15-20 a day. I would hope that SMC does not continue in this direction.

[Glenn Vaughn]

A question:

Now that this forum is restricted to contributors, is the restriction on posting personal classified going to be lifted?

[William Powell]

From "It is our policy to support the free flow of information in a manner
best befitting the woodworking community at large."

To "It is our policy to support the free flow of information in a manner
best befitting Northwind Associates and then the woodworking community at large."

Just a suggestion.

I don't feel one way or the other, it's ya'lls site. Do as you wish. I will note that over time, many sites that used to be free have become paid. I do wonder if this was the business plan all along.
Bill

[Richard Niemiec]

I don't feel one way or the other, it's ya'lls site. Do as you wish. I will note that over time, many sites that used to be free have become paid. I do wonder if this was the business plan all along.
Bill


Just to be clear, I don't have any problem with a business plan that requires "members" to subscribe for content, Northwind owns the url, the servers, etc. and can do whatever it pleases. But the value of this site is the contribution made by the members in terms of content (which, according to the TOS, becomes the property of Northwind), and by slowly chipping away access the business risk is the alienation of the true content providers. So if its going to be a pay for access site, then that should be fairly and clearly stated, and assume the risk that the "active" membership of 10k+ will start to dwindle along with the knowledge base of those willing to share their expertise, and you might kill the goose, so to speak. Just don't sprinkle water on my head and tell me its raining, that's the hypocrisy I'm speaking of.

[Chuck Saunders]

Are we really arguing and spending days considering whether to contribute over $6 a year. And questioning if the owner should have the right to limit access to the free ads being provided when the free site is supported by paid advertising. Good grief, go out side and mow the lawn.

[Bill LaPointe]

The first time I visited SMC I realized the value of the site and promptly made a contribution that exceeded the required $6. I did that because the information that I got that visit was worth a lot more than my contribution. For not much more than the cost of 1 woodworking magazine you can help offset the costs to keep a valuable asset available to you. How much would you pay for the information you have received for "free" if SMC wasn't available? Keith and associates have done a great job and I don't think that I would want the headaches for the return on his time and financial investment. If you really like the forum, kick in the $6 and enjoy and learn. What a bargain!

[William Powell]

Just to be clear, I don't have any problem with a business plan that requires "members" to subscribe for content, Northwind owns the url, the servers, etc. and can do whatever it pleases. But the value of this site is the contribution made by the members in terms of content (which, according to the TOS, becomes the property of Northwind), and by slowly chipping away access the business risk is the alienation of the true content providers. So if its going to be a pay for access site, then that should be fairly and clearly stated, and assume the risk that the "active" membership of 10k+ will start to dwindle along with the knowledge base of those willing to share their expertise, and you might kill the goose, so to speak. Just don't sprinkle water on my head and tell me its raining, that's the hypocrisy I'm speaking of.

I was going to make a joke that it wasn't water but I digress.

I find all of this interesting. I don't know the history of this site. If it started out as something of a hobby thing, then dot org is fine. If it has morphed into a for profit organization, then it should be a dot com now. Keeping it as a dot org is misleading. And I know the dot com is taken but it could be renamed/redirected. Some of the posts by the admin are eye opening. Not necessarily what was posted, but what it means.

As far as the content, if you are willing to sift through it, you may find something useful. Since I subscribe to advertisers of this site, I don't feel compelled to contribute here.

[Jim Rimmer]

What other woodworking forum sites have contribution costs? WoodCentral, WoodNet, Aussie Forums, UK Workshop, WoodworkersZone? I'm not aware of any, but would be interested in comparing their policies on contributions.
Are we not talking about one forum area of many that is not available to non-contributors? I just don't get it.

[David Weaver]

I can't resist...(I'm an HT user, and it's a joke, so yes, I know that I can still get on a lot of the ones listed below).

"When they came for the Turner's forum...I didn't object"
"When they came for the deals and discounts forum, I didn't object"
"When they came for the woodworking forum, I didn't object"
"When they came for the classifieds forum, I didn't object"

..


"When they took away my neanderthal forum....there was noone else to object"

haha. :D

[Frank Sornson]

Does it really matter, there are usually one deal for everyone, for every 10 (not in my area) Craigslist deals. There are other sites that have lots of deals that are available to everyone instead of looking at Craigslist postings here. I can just check Craigslist if I want to find out the deals posted here.

[Glenn Clabo]

It should be noted that SMC doesn't "impose" users fees. Maybe the better question is...what woodworking site is the largest and most visited? I'll answer that...it's SMC. How did that happen?
I've been here from the beginning...through many...many...many of these changes. Keith has had many people tell him ALL the things he was doing wrong. I watched people stomp off just because Keith didn't agree with him. Guess what...Keiths baby keeps growing...and growing.

[Keith Outten]

SawMill Creek is a Community of woodworkers.

We are here to discuss, share and enjoy all that is woodworking. If deals and discounts are what you are most interested in you are in the wrong place. You can wheel and deal buy and sell elsewhere but those are not activities that are important here.

I have spent a lot of years listening to the people here and I know what the majority of the woodworkers here prefer. This is why The Creek is the largest and most active woodworking forum on the Net. I am going to stick with what got us here and that ladies and gentlemen is providing a friendly place for woodworkers to gather and share their woodworking experiences. The fact is I don't want people visiting The Creek just to buy and sell, there are other sites that provide those services.

I appreciate constructive criticism and positive suggestions but please don't suggest that I need to ask permission to make changes to a company that I own or that I am obligated to provide financial information about our privately owned company.

Back to woodworking folks!!!
.

[Brian Elfert]

No private business is required to disclose any financial results including total profit. Your $6 does not entitle you to this information.

Do you ask the local mom and pop privately owned gas station for a P & L statement after you purchase gas there? I didn't think so.

Even if Northwind has 10,000 susbcribers at $6 each that is only $60,000 a year before expenses. How many of us make over $60,000 a year?

That said, Kieth could run this as a not for profit entity as many forums do. There are plenty of forums surviving wiith advertising alone.