Help the Creek

[Larry Frank]

I have read some postings about SMC and current financial issues. It appears there are many on here who are guests. Also, many are using ad blockers which hurt revenue.

I am a contributor and it is well worth the very small cost. I also turned off the feature which prevents me from seeing ads. I was surprised at how minimal the ads are. There are some sites where the ads take too long to load and are a real pain.

Please support SMC and be a contributor and turn off your ad blocker. If we want the site to continue we need to support it.

[Bill Carey]

What he said.

[Scott Brader]

I don't want to come across as a jerk, but I was all set to support SMC, until I saw that the only payment option available is PayPal. I, for reasons I won't get into here, refuse to use PayPal. Maybe give us a different/better option????

Scott

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Scott,

Listed at the bottom of the same page is an address with a statement about to whom and where to send checks. If you don't use personal checks, I'm sure they would take cashiers checks or money orders.

[Scott Brader]

Thanks! I hadn't noticed that.

Scott

[Peter Kelly]

Thx for the reminder.

[Stan Calow]

I just went in and turned off the ad blocker. I noted that it says that ad blocking is automatically turned on for contributors. I did not know this.

[Malcolm McLeod]

I just went in and turned off the ad blocker. I noted that it says that ad blocking is automatically turned on for contributors. I did not know this.

Same here. I have been seeing (since 'contribution') banner ads at top of the page and similar at various points in a thread...so thought ads were enabled??

[Phil Mueller]

done...i have no problem with the ads. Thanks for posting!

[Roy Petersen]

Reminds me of this thread (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?260259-Members-and-Contributors) from December.
I became a contributor mainly because of the things I've learned here over time.
Unfortunately, when they move to Xenforo (though way better than IPB) my participation will likely drop off totally. It's not for everyone.

[Brian Tymchak]

Unfortunately, when they move to Xenforo (though way better than IPB) my participation will likely drop off totally. It's not for everyone.

Why would being on Xenforo make a difference for you?

[Sam Murdoch]

How does ad blocking reduce revenue? Does SawMill Creek get paid according to views or hits or just for placing the ads?
If views then unblocking certainly is useful, if otherwise then unblocking serves little purpose. Just asking because I don't know.

[Jim Becker]

Sam, whether for views or clicks, blocking keeps revenue down. Nobody is going to click on a link that they don't see... ;) I'm a regular "blocker", but have lately been white lising sites that I actively appreciate.

[Bill Carey]

yes, I too have white listed SMC. But a good question: does SMC get revenue from having the ad displayed, or just from the number of clicks on the ads? Curious minds and all that....

[Roy Petersen]

Why would being on Xenforo make a difference for you?
I was a moderator on a forum that switched to it (admittedly a few years ago now) and the tools were extremely lacking for moderating the place. I wound up stepping down as a result of the conversion to it, and only visit once in a great while to read, even though I use the product the forum is about.

I've been using forums and before that newsgroups since forever, and prefer a non-fluff delivery of content. These new iterations (even Xenforo, created by the former admins/devs at VB) of forum software try to be all puffed up mini Facebooks, with big clicky icons and "conversations" and so on. For me, and it's just my preference, it's off putting.

[Keith Outten]

The Google Ads banners here produce revenue when people click on the banners. We currently are only receiving about 5% of the funds we were receiving twelve months ago. Google will most likely drop us from the program soon.

Our internal Sponsors banner ads produce revenue when we patronize our Sponsors. Each of our Sponsors collects the data concerning how many page views their banner ad receives which also helps them to determine if advertising here is beneficial. Sponsor banner views have dropped from over one million per month to about 40,000.

As you can see the problem we are experiencing is catastrophic. Its not just our Contributors or even Members because the majority of our banners were being seen by unregistered Visitors who are now using ad blocking software and that's probably 80% of our problem. Today over 40% of the access here is from mobile devices and vBulletin doesn't feed our banners to mobile users. Converting to Xenforo will solve this issue until someone comes up with blocking software for mobile devices.

If we don't resolve our problems in the next eleven months we won't have any choice than to convert to a subscription based service and I am not a fan of that option.
.

[Bill McNiel]

Larry - Thanks for posting this. As a result, I figured out how to remove the Add Blocker (I think).

[Bruce Page]

I have ads turned on and my ad blockers turned off on my PC browsers. I see the SMC banner ads at the top of the page but the “Google Sponsor” ads within threads are blank. I get the same results with both Firefox & Chrome.
I see all the ads when I’m reading from my iPad. (Safari)
Any idea why the google sponsor ads are blank?

[Michael Weber]

I don't really do woodworking anymore except carpentry now and then and normally only read this General forum. I contribute because I appreciate the moderating and the level of intelligent questions, answers and musings. An oasis amidst a web of controversy.

[Keith Outten]

I'm not sure at this point why the Google banners are not being served properly. I do know that they are not on our local server so we don't have any control over their banners.
.

[Stan Calow]

I had to turn off the ad blocker twice because I changed the setting but did not scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the "Save Changes" button.

[Bert Kemp]

I to have enabled ad's on this site and turned ad blocker off for this site. But all I see is the banner ad's at top of page. I don't see any google ad's

[Mel Fulks]

I can't figure out how to turn the ads ON

[Lee Schierer]

I can't figure out how to turn the ads ON

In the upper right corner of the page go to "settings"
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Then click on the "General Settings" tab
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Finally click on the dot that says "Yeas I want to see ads"
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Then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on "save changes"
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[Larry Foster]

Hope my small token and allowing ads helps.

[Mel Fulks]

OK , I figured out how to turn on the ads....don't know why I didn't see it yesterday.

[Bill McNiel]

I don't really do woodworking anymore except carpentry now and then and normally only read this General forum. I contribute because I appreciate the moderating and the level of intelligent questions, answers and musings. An oasis amidst a web of controversy.

Michael - Thank you, I wish more folks here had your perspective.

[Keith Westfall]

Is there any info on how much one person turning on the ads, means to the creek in revenue dollars?

Quite some time ago, (because of a contest they had running) I elected to become a friend of the creek which required a $50 annual donation. I have remained a friend of the creek ever since, as I feel the value is well worth that.

So with turning off the ads, and donating $50 a year, am I ahead or behind in potential revenue?

Just curious.

[Ole Anderson]

Is it safe to say other sites, not just forums, are struggling with the same issue now that so many folks have jumped on the ad-blocker bandwagon? I did simply because many other sites will have as many as 30 pop up ads per page click, which makes browsing the internet counter productive. I know many YouTube channels are struggling with recent changes by Google with monetization. Thanks for the reminder to pause ad-blocker when surfing the Creek. Hopefully enough Creekers will donate the $6 plus per year to keep this site up and running.

[Art Mann]

I just turned ads on and disabled my browser ad blocking for this site. I am seeing the ads now. I don't know how much good it will do if I don't click through. Maybe I will just do that from time to time.

I want to voice my strong objection to using Paypal. My political views and religion are so opposed to those of former CEO Peter Thiel that I won't do anything to support this man or his business in any way.

[Keith Outten]

Keith,

Ultimately our problems are with both Visitors and to a lesser extent Members. The number of Contributors is very small as a percentage of our Community which is why we provide Contributors with an easy way to turn off advertising. If the majority of our Community were Contributors or Friends of The Creek (FOTC) we wouldn't need advertising at all.

Note that when we switch to Xenforo we won't have a FOTC module. However I'm thinking about a custom Forum that would provide easier access and be included in the Community Search routine. You would have full time access to your threads and posts to edit or make changes as you see fit.

Ole is right about this being a major problem that is going to affect a very large percentage of the Internet. The Net has never been free, advertising has been paying the bills for a very long time and when that revenue dries up the changes will not be favorable to the masses. This is one of those times where people are cutting off their own noses in spite of their faces. I understand the reasons that people are blocking advertisements, on some web sites they are atrocious and often malicious. Its way to difficult and time consuming to block only the abusive sites so the easy way is to block all advertising. Unfortunately its also counter productive to sites that are beneficial.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, Ole, the issue is pretty broad...so much so that many types of sites have had to put up "pay walls". Some warn about it, but permit time limited access and some just require subscription now. Honestly, in my view, many sites that are experiencing issues are not the "root" of the reason more and more folks ad-block. They are the victims of a variety of sites that just totally inundate visitors with adds...the click-bate sites, non-mainstream news sites, etc., are examples. You mention exactly that as something that caused you to employ a blocker. I did the same long ago. Folks start blocking because of getting hammered with "stuff" and then sites that have moderate and frankly tasteful advertising get hurt. SMC is an example of that. I may have already mentioned this, but I started "whitelisting" certain sites that are meaningful to me so that they benefit from modest advertising display while I control the caa-caa that other sites just throw out in massive amounts.

[Bert Kemp]

Maybe just maybe those sites with the intrusive and obnoxious ad's and popups will get the message and tone it down. Better to have ad's people see then ones that everyone blocks out.

[Frederick Skelly]

I have to disagree with the majority here. I'm sorry.

I get a great deal of value from SMC. I'm here a lot. I enjoy it a great deal. So I contribute to help pay the bills and I'll pay more if I need to. I value it that much.

With that said, no, I'm not going to turn on ads. There are thousands of people who come here free every day. I agree with that for several reasons I won't regurgitate here, but I see the good in it. But I'm already paying "my share" by contribution. I feel that others should pay their share in whichever way they choose - the choices seem to be contribute $6 or turn off any ad blockers.

There are sooo many Members who add a great deal to what makes this place so good. But the bills gotta get paid and as some writer once said, TANSTAAFL* (for much longer - like about 11 more months :D). Keith, I'll be a charter member when you go subscription only.

YMMV.
Fred


* There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

[Brian Elfert]

I chose not to block any ads on any websites. I figure that is how they pay the bills. If the ads are too obnoxious I stay away. I also work at a company that pays some of the bills with advertising although not all ads are digital. My employer's website requires a subscription with a limited number of free visits per month.

[Mel Fulks]

This is one of those rare things which allows all accommodation at all times. We are all familiar with watching a movie on TV.
The last 15 minutes of film might be baked into a half hour of commercials. And the ads here are not like newspaper ads that are the star with the news being literal filler. The colorful ads here are displayed in a prominate and orderly way that does not step on the co stars.

[dennis thompson]

The first few years I was a contributor I made contributions of $6,,,why? simply because that was the recommended amount. Why not simply change the recommended contribution to $12 or $15 or $25? After all (and I expect some heat for this comment) we dealing with a bunch of people who have, in many, if not most cases, spent thousands of dollars on toys,:) I mean tools.
Again the contribution would be recommended, not required, and you would still be free to contribute whatever amount you want.

[Scott Brader]

This thread led me to become a contributor. While I actually have very little to contribute from a knowledge perspective, I get so much from this group that it is worth far more than the measly sum I sent in.

Scott

[Pat Barry]

I'm listed as a Contributor but I'm not sure that's really true as I can't find records of an annual payment. I just thought it was automatic annual payment. Help! If I'm behind I'll try to catch up.

[Brian Elfert]

I'm listed as a Contributor but I'm not sure that's really true as I can't find records of an annual payment. I just thought it was automatic annual payment. Help! If I'm behind I'll try to catch up.

The system will definitely remove you from contributor status if you fail to renew. I didn't renew for about two weeks and had to live with the ads during that time. I am back in good standing now.

[Keith Outten]

Pat,

There was an administrative lock on your title that prevented it from being changed. An error on our part but I removed the lock. Your account was supposed to expire in July of 2016.
.

[Pat Barry]

Pat,

There was an administrative lock on your title that prevented it from being changed. An error on our part but I removed the lock. Your account was supposed to expire in July of 2016.
.
Thanks Keith!

[Harold Balzonia]

Please excuse my complete ignorance on this subject, but now I'm very curious as to how much it actually costs to run a website like SMC on an annual basis. $10,000 per year? $100,000? $1,000,000? I honestly have no idea, at all.

i wonder if a large company would be willing to pay for exclusive "naming rights" ala NFL stadiums? "Sawmill Creek, brought to you by Festool" or the like.

Also, there might just be some big fish out here who would be willing to cut a check? In my previous professional life I dealt with some of the wealthiest folks in the USA including ~15 different people whose net worth was over a billion dollars and one consistent theme was they hated being "nickel and dimed" by charitable endeavors and would much rather cut a check and then be left alone.

[Roy Petersen]

Please excuse my complete ignorance on this subject, but now I'm very curious as to how much it actually costs to run a website like SMC on an annual basis.Assuming no salaries for mods/admins, a decent server capable of delivering a forum this busy would range about $200 or so per month. Without knowing details, that's a (very) simplified guess.

[Jim Becker]

The level of traffic that a site that SMC generates requires substantial hardware with extra reliability...which needs to be replaced every few years, too. The network connectivity is also a business-level connection which is substantially more costly than any of us as individuals would normally experience except in the corporate IT realm. SMC is run "in-house" because using a hosting service for the traffic levels generated would be even more expensive and not necessarily more reliable.

[Roy Petersen]

In house?
Jim, how much traffic use on the average month, if I might ask?

[Jim Becker]

In house?
Jim, how much traffic use on the average month, if I might ask?
Keith would have to answer that...but it's a lot.

[Keith Outten]

We used to have software on our server that provided detailed stats but it quit working when we upgraded some other programs. We now use Google Analytic stats.

Generally speaking our numbers have been very consistent for many years now.

These are monthly numbers from our old software:
Data Transfer 3,120,053,304 million KBytes
Page Views 130 million
Files transfered 357,428,444
We have 40 to 60 thousand unique visitors every day, obviously most are Visitors or Members who don't login.

Our Server Admin monitors the current data from Google.

[Roy Petersen]

Thanks, Keith. That equates to roughly 3 TB, so aside from the stress on a single server for a busy forum, well within traffic for an average server within the price range I gave (most have far more, standard). If the database is handled on a second server to offload some of the io consumption (in and out traffic to the CPU, basically) and storage needs, no more than $400-ish would probably handle the load. Cost may climb a bit adding in extra drives or backup space, but that would be a guess.
Here's one such server: https://www.tailormadeservers.com/order_sys.php?OFFER=DEFAULT-T420&CFG=12 (someone I use, no monetary interest)
Drives are a bit small, but can be increased. A ton of RAM. That would be a decent system for a forum this size. Maybe. ;)

[Jim Becker]

Roy, SMC already has state-of-the-art servers that are paid for, for both production and for testing. They are capable of much more traffic than they support today. It's always been hosted in-house.

[Roy Petersen]

Didn't mean to upset anyone. Forget I said anything.

[Jim Becker]

Didn't mean to upset anyone. Forget I said anything.
There is no "upset". I was just mentioning how things are setup. At the point where the current servers need to be replaced, I'm sure that Keith will weigh all options...he's pretty good with that!

[Carlos Alvarez]

Please excuse my complete ignorance on this subject, but now I'm very curious as to how much it actually costs to run a website like SMC on an annual basis. $10,000 per year? $100,000? $1,000,000? I honestly have no idea, at all.

I'm not privy to their traffic stats, but I run a large-ish forum that seems to have about half of the post traffic that we have here. I'm currently running it on rented hardware because I'm actually trying to minimize the amount of hardware I have to take care of in datacenters. It runs $700/year for all of the software, support fees, and hardware rental. We do a donation run every time the cash runs low.

[Peter Kelly]

We used to have software on our server that provided detailed stats but it quit working when we upgraded some other programs. We now use Google Analytic stats.

Generally speaking our numbers have been very consistent for many years now.

These are monthly numbers from our old software:
Data Transfer 3,120,053,304 million KBytes
Page Views 130 million
Files transfered 357,428,444
We have 40 to 60 thousand unique visitors every day, obviously most are Visitors or Members who don't login.

Our Server Admin monitors the current data from Google.Any stats on mobile v. desktop browser types?

[Jim Becker]

Peter, anecdotally, access from mobile devices has gotten "large"...and it's one reason that Keith and Aaron are working toward the move to Xenforo since that forum software provides really good native support for mobile devices, unlike vBulletin. Generally speaking and from my experience helping with multiple forum sites, access from desktop and portable computers has quickly become eclipsed by access from mobile phones and tablets across the board "as it were".

[Jay Runde]

move to Xenforo since that forum software provides really good native support for mobile devices, unlike vBulletin.
Hopefully there will be a way to set a default to full site for mobile devices as I haven't found a mobile website that I can stand. I would much rather have the full site.

[Lee Schierer]

Hopefully there will be a way to set a default to full site for mobile devices as I haven't found a mobile website that I can stand. I would much rather have the full site.

I don't know what device you are using for mobile, but my Samsung phone and tablet both can permanently have the full site default option using Firefox Beta for Android.