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Thread: Re : "I do not have permission to view photos"

  1. #91
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
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    Eastern Iowa
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    751
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Christensen View Post
    .... However every week or two SWMBO busts my chops about the amount of time I spend on the forums. If she found out I was paying even a small amount to be able to read a forum my days on them would be numbered . I've liked it here but I will be one of the ones that fades away.
    All the best
    Pete
    Peter, if you’re still reading, I feel your pain. Not recently, but starting in the late 80’s I was enthralled with the idea that I could tap into the thoughts of thousands of people at once. Starting with Bulletin Boards on Compuserve via our school district’s internet access, to America Online via my own personal Supra14400 modem, I joined as many educator and educational technology listservs, bbs, and education AOL chats as I could find. Hours a week... many hours. And I have to admit, a lot of household maintenance tasks got pushed aside.

    My wife was not pleased, no matter how much I tried to make her understand that I was able to get free advice in educational techniques from educators leading the way in their respective fields. I had to resort to reading threads and messages from 3-5 am while she was sleeping.

    That phase of my life has subsided some, but not completely. I have dropped all the education ones, but have stayed on the self-help, diy, trades forums. I still read and am active in a couple of woodworking forums, a welding one, electrical one, and a general home repair one.

    My my wife no longer complains, as my time on the forums is less than her time reading novels and posting to Facebook. But for a while it was a serious issue.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  2. #92
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
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    USA
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    5,582
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith Outten View Post
    Just so you guys know how much things have changed in just the last twelve months........

    One year ago our banner views were between 15 to 17 million per month.
    Today we are averaging 44,000 per month.
    We know exactly what our stats are and so does everyone else who is hosting on the Internet.

    Advertising blockers will ultimately force unimaginable changes to the Internet. Not just here, it will happen everywhere that services have been traditionally provided for free. I'm honest and admit the numbers have fallen into the basement. Other organizations are hiding the effects as long as they can to protect their financial interests. Don't believe me, look at what happened to Photo-Bucket. Chances are every one of you know someone who left Photo-Bucket when they stopped providing free picture hosting. Millions of pictures disappeared overnight at forums everywhere when Photo-Bucket stopped their free hosting service. They were hosting pictures for free because the pictures sold advertising banners. Ya cut off your nose to spite your own face folks, but that's where we are at now. Wait For It.......
    Keith, just now the site statistics showed 78 members and 1337 guests. It didn't say how many were subscribers but I assume they are a subset of members. Lets assume all tje members will become subscribers. At $6 per year per subscriber it doesn't make any sense as to how you will cover costs. Also, what becomes of all the guests? Also, the statistics say most all time was 6054 users and I bet that maybe only 1/3 of those were members. To get 15 million banner views per month seems very ambitious with the number of users. Are you sure the site statistics are being reported properly? Finally, what about the new site software? Its been over a year since that discussion. As I recall your nephew was too busy with another job to work on implementation.

  3. Quote Originally Posted by Art Mann View Post
    I am quite certain that Paypal didn't process the transaction for free. I hate the thought of giving the company even a few cents.
    If you pay with a credit card, some processor collects a fee for the transaction. There are no credit card transactions without a transaction processor, whether that's PayPal or someone else. And the fees are pretty competitive and unavoidable.

    Like you, I don't like PayPal. I don't like any of the processors. But I need to do business with my cards, so I need them. PayPal have the advantage of not having your credit card number pass through the hands of your vendor. Only PayPal has your number and you don't have to type it in for every transaction if you use their service. (If you use them as a direct credit card processor, you do have to type your number in, and but it's not going to your vendors all over the place.) And PayPal has a pretty good security system, so you avoid a slew of potential problems with multiple vendor systems of unknown security.
    Fair winds and following seas,
    Jim Waldron

  4. #94
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
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    Anaheim, California
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    6,903
    Quote Originally Posted by Pat Barry View Post
    Keith, just now the site statistics showed 78 members and 1337 guests. It didn't say how many were subscribers but I assume they are a subset of members. Lets assume all tje members will become subscribers. At $6 per year per subscriber it doesn't make any sense as to how you will cover costs. Also, what becomes of all the guests? Also, the statistics say most all time was 6054 users and I bet that maybe only 1/3 of those were members. To get 15 million banner views per month seems very ambitious with the number of users.
    Not unreasonable at all. Every time a member or guests switches forums, switches threads, switches to a new page on a long thread, submits a post etc, it brings up a new page with a new banner ad and clicks the counter. And 15M page views per month is only 500K per day, or about 6 per second. For the current 1400 or so viewers, that actually sounds low: on average it means they're staying on each page for several minutes.

    Unless of course, an ad blocker keeps the banner ad from coming up with the new page.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  5. #95
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
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    5,427
    Quote Originally Posted by Wes Mitchell View Post
    I think it's just as much the fault of websites that were irresponsible in how they included advertisements. It was always very unobtrusive on SMC, but some sites go so overboard. Specifically with mobile sites, I can't tell you how many times I'd be scrolling down a page, and there were so many ads that they were still loading. When I tried to click something, the site would bounce (because ads were still loading) and I'd end up clicking an ad that wasn't there a minute ago. Issues like these are why people moved towards ad blockers.
    My employer about 10 years ago was filling essentially every bit of white space on our website with ads. A new head of our website was hired and one of the first things he did was to remove a lot of the ads. He said we could charge more for the remaining ads and make more money due to less competition for the user's eyes.

    Mind you, the volume of ads was nowhere near what a lot of the websites that exist mostly to sell ads have today. They were also real ads for real services, and not ads for other sketchy websites with outrageous headlines.

  6. #96
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Anaheim, California
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    6,903
    Quote Originally Posted by Pat Barry View Post
    Lets assume all tje members will become subscribers. At $6 per year per subscriber it doesn't make any sense as to how you will cover costs.
    You do realize that the total membership is pushing 120K, right? At $6 each...I think that would keep the lights on.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  7. #97
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith Outten View Post
    Just so you guys know how much things have changed in just the last twelve months........

    One year ago our banner views were between 15 to 17 million per month.
    Today we are averaging 44,000 per month.
    We know exactly what our stats are and so does everyone else who is hosting on the Internet....
    Keith, Have you considered only locking down pics until enough donations come in to cover your yearly operating cost? Those of us who want pics soonest (or get the most out of SMC) can make a donation, and all the others can simply wait until enough donations have been given in order to start seeing pics again.
    Last edited by Karl Loeblein; 05-08-2019 at 10:48 PM.

  8. #98
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Lewiston, Idaho
    Posts
    28,504
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    You do realize that the total membership is pushing 120K, right? At $6 each...I think that would keep the lights on.
    Lee, I have no doubt you are correct! LOL!
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

  9. #99
    Man if there are 120k members how may contribute. I would sure as hell think enough to not warrant cutting those whom don’t contribute off from viewing the full content.

    I know when the for sale forum changed to having to be a contributor to post I contributed. Seems like a no brained at $6.

    I just can’t see of 120k members their not being enough contributors to cover the cost of those whom don’t contribute..

  10. #100
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    Jan 2004
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    Lewiston, Idaho
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    28,504
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Walsh View Post
    Man if there are 120k members how may contribute. I would sure as hell think enough to not warrant cutting those whom don’t contribute off from viewing the full content.

    I know when the for sale forum changed to having to be a contributor to post I contributed. Seems like a no brained at $6.

    I just can’t see of 120k members their not being enough contributors to cover the cost of those whom don’t contribute..
    Patrick, IIRC, Keith has stated less than 1% donate annually. That wouldn't pay the costs IMO.
    And, the 118,000 members aren't all active.
    Last edited by Ken Fitzgerald; 05-08-2019 at 8:08 PM.
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

  11. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Walsh View Post
    Man if there are 120k members how may contribute. I would sure as hell think enough to not warrant cutting those whom don’t contribute off from viewing the full content.

    I know when the for sale forum changed to having to be a contributor to post I contributed. Seems like a no brained at $6.

    I just can’t see of 120k members their not being enough contributors to cover the cost of those whom don’t contribute..
    Patrick, I dont know what the numbers look like but from his ongoing series of posts over the last year, it sure sounds to me like Keith has looked at this frontwards and backwards. For whatever reason, it aint as easy to solve as it might appear. Just my thoughts, anyway.
    Fred
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  12. #102
    I meant no disrespect and I assume whomever is not trying to rake anyone over the coals or anything like that.

    The only thoughts I was trying to express was that I would be shocked to hear “and now I have” that so few contribute..

  13. #103
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    Mar 2005
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    Anaheim, California
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Fitzgerald View Post
    And, the 118,000 members aren't all active.
    Yeah, you could probably use the number of members who have posted in the last 6-12 months as a first approximation to "active". I glanced at the 'Member List', hoping it had a column for last-post date, but no such luck, just join-date.

    And that sort of brings up one point that I'm not completely sure has been considered: new members. Woodworking is a rather visual hobby, and if guests can't view photos, I'd expect the join rate to drop dramatically. There probably needs to be some sort of 'first month free' deal, because asking people to pay to see enough to decide whether they want to join ain't gonna fly.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  14. #104
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Tippecanoe County, IN
    Posts
    836
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    Yeah, you could probably use the number of members who have posted in the last 6-12 months as a first approximation to "active". I glanced at the 'Member List', hoping it had a column for last-post date, but no such luck, just join-date...
    There's a "Search Members" link upper right on the members list. It includes an advanced search option that lets you do that.

    A bit under 4000 people have at least one post in the last year. A quick sample shows approximately a quarter of those are contributors.
    Beranek's Law:

    It has been remarked that if one selects his own components, builds his own enclosure, and is convinced he has made a wise choice of design, then his own loudspeaker sounds better to him than does anyone else's loudspeaker. In this case, the frequency response of the loudspeaker seems to play only a minor part in forming a person's opinion.
    L.L. Beranek, Acoustics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1954), p.208.

  15. #105
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
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    Anaheim, California
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    6,903
    Quote Originally Posted by David L Morse View Post
    There's a "Search Members" link upper right on the members list. It includes an advanced search option that lets you do that.
    Cool, thanks. I thought I remembered there being such a function, just didn't drill down hard enough.
    Quote Originally Posted by David L Morse View Post
    A bit under 4000 people have at least one post in the last year. A quick sample shows approximately a quarter of those are contributors.
    Ok, I was guessing something more like 10% active with about 10% of those contributors. Either way works out pretty close to Keith's 1% figure.

    That's ~$6-$7K per year, which, as Ken said, sounds insufficient. So the question is, is $24K/year enough?
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

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