Good News and Bad News

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Keith...I'd give you a full reply on your message if I believed for one minute that a moderator would not delete it as was done earlier on this thread.

Doug

[Mike Hood]

That's the part that's difficult in these situations.

If a person desires to make a living (profit) from these types of ventures, the first separation you need to make is that of disclosure.

Since there is profit motivation (and that's fair), there should be less consideration of what non-paying members get and more of maximizing the satisfaction of paying members.

The idea is that you would WANT to pay. Banner ads, features accessible only to paying members, etc are that motivation. Tough place to be Keith, but it sounds like you have enough of a following to make a go of it.

A clear business strategy and profit approach that'll pay your bills is my best advice. $6 a year doesn't seem enough to be honest. A decent magazine subscription cost more.

[Scott Shepherd]

Doug, if you feel a need to respond, PM Keith. I'm personally tired of seeing you rant about this topic in public. If you have a problem with it all, PM Keith and take it private.

I'm not a moderator and I'm not associated with the forum, but I am tired of seeing you slag off Keith in public.

[Barbara Buhse]

What I'm not understanding here is why it matters what the "creek" administrators are "earning"... why is it any of our business? Why would you need to post expenses and stuff? We are using a great forum and for this we are not even "required" to pay, but are asked only for a small donation. Its not a publicly owned entity, our taxes are not supporting it... Keith and the whole bunch are kind enough to ask our opinions, and they really don't need to do that.
I'm not really sure why anyone is complaining.


Barbara

[mike wallis]

Keith, I just want you to know that I support your decision whatever it is. Back in 2004 when I initially joined, the Creek was fairly new and not a burden as of yet. As you said your not a professional forum moderator and already have a full time job and that is understandable.

Personally I support your idea about scaling back and only allowing contributors participate until a plan of attack can be made. Those who are not contributing, well if the forum is not important enough to donate $6.00 then it shouldn't matter much to them.

Also, I have no problem paying for a subscription format here, even at a higher fee.

As much as I like the Creek the last thing I want and I would hope others wouldn't want is for you to run yourself into the ground tring to run things, do what you think will get you and your family back in balance.

Let me know if I can be of assistance.
Mike Wallis

[Rodne Gold]

I haven't contributed a cent , doesn't mean the forum isnt important to me. Do I have to contribute in monetary terms to make a difference or help others?

[Bob Childress]

I haven't contributed a cent , doesn't mean the forum isnt important to me. Do I have to contribute in monetary terms to make a difference or help others?

The short answer is--no. Good advice is good advice.

But, I'm afraid you asked the wrong question. . .

The right question is, "Do I need to make a monetary contribution in order to help others on this forum?" Or are you willing to let this forum disappear and just go help others somewhere else?

[Rodne Gold]

I have never paid for the help and knowledge I have got on the internet , it's all been in the spirit of sharing and I subscribe to that policy when trying to give back.

[Alan Young]

I have never paid for the help and knowledge I have got on the internet , it's all been in the spirit of sharing and I subscribe to that policy when trying to give back.

Rodne

I want to be the first to say your contributions to this forum has helped me many times over and I support you right not to have to pay to use this site. For that reason I have donated more then the $6.00 suggested. Not just because of you but for the value I have received. I suspect others have received such a value as well. Unfortunately this is not going to sustain this site forever. I must admit I do not have an answer and hope a reasonable solution can be found with out having to alienate anyone just because they choose or can not give to this site.

Keith is this discussion on the other forums as well. All should be included not just us laser enthusiasts.

Alan

[John Keeton]

It really seems that we have beat this horse to death. Most that are posting to this thread agree on the central issues: (1) Keith should be getting paid, and make as much as he can make - the finances are not our concern. (2) The only financial issue is whether each of us receives value from this forum and will financially support it sufficiently for it to survive - i.e., a fair and equal exchange. (3) Whether Keith now has enough information to do whatever he needs to do, and only he can make those decisions.

Unfortunately, the support to the creek has to be financial, not just contributions in the form of advice. I understand that there is a very visible group that have the experience and answers neede by the rest of us lesser experienced. Perhaps their is some manner of equalizing that in terms of dues, fees, etc., to create a fair arrangement and still accomplish Keith's objectives.

I view this situation as being as simple as - Keith, can you, knowing what you now know, make this thing work for you to the point where you are willing to continue. And, for the rest of us, can there be a fair arrangement that will meet our needs.

On the question of fairness, Keith really isn't a part of that issue. He should make as much as he can - the only requirement is that of honesty in the dealings he has with the members/contributors. He does what he says he will do and that is enough for me. I presume no one wanted disclosure from Bill Gates when you cranked up the old PC to log on, or when you purchased it with XP installed from the factory.

The spirit of this thread is declining rapidly. Why don't we all go back to some positive input and let Keith make his decisions. The point has been made, and though many have viewed this thread, the financial response has apparently not been significant.

[Joe Pelonio]

It really seems that we have beat this horse to death.

The spirit of this thread is declining rapidly. Why don't we all go back to some positive input and let Keith make his decisions. The point has been made, and though many have viewed this thread, the financial response has apparently not been significant.

I agree with John. I used to frequent another forum which has paid advertising, but I stopped when they decided to go to a scaled membership fee where your level of financial support determines what parts of the forum you can use. To get the level we all have here would cost $100/year there. Plus they still have the advertising.

That forum has only 5,000 members compared to nearly 25,000 here. Asking for a voluntary $6 seems more than reasonable for what we all get out of the Creek.

[mike wallis]

I haven't contributed a cent , doesn't mean the forum isnt important to me. Do I have to contribute in monetary terms to make a difference or help others?

It think even the "Einstein's" of the Creek occasionally learn something or benifit from other users posts. Even if it's minimal.. well so is $6.00 a year.

[Mike Null]

I certainly understand Rodney's point and having read many of Rodney's posts on this and other forums I can't think of anyone who has contributed valuable information more freely than him.

While the internet is "free", forums are not. I wonder if they are not similar to government. It's purpose is to serve but it must have taxes to exist. I happen to be in favor of raising money via advertising though I have no objection to subscription for certain features.

What I don't understand is the mentality of some who feel they are entitled to a "free lunch."

Fortunately, Keith is a far more patient individual than I, because, having tired of all the harassment, I would have made my decision by now and one way or another there would be income.

[Mark Koenig]

Mike,

I work a full time job during the day and have a reasonably successful part time sign business going when I can find the time to get in my workshop. I'm not wealthy but I don't need to make money from The Creek...I won't work here any longer for free. Continuing to work for people that won't contribute toward our financial needs has to stop. Effective immediately I will only be able to provide for those who have made contributions. This may sound harsh but it is nothing but cruel reality...there are way to many people here for me to provide administrative support.

We have always had Moderators assigned to each Forum, it would be impossible to operate without them.

.

.

Well Keith... I agree with you about not working for free... Just decided to go back to the full time job since business was slow and then the orders started piling in!!! Now I'm working 24-7 at two jobs!!!

Just sent in my contribution since this has been such a great resource... Couldn't have gotten into this mess without the board...

Thanks for the good work...

Mahallo, Mark...

[Keith Outten]

Keith,
I am not getting the full picture, do you actually own servers and host this forum on the servers, create backups, maintain etc etc... If that is the case all this would make sense in terms of time and added costs. But again there are many forum hosts services that can be used for a fraction of the cost and take the burden from you maintaining all the hardware and administrative duties. Just a suggestion from my interpretation of your postings.

Kim

Kim,

SawMill Creek runs on a private server located in my shop office. We have taken some very tough criticism for our decision to operate this way and Aaron and I have defended our position many times in the past.

Clearly in the beginning it would have been much cheaper to use a hosting service but as we grew the cost situation starts to reverse. vBulletin is a database forum platform, commercial hosts increase their fees dramatically as your use of clock cycles and database access increases. Running our own server allows us to provide the most flexibility and best bang for the buck in the long haul. The down side is the cost to administer a private server can't be spread among several customers so there is no economy of scale or cost sharing. The up side is we can configure, update and adjust our server configuration anytime we feel the need and we have complete and total root access.

Several people have shared some information with me the last couple of days concerning other hosts that might be of interest and we will be looking into the possibility of making a change but I have to say that we are a bit set in our ways, we have been doing it this way for over 13 years now and our methods are tried and true. I'll admit that ours is not the least expensive way to do things but considering the traffic we experience and the data we transfer it works reliably and is scalable but not cheap.

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