(no subject)
Here's the response I got from the owner of the hobby forum I've been talking about. (clubnook.com, for anyone who's interested.)
First I'd like to say that this is a great forum. Most of that is down to the users, but a good chunk of the credit goes to the admins.
I would say most of the credit for this being a great forum goes to the members. Without the members, there obviously is no forum.
That said, I'm a little confused about where this forum falls on the commercial/hobby spectrum.
Well, let me attempt to clear that up for you, and any others who may be wondering.
This site -- doesn't fall squarely in either camp. It's far too small to be one of the monster forums that needs dedicated servers. But because it has dedicated servers, there's a constant need for donations.
Or is there really?
Yes, there is, and I wish you would have done a "search" in this forum before posting this, because I've explained all of these details in prior threads. But it's probably a good thing to go over this again, since it's being brought up again.
A couple days ago I got curious and started googling around. This site is on a dedicated server, but that server is "dedicated" to a total of 50 domains.
Hmm. Quite the Sherlock Holmes, I see! LOL
All of the websites that you see on the "dreamquestfactory" server are hosted by me! FlyTheRoadClub is a community I launched back in 2007. Every website that you mentioned was built by and hosted by me on my servers. I've explained this before, actually in this very thread.
(More or less -- a number of domains had just been transferred off a day or two earlier, and I wasn't willing to pay $20+ for the detailed list of domains.)
You don't have to... I can give you a complete list of the domains! The domains are either owned by me (I own hundreds of domains), or they are hosted by me as part of my business.
At least one of those domains is another hobby forum. That I've got absolutely no argument with. Presumably they're also helping to fund the server, and if that forum happens to be too small to contribute much it's fine to have another hobby forum piggy backing on this forum's resources.
As I've already explained, any website that I either own or host is paying their own way.
But at least four of the domains are clearly commercial. dreamquestfactory.com is Derwin's own website creation and hosting site. (NOTE: according to my antivirus that site is infected! It tends to be overzealous, but I'd avoid visiting it until Derwin has a chance to make sure it's clean.)
Sorry, but my sites are completely clean. I do this for a living. If you software is yelling "virus" then it is a false positive, and you need to tweak it a bit. That is very common, though, and it happens all the time. Nothing to worry about.
The other three are nabuildingsolutions.com, scooterpod.net and peppos.com. Personally, I'm not comfortable helping to fund the servers if they're being used for commercial sites.
I'm afraid my harsh side is about to come out again!..... All of those websites were built by me, as I've already said. I have this website on the same server because I pay for the server. Actually, I was NOT on a DEDICATED server until after launching ClubNOOK. You can verify this with Nallia, or I'm sure you can google it and find it out that way as well. And it's a funny thing that you say you're "not comfortable" helping to fund the club because of the commercial use of the server. It's a funny (strange) thing because you have never offered to donate even a dime since this club was launched, even BEFORE you even had a clue about the server!
I find it incredibly distasteful to come here and attempt to dissuade others from donating to the club, especially when you have NEVER contributed yourself in the past. If you don't care to give, then that's fine, and I've always said that nobody should think anything less or more of themselves as a result of giving or not giving. The club is FREE, and always will be free. I've been a member of dozens of online forums over the years, and I would never even think of attempting to warn people against giving. To me it's just not right. I respect the owners of forums, and the work that they put into creating them and keeping them up and running.
Everyone else's mileage may vary, but my thought is that the commercial sites should be bearing the brunt of the financial burden of running the server.
And they are, as I've already said. Or do you think that I've been getting a gazillion dollars a month from ClubNOOK members? Well, I haven't. Actually, for most months that have gone by I've had to bear the burden myself, out of pocket. I've spent enough time working on this site that I could get a full-time job with the hours I've put in!
Anyway, I better stop now. I speak my mind too much, and then I have to go out and apologize all the time. Not good. I think it's better if I just keep my mouth shut. I'm far too emotional about these things, especially when people are calling into question my character or honesty.
OK. That's it. I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING ANYMORE MONTHLY DONATIONS.
If anybody wishes to UPGRADE their membership, you can do so. But I will NEVER make a request for a donation again to cover the cost of the server and other expenses of this club. This Club will be worked on and financed by myself, out of my own pocket. The only contributions that will be mentioned from this day forward will be for the upgrade in your membership.
The club will be changing as a result of what has transpired over the past 2 days. There will be a basic membership which will always be FREE, but we will be organizing this club so that greater benefits will be given, and features available, for those that upgrade. I didn't really want to go all out in doing this, but I guess we have to in order to avoid this "monthly call for donations" thing, along with people thinking that I'm getting rich. Most will obviously choose to stay at the general membership level, which will still be incredibly good. But I'm sure there will be a few others that will want to upgrade to experience ClubNOOK in it's fulness, with all features available. .... and there will be many.
So, is this a "for-profit" enterprise? Well, if it were, then I'm the worst damn businessman that ever walked the face of the earth! Would I be sad if all 2,000 members upgraded their membership and sent me $50 each? Uh, no! I think I might just pack my bags and head to the Bahama's, at least for a week, if that happened!
Condescension? Check. Evasion? Check. Ego over safety? Check. (Claiming his sites could never be infected, instead of doing a quick check.) Lies? Check. (I contributed the first month the club opened. Also, the dedicated server existed long before Club Nook existed.) Playing martyr? Check. Threatening to take the ball and go home? Check.
As I expected, the following posts from other members are all statements of how much they love the site owner, begging him to continue to take donations, and jokingly asking to see pictures of his Bahama vacation. Oh, and one admin calling me a malcontent. (Though that admin has disliked me since I admitted in an off topic thread that I used to read in my car when I was stuck at red lights. The sort of red lights that you get stuck at for 10 minutes or more because it takes 3-4 cycles to get through. OMG, lock me up?)
I'll miss a lot of the users on that site, but I won't use a forum run by a crook. Though I can't resist posting at least one followup. (FYI for myself: Free Coffee Mug, $15 on 5/11)
First I'd like to say that this is a great forum. Most of that is down to the users, but a good chunk of the credit goes to the admins.
I would say most of the credit for this being a great forum goes to the members. Without the members, there obviously is no forum.
That said, I'm a little confused about where this forum falls on the commercial/hobby spectrum.
Well, let me attempt to clear that up for you, and any others who may be wondering.
This site -- doesn't fall squarely in either camp. It's far too small to be one of the monster forums that needs dedicated servers. But because it has dedicated servers, there's a constant need for donations.
Or is there really?
Yes, there is, and I wish you would have done a "search" in this forum before posting this, because I've explained all of these details in prior threads. But it's probably a good thing to go over this again, since it's being brought up again.
A couple days ago I got curious and started googling around. This site is on a dedicated server, but that server is "dedicated" to a total of 50 domains.
Hmm. Quite the Sherlock Holmes, I see! LOL
All of the websites that you see on the "dreamquestfactory" server are hosted by me! FlyTheRoadClub is a community I launched back in 2007. Every website that you mentioned was built by and hosted by me on my servers. I've explained this before, actually in this very thread.
(More or less -- a number of domains had just been transferred off a day or two earlier, and I wasn't willing to pay $20+ for the detailed list of domains.)
You don't have to... I can give you a complete list of the domains! The domains are either owned by me (I own hundreds of domains), or they are hosted by me as part of my business.
At least one of those domains is another hobby forum. That I've got absolutely no argument with. Presumably they're also helping to fund the server, and if that forum happens to be too small to contribute much it's fine to have another hobby forum piggy backing on this forum's resources.
As I've already explained, any website that I either own or host is paying their own way.
But at least four of the domains are clearly commercial. dreamquestfactory.com is Derwin's own website creation and hosting site. (NOTE: according to my antivirus that site is infected! It tends to be overzealous, but I'd avoid visiting it until Derwin has a chance to make sure it's clean.)
Sorry, but my sites are completely clean. I do this for a living. If you software is yelling "virus" then it is a false positive, and you need to tweak it a bit. That is very common, though, and it happens all the time. Nothing to worry about.
The other three are nabuildingsolutions.com, scooterpod.net and peppos.com. Personally, I'm not comfortable helping to fund the servers if they're being used for commercial sites.
I'm afraid my harsh side is about to come out again!..... All of those websites were built by me, as I've already said. I have this website on the same server because I pay for the server. Actually, I was NOT on a DEDICATED server until after launching ClubNOOK. You can verify this with Nallia, or I'm sure you can google it and find it out that way as well. And it's a funny thing that you say you're "not comfortable" helping to fund the club because of the commercial use of the server. It's a funny (strange) thing because you have never offered to donate even a dime since this club was launched, even BEFORE you even had a clue about the server!
I find it incredibly distasteful to come here and attempt to dissuade others from donating to the club, especially when you have NEVER contributed yourself in the past. If you don't care to give, then that's fine, and I've always said that nobody should think anything less or more of themselves as a result of giving or not giving. The club is FREE, and always will be free. I've been a member of dozens of online forums over the years, and I would never even think of attempting to warn people against giving. To me it's just not right. I respect the owners of forums, and the work that they put into creating them and keeping them up and running.
Everyone else's mileage may vary, but my thought is that the commercial sites should be bearing the brunt of the financial burden of running the server.
And they are, as I've already said. Or do you think that I've been getting a gazillion dollars a month from ClubNOOK members? Well, I haven't. Actually, for most months that have gone by I've had to bear the burden myself, out of pocket. I've spent enough time working on this site that I could get a full-time job with the hours I've put in!
Anyway, I better stop now. I speak my mind too much, and then I have to go out and apologize all the time. Not good. I think it's better if I just keep my mouth shut. I'm far too emotional about these things, especially when people are calling into question my character or honesty.
OK. That's it. I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING ANYMORE MONTHLY DONATIONS.
If anybody wishes to UPGRADE their membership, you can do so. But I will NEVER make a request for a donation again to cover the cost of the server and other expenses of this club. This Club will be worked on and financed by myself, out of my own pocket. The only contributions that will be mentioned from this day forward will be for the upgrade in your membership.
The club will be changing as a result of what has transpired over the past 2 days. There will be a basic membership which will always be FREE, but we will be organizing this club so that greater benefits will be given, and features available, for those that upgrade. I didn't really want to go all out in doing this, but I guess we have to in order to avoid this "monthly call for donations" thing, along with people thinking that I'm getting rich. Most will obviously choose to stay at the general membership level, which will still be incredibly good. But I'm sure there will be a few others that will want to upgrade to experience ClubNOOK in it's fulness, with all features available. .... and there will be many.
So, is this a "for-profit" enterprise? Well, if it were, then I'm the worst damn businessman that ever walked the face of the earth! Would I be sad if all 2,000 members upgraded their membership and sent me $50 each? Uh, no! I think I might just pack my bags and head to the Bahama's, at least for a week, if that happened!
Condescension? Check. Evasion? Check. Ego over safety? Check. (Claiming his sites could never be infected, instead of doing a quick check.) Lies? Check. (I contributed the first month the club opened. Also, the dedicated server existed long before Club Nook existed.) Playing martyr? Check. Threatening to take the ball and go home? Check.
As I expected, the following posts from other members are all statements of how much they love the site owner, begging him to continue to take donations, and jokingly asking to see pictures of his Bahama vacation. Oh, and one admin calling me a malcontent. (Though that admin has disliked me since I admitted in an off topic thread that I used to read in my car when I was stuck at red lights. The sort of red lights that you get stuck at for 10 minutes or more because it takes 3-4 cycles to get through. OMG, lock me up?)
I'll miss a lot of the users on that site, but I won't use a forum run by a crook. Though I can't resist posting at least one followup. (FYI for myself: Free Coffee Mug, $15 on 5/11)