I can tell you for a fact that if 800 bucks is not the YEARLY sponsorship fee then NO ONE is going to sign on. The owners would only be shooting themselves in the foot if that were the case.

Hell, every now and then there are some MONTHS that I dont clear 800 bucks for MYSELF. What would I gain by handing that over to the forum? Don't tell me..."exposure to a large target audience". 75% of the registered users on this forum are not active, they signed on years ago, are AE's/aliases, banned, or only signed on to use the search feature and do not post. If you took these users out of the system, there would be no excuse for trying to charge horrendous amounts for advertising.

This reminds me of RXTuner magazine. When they were trying to start it up, they approached me about advertising. Sure, I thought, why not help the mag startup and show some support. So they get back to me wanting $400-800 per magazine for a 1/8 or 1/4 page ad. I told them they were outta their friggen minds wanting that kind of money for a 45 page startup mag that has never even seen the store shelf yet and has no subscriber base. Months later when everyone else told them the same thing, they came back and offered a 1/3 page ad for 150 per issue and this was far more reasonable so of course I signed on and I continued to support them right up until they stopped production.

Perhaps the owners of this forum will do the same.

 

As I stated on my behalf.. in the last year I cleared just about 1000.00

if I gave 800.00 away for a year to sell a few parts a month that would be quite frankly not worth my time or hell anyone elses...

if 10 people paid 800.00 for a year that is 8,000.00 for a YEAR... there is no way this site spends 8K a year to run it.... that just means somone is filling there pockets VERY DEEP...

If this is the way it is gonna go I will leave.. and I think alot more members will to...

Again you have to think abotu the community as a hole and not the forum as 1 part....

If you want donations fine. if u want to charge 20.00 a year for unlimited f/s threads fine.. but 800.00 PLUS a 150.00 membership fee thats almost 1000.00 just to sell a few damn things...

Anyone with HALF a brain can see how dumb that is.

 

you had the MOST annoying threads ever. every month you would run a huge list of all the parts you were able to source and bump it every day at least once. these were all new parts that were drop shipped from your warehouse or from the manufacturer. if that doesn't count as being a vendor than i dont know what does. you also run your business info in your sig. i can see why you would need to pay the fees.

 

If the fee is $800.00 for a year and that will allow me to post in the classfieds(JUST USED PARTS) then that is more than reasonable. However, I think they are wanting $800.00 a month but no one has been completely clear on this yet. $800.00 a year is very reasonable but I can pretty much gaurantee the cost is much more. $800.00 a year is less than $100.00 a month, and I gaurantee they are charging more than that. However, at $800.00 a month, if that is the new pricing, I bet some of the current paying vendors that defended teh current system will be switching sides and joining up with us when their current contract runs up


Im sick as a dog right now and worn out from my nieces yesterday waking me up at about 6 in the morning. So forgive my typing, and grammatical errors this morning. Happy Holidayl

 

Actually the only things that were drop shipped from my suppliers were the performance stuff I did not have (performance clutches, flywheels) which were about the only things I ever had being drop shipped

otherwise everything else I personally packaged up and sent out of my own house.

and I never "sourced" anything except the above items... everything else (99% of everything else) was stuff we stock and sell at my job.


and the ONLY thing I had in my sig is my email address...

 

Notice all the WTB threads in the for sale section.

Soon there will be 90% want to buy threads because non of the sellers can list parts lol

 

Soon you will have to be a vendor in order to respond back to WTB threads through the Classifieds section!

 

the problem with a membership fee is that most people will not agree with it even if it is 5 dollars...i join forums because i get free help from others if i ever went to a forum and it said i can only join with a fee i would automatically turn to another forum for help just my 2 cents...


for my signature it wasnt rx7/rotary related it is a car forum though i made it so people in ohio can get to know eachother and get meets going there is no vendor things on it at all thats why im confused why it got deleted.

 

I noticed that I just laughed to myself. I also didnt buy a car from another member the other day because I couldnt sell the used parts here and I didnt want to list all of them on ebay.

 

Wow...what a mess.

I had asked Ryan some time ago how much is was for the upkeep of the forum. It's no suprise I received no answer. Now that the forum has been "sold," how much is it for management of it? On a monthly basis of course... I'm going to take a stab and say that I won't get an answer.

Looking at the top of the forum, there are 15 vendor sections. Taking a conservative math approach, $800x15=$12,200/mo=$144,000/yr. Are you f'n kidding me? Not to mention the alleged non-vendor members that are being restricted in their selling due to the same rules. This has got to be the most rediculous thing I've ever seen. There is no way in hell this forum costs that much without someone making a FAT profit. Time to move your DB over to something more reasonable.

Now, I ask you this. Over the last five years, I've acquired several items, from old stock parts, to a couple aftermarket parts that are no longer in use. Taking the quantity piece of the equation here, do you mean to tell me that when I get around to actually selling this stuff off, someone's going to charge me? That's not absurd, that's just stupid. I have a link in my sig to the local Chicago forum. You mean to tell me when I post something for sale (or anyone for that matter) you're going to delete my link? Again...stupid.

If I'm wrong, then I sit corrected, but the wording of the "rules" are such that it seems like it will be the case.

I agree that REAL vendors/businesses should pay a fee. But $800/mo? Are you nuts?
I agree that non-vendors, such as Fritz, who has helped me several times with things I need should not pay anything for the same reason why I better not be in the example above.

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on that expiration date.

 

I would assume the current vendors are paying between $150-300 per month. Definately not $800.00 a month. Well, if they are, I need to take notes because I am doing something wrong somewhere. I think this is getting blown out of proportion by people taking guesses. I wish someone would clear up a round about $ the current owners are wanting for advertising as I still have not recieved a response via email.

 

I used $800 based on the numbers of emails provided above (from Lil Red). Plus my disclaimer of possibly not being accurate.

As far as the guessing and being blown out of proportion. This is exactly why I had asked Ryan when I did. Tell us what it costs to justify the cost of becoming a vendor. Just throwing some rate out there and saying "the forums cost a lot" and nothing else won't fly. Hence this entire thread.

 

even to 300x15 = 4500.00 a MONTH x 12 = 54,000 a year... there is NO WAY this forum costs that much to run a year

GIVE ME A BREAK... Make it reasonable even 150.00 a month is crazy.... im thinking 5.00-10.00 a month is plenty...

take 100 members x10.00 is 1000.00 a month x 12mo is 12000.00 a year.. again this forum dont cost 12K a year to run.

 

The biggest problem that I have with all of this is that they seem to be in a hurry to enforce the rules (new or not, but it certainly goes against the status quo) while they are in no rush at all to come here and explain things or give us the new options and advertising rates. How hypocritical can you get?

Wouldnt that be like arresting people for speeding 5 over the limit but not giving them a court date, and keeping them in jail in the meantime? This is really throwing a wrench into the workings...

 

Guys, this is a business. I wouldnt run a forum for free. It does cost a very large amount of money to maintain a forum of this size. You shouldnt expect them to break even, Im betting this forum sold for around $75k+. I just wish one of the moderators or owners would chime in with current, acurate advertising pricing.

 

i know for a v bulletin forum (what this forum is) it cost 160 a year then 30 dollars each year after that to get updates but i dont know if there is additional cost for more space....i have a ohio forum (the one that got deleted from my sig for no real reason) and it is free to run im going to eventually run v bulletin but thats when i get more members on my ohio forum. . IMHO if i ran a forum i would only charge the amount to maintain the forum with no turn in profit.

 

d-money, did you call that number I gave you yet? I think if I were you I'd be on the horn to somebody hot and heavy...

 

So you expect them to recoup their entire investment in the first 9 months? Because at 75k that's about how long it'd take at $800 per month per advertising contract.

 

I will call after the first of the year, I didnt figure a internet based business that owns forums would be answering the phones on the holidays.

I dont expect them to recoup the amount that fast, hence why I said the current advertisors wont be around long if that is the new pricing for the site.

 

How much and how large? Two questions that have yet to be answered. Think the DB is larger than 1GB? Larger than 4GB? Smaller? How much throughput is the server seeing? More than 10GB? How large is the pipe?

Are these questions really hard to answer?

I pay a whopping $3/mo for our local forum. And I know, it can't compare to the size and activity of this.

I'm using 797MB out of 5GB allocated. I've used 181MB of throughput out of 30GB allocated. My DB is using 20MB out of 100MB allocated.

I don't charge membership, and I don't have any advertising either. I ask on occasion for donations for special things, which I still end up paying more out of pocket than I receive, but I'm in the position where I can and I don't mind as this is something I want to do. Again, not on the scale of this, but why is information so hard to come by?

Guaranteed than I'd be more than happy to put this information out for all of us here if...things were different. And when I do post updates to my site, I DO provide this information.

 

Well I looked into building a forum sometime ago and I plan to do so eventually.. I will at that time be making it free and having a donation button etc...

that is how it should run.. breaking even would be nice making a little coin would be better (there where outside advertising comes in) but to be honest.. this has to be about the community..

I was a member of an aquarium forum... I was dishing out 20-50 per month in DONATIONS to help the forum grow and be very successfull which it was... I was also a moderator and I spent lots of time doing it...

 

Haha, where are the mods now....rx7doctor where art thou'

Pathetic.

 

What else can I or any other mod at this point say. We have asked that you let us compile information and come up with a proposal to submit to the new owners. We have asked that you come up with creative and alternative solutions to this issue so that we may look at many options. But instead the consensus is to just bash the topic into the ground.

We have stated that we will not be able to give answers until after the Holidays.Us Mods are also at the mercy of the new owners for information. They have been putting together some information and waiting for Ryan to turn over all of the information to them. They are a big company and own many other sites so we are not the only thing they are dealing with.

I am as well as other mods as frustrated as you guys are. I am waiting on information as well. There are plenty of members on here that I stayed in contact and followed up as much as I could with the information that I had. I did not tell them at the time that I would get back to them, then did not. I got back to them with all the answers that I had. I had given each member the contact information as I received it and made sure they had it. I am not in control nor is any other member of the mod team of what the advertising department does.


You guys want to help then continue to come up with ideas that we as a whole can submit to them to resolve the issue at hand. Because if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the issue. That's all we are asking is give us some breathing room. Remember we are your fellow members and have given to this club and have a big stake in the longevity and well being of it.

Thank you.

 

I think that's all anyone is asking for, whether it's said outright or not. That's all I'm asking for as well, and so long as those answers are given, THEN and ONLY then can reasonable proposals be given.

Needless to say, we're going to hold you to this statement.

 

New code word: WTB means FS