Google ads FTL... discuss

[bastid]

Just as the title says... *sigh* :cry:

[CobaltGrl]

yea, whats that about? where did they come from?

[cburwell]

It's not free to run a site. Particularly a site that is growing, and may require a dedicated server.

[DoubleOughtCel]

Is anyone else getting ads down the side of the forum page and in the middle of a section? It's really annoying me right now.

[DoubleOughtCel]

just noticed another thread. delete this please

[Jeffros Spec V]

Ha, I just made one but made it in the wrong section. ****

[Jeffros Spec V]

This Looks Like ****.

Get Rid Of It.

[cburwell]

If people are really annoyed with it, they could apprach Bryand about starting a paid membership. That usually entails removal of ads and some other features for a certain amount of money every year ($30 on other forums I go to).

[Jeffros Spec V]

Or we could just leave the site?

[DoubleOughtCel]

I paid my dues in t-shirts and plate frames and all that.

[bastid]

I'd be fine with a yearly subscription as long as it was reasonable.

Edit: Thread merge changing my topic FTL

[peteyturbo]

Were the ads always on the side of the screen or did they just show up?? Mabye I am just crazy..

[StreetEG]

ya the links are mad gay....

[peteyturbo]

Isn't that what the sponsored vendors pay for??If people are really annoyed with it, they could apprach Bryand about starting a paid membership. That usually entails removal of ads and some other features for a certain amount of money every year ($30 on other forums I go to).

[drew]

i dont know, i just noticed them but cant figuyre out how to close it

[jspek]

*ok THAT is annoying. along with the sponsored links between threads. no sig pics but we can have ^ that above in every thread. wtf m8?

[peteyturbo]

along with all the other advertisements..

[DC Hunny5]

that is super annoying... it makes it a pain to scroll the page over to read the whole thing...

and the link at the top.. yuck

[Shri2222]

i was gonna buy a sponsor vendor spot in mid Feb, but they to many ads all over the place.

[DC Hunny5]

..there's another thread about this in feedback

[TROLL]

Hosting fees for the forum TRIPLED this year. We are looking into ways to try and offset these costs. I have been working with a forum advisor on ways to help the site to improve and operate more efficiently and we are working on ways to incorporate more Google ads. I didn't realize they would be going up tonight or else I would have started a thread letting everyone know.
Everyone acting like this is the end of the world and that they have to leave the site, please understand that a lot of time and money goes into keeping this site available to thousands of members at no charge. You are all free to use the site as much as you like and nothing at all is asked of you, so if anything I would ask for your cooperation while we integrate these necessary adjustments to the site.
In response to many suggestions about it, we are looking into an option for a premium member subscrption which would eliminate all Google advertisements.
So please take a deep breath if you need to, let us try to sort things out over the next couple of days, and continue to enjoy this completely free website as you always have.
Bryan

[StreetEG]

how much money you think tst is making off of this? Do you think we will see any of it back?

[DC Hunny5]

troll wrote a response to this in a thread just like this.

[Honduh]

^^^ I like the premium membership idea. I was going to sudjest it but someone my post didnt appear? Oh well.

I think it would be cool to let preium members to maybe request to have the thing under than S/N changed to whatever they would like as well.

[jspek]

i want sig pics for this crap lol.

[TROLL]

For everyone freaking out, we are scaling back the ads already to what we feel is a better balance between getting the ads out there and not being too intrusive on the use of the forum.
So that deep breath I was talking about taking, make it a long one and reevaluate how you feel about this in a couple of days when we have things sorted out a bit more.
It might take a little adjusting, but that never killed anyone.

[poolmike]

Quit complaining people! It's a free, FREEEEEE forum! FFFRRREEEEEE!

[jspek]

this just in...

a riot has broken out in bucks county due to tristatetuners.com changing the layout on the forum. 9 people dead and 4 buildings on fire, including a child orphanage.

[bastid]

Everyone acting like this is the end of the world and that they have to leave the site, please understand that a lot of time and money goes into keeping this site available to thousands of members at no charge.

Wait... you mean it's not the end of the world? **** Bryan, you had me scared. So when can I be made moderator of the BMW forum since it doesn't get any posts? :mrgreen:

[DoubleOughtCel]

Haha, I don't care if you put half a trillion ads on the site, it'll just be annoying until we get used to it. Do what ya gotta do.

[igo4bmx]

we'll know how well bryan does with this when we see him buying an m3 as a daily driver ;)

[StreetEG]

lets make a pact as a forum to never click on any of the ads.

[jspek]

^lol.

[igo4bmx]

Hosting fees for the forum TRIPLED this year. We are looking into ways to try and offset these costs. I have been working with a forum advisor on ways to help the site to improve and operate more efficiently and we are working on ways to incorporate more Google ads. I didn't realize they would be going up tonight or else I would have started a thread letting everyone know.
Everyone acting like this is the end of the world and that they have to leave the site, please understand that a lot of time and money goes into keeping this site available to thousands of members at no charge. You are all free to use the site as much as you like and nothing at all is asked of you, so if anything I would ask for your cooperation while we integrate these necessary adjustments to the site.
In response to many suggestions about it, we are looking into an option for a premium member subscrption which would eliminate all Google advertisements.
So please take a deep breath if you need to, let us try to sort things out over the next couple of days, and continue to enjoy this completely free website as you always have.
Bryan

thats why i'll buy you drinks one night cuz you've done alot for the tristate!
no i'm not sucking up

[TROLL]

lets make a pact as a forum to never click on any of the ads.
what i'd like to know is what reasoning do you have in particular for being ultra-negative? unless you're joking, you're missing the bigger picture here...
thanks to those who are being flexible and understanding though, it is appreciated :)

[jdm free]

i dont see a problem wit it right now, as long as theres no pop ups i hate those things

[TROLL]

I'm totally against IntelliText, which is what you'll see on some forums where it automatically converts certain words in a thread to links or to popup ads... don't worry, you won't be seeing those here.
Believe me, I'm on the site at least as much as anyone else (except for Dimitri maybe) and I'm adjusting to this too... but we are putting a lot of effort into finding the best balance between exposure/intrusiveness.

[poolmike]

this just in...

a riot has broken out in bucks county due to tristatetuners.com changing the layout on the forum. 9 people dead and 4 buildings on fire, including a child orphanage.

Why did you start those fires C- ?

[karl]

if the ads are needed to pay for the site thats cool, but put them at the top or bottom of the page, not on the side... makes the page look squished...

[jspek]

Why did you start those fires C- ?

cause motha****ing *****s wanna talk **** yo! lmao.

[StreetEG]

i'm not asking anyone to click any of the ads... if you want to go for it, if you dont then dont. what i'd like to know is what reasoning do you have in particular for being ultra-negative? unless you're joking, you're missing the bigger picture here...
thanks to those who are being flexible and understanding though, it is appreciated :)

I guess I am sorta joking cause it doesnt bother me that much....other then the fact that there has to be another way to make it less intrusive. All I am doing is voicing an opinion----the reason the forum was created in the first place. Theree are plenty of other forums who are much larger that dont require such a wild change to pay for the site.

So i guess heres where my emotion comes from

1) car of the week was ditched in lieu of some stupid ads
2) other bigger sites can manage without having every forum subsection littered with bull**** ads
3) Profit is being made off an informational site. Its not like I am paying for a service. I feel like i am being exploited...
4) NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE DUMB **** IN THE ADS
5) We all contribute to the site by hosting/putting on events/meets and support the "tuner economy" through the for sale section. We dont ask for anything back. I never asked for compensation for putting on the ultimate street car challenge....

[adamkob32]

I think that bar that's on the left is much better suited to be on the right side of the page instead. THat's usually where it is. It's just weird on the other side lol.

--Adam

[Shri2222]

if the ads are needed to pay for the site thats cool, but put them at the top or bottom of the page, not on the side... makes the page look squished...

agreed and i think direct sponsor/ad links should be better defined then the google ads. :thumbup:

[Honduh]

Like troll said this site isnt free for him. He is paying money from his pocket (or so I assume) to keep it up and running. Im broke lately with how slow the shop has been but I'd still be willing to throw a few bucks towards the forum to get rid of the ads, or just help out and what not. Now im not real down with anyone making money or getting rich off me either. But I also don't think Bryan should have to pay for everything so D can post every 5 minutes. Or so cleanneon can make an ass of himself atleast once a day.

Come on guys be supportive of TST and help it grow, and if you don't feel that way, get the **** out.

[D Money]

This is great news !

Wait, no it isn't. Booo!

[adamkob32]

Now that is much better up there. :D

--Adam

[SUB2.5RS]

Like troll said this site isnt free for him. He is paying money from his pocket (or so I assume) to keep it up and running. Im broke lately with how slow the shop has been but I'd still be willing to throw a few bucks towards the forum to get rid of the ads, or just help out and what not. Now im not real down with anyone making money or getting rich off me either. But I also don't think Bryan should have to pay for everything so D can post every 5 minutes. Or so cleanneon can make an ass of himself atleast once a day.

Come on guys be supportive of TST and help it grow, and if you don't feel that way, get the **** out.

I dont know the whole story on the money thing, but dont the vendors pay money to be a vendor. He shouldn't pay for it all himself but were not the ones that started this thing, not being a jerk but thats how it is. And it wasnt getting annoying until i saw it for the 3rd time. It was fine the way it was back when I first joined. Nice and simple. Another thing what kind of support are we talking about. Not giving an honest feedback?

[2drStunner]

man this really sucks! I wouldnt have probelm with a few ads but damn! There everywhere!

If theres thousands of people on this site, like we all know there are! Charge everyone a dollar and that should help out! lol

I mean come on guys lets do something this stinks!

[igo4bmx]

3) Profit is being made off an informational site. Its not like I am paying for a service. I feel like i am being exploited...



wow
i wanna see you buy a domain name and then pay monthly for the terebytes of data transfer a month.
then let me know when you've had it after a couple years.

I know one of the sites i belong to costs WAAAYY too much and people we mad when ads showed up. When one single person paid over $24,000 in hosting just for a site for a year, you gotta be thankful

[drew]

3) Profit is being made off an informational site. Its not like I am paying for a service. I feel like i am being exploited...


yo man I think you're under estimating the cost of keeping a site like this up, not only does he have to pay for hosting and the domain but the vb license itself is costly. i doubt troll makes anything off of the site, he's probably paying a decent chunk out of pocket for us to enjoy the site

[Will@TurboTek]

I see no problem with a reasonable number of Google ads, hell, I will even click them for you when i get bored!

I remember the old site used to have contests where you could buy a raffle ticket and the winner would get a private photo session. There are more than enough photographers on here who would be willing to make this happen again!

And I know that vendor fees must go towards the bills, but I guess that we all just talk too much and its costing more than the vendor fees! lol

[doug]

wow.. some of you need to pull the wedgie your panties have created.. it's just a few ads. I'll admit, the side one bothered me.. but obviously.. it's not there anymore.

Chill out, people... Bryan does a lot for us to have this site, and enjoy it.

P.S. - Bry.. don't exploit StreetEG too much now.... :rolleyes:

[BlackBulletTSi]

guys sorry for the crazyness for the ads but were still working on defining the entire layout. I know a bunch were thrown in your face but thats what happened when the system was installed. as you can see now theres basically only like 3 google ads. Vendors no need to worry they do not show up in your threads. We of course always appreciate your support, we hope to have found a nice balance.

[wrx_snobordr]

The only thing I have a problem with is the placement of some of the ads. Banner ads are fine, but the ads placed between the first and second post in every thread and the sponsored links threads are annoying. I personally feel that if fees have increased this should mostly passed onto vendors. They are here because of all of us, we are all potential customers.

However, I am a fan of money as I'm sure most everyone else on here is. SO really, I cant fault Bryan for what hes doing. I have no idea if he is making a profit, I hope he is. I also hope it is distributed amongst all the mods for keeping this place free of tons of trash.

[doug]

The only thing I have a problem with is the placement of some of the ads. Banner ads are fine, but the ads placed between the first and second post in every thread and the sponsored links threads are annoying. I personally feel that if fees have increased this should mostly passed onto vendors. They are here because of all of us, we are all potential customers.

However, I am a fan of money as I'm sure most everyone else on here is. SO really, I cant fault Bryan for what hes doing. I have no idea if he is making a profit, I hope he is. I also hope it is distributed amongst all the mods for keeping this place free of tons of trash.

Exactly, and it's really no ones business if Bryan made profit, or not. If anyone doesn't like the fact of "potential profit", or say "why don't we just leave?".. then do it.. click log out, clear your history and cookies.. and don't come back.

[TROLL]

To Will, and anyone else else...

Just to explain how Google ads work, they can be very helpful to generate funds for a site but Google also has rules in place in order to maintain the quality of advertising that they do. Because Google monitors their ad program so closely, please avoid fraudulent clicks by only clicking on an advertisement if you are genuinely interested in it. Thanks!

[PotenzaSub]

Lol. I don't see any ads. When i first got Firefox I modded it so that ads wouldn't show. They still load onto my computer, but they don't show up. If anyone wants to know how to do this just let me know. (I'm trying to figure out how to prevent them from even loading onto my computer.)

[Ender81]

I understand that the site needs to be paid for somehow, that being said premium membership option ftw. Why not open a thread to see who would be willing to sign up and pay for that type of thing and what might be offered with it (decoder rings, pins, secret handshake lol).

[italianblaze]

troll you should set up a donation thing so people can donate to stop the ads i dont mind them as long as you dont have popups or slow ass loading time
im sure plenty of people would donate including myself!

[gary]

I wasn't going to reply to this but all of this has me questioning some things:

1. The vendors on here pay approximately $25/mo x 24 vendors =$600/mo
I understand hosting costs are expensive since that is what I do for a living but for $600/mo my company would get you 1 kick ass web server or 1 web server and 1 db backend. This all comes with 140G of bandwidth and 24/7 support with management. I am not sure what you are paying but according to my calculations you should be banking at least $200 a month or so.

2. Do you actually make that much money off Google ads? I ran a community website with approximately 10k forum users and only brought in less than $50 a month. Is it worth the clutter for the money? Maybe it is.

These are just questions and I am not bashing your decisions in any way, just wanted to know?

[Gorilla Unit 33]

1. The vendors on here pay approximately $25/mo x 24 vendors =$600/mo
I understand hosting costs are expensive since that is what I do for a living but for $600/mo my company would get you 1 kick ass web server or 1 web server and 1 db backend. This all comes with 140G of bandwidth and 24/7 support with management. I am not sure what you are paying but according to my calculations you should be banking at least $200 a month or so.


:eek: sweet 200 bucks + google money for hitting close thread every time he doesnt want to have a thread open anymore nice. We couldnt have signature pictures before because it would make the load up time slower and take up bandwith or whatever but now we can have 3 more adds on a page and not make it slower? Im just trying to figure out wether its just money hungry or trolls getting jacked by his web space provider like Cizin said. Cizin hook this guy up will ya?

[Ender81]

Not for nothing but google ads are not random, they are related to what the site is about. It's bad enough that the vendors have to compete with the rest of the internet without it being advertised here.

[Will@TurboTek]

Some of us actually participate in Google ads...

[zerioustt]

I guess I am sorta joking cause it doesnt bother me that much....other then the fact that there has to be another way to make it less intrusive. All I am doing is voicing an opinion----the reason the forum was created in the first place. Theree are plenty of other forums who are much larger that dont require such a wild change to pay for the site.

So i guess heres where my emotion comes from

1) car of the week was ditched in lieu of some stupid ads
2) other bigger sites can manage without having every forum subsection littered with bull**** ads
3) Profit is being made off an informational site. Its not like I am paying for a service. I feel like i am being exploited...
4) NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE DUMB **** IN THE ADS
5) We all contribute to the site by hosting/putting on events/meets and support the "tuner economy" through the for sale section. We dont ask for anything back. I never asked for compensation for putting on the ultimate street car challenge....

http://www.ondmis.dk/billeder/forumpics/nowhining.gif

[zerioustt]

Hosting fees for the forum TRIPLED this year. We are looking into ways to try and offset these costs. I have been working with a forum advisor on ways to help the site to improve and operate more efficiently and we are working on ways to incorporate more Google ads. I didn't realize they would be going up tonight or else I would have started a thread letting everyone know.
Everyone acting like this is the end of the world and that they have to leave the site, please understand that a lot of time and money goes into keeping this site available to thousands of members at no charge. You are all free to use the site as much as you like and nothing at all is asked of you, so if anything I would ask for your cooperation while we integrate these necessary adjustments to the site.
In response to many suggestions about it, we are looking into an option for a premium member subscrption which would eliminate all Google advertisements.
So please take a deep breath if you need to, let us try to sort things out over the next couple of days, and continue to enjoy this completely free website as you always have.
Bryan

instead of people bitching at you they should be thanking you, but like most ungrateful people they complain. i wouldnt care if you made x amount of money off the site. you have to deal with all the bs that comes along with running and keeping the site up. funny how people complain about FREE stuff...lol

once again thank you brian for giving us tristaters a place to post just about anything, for FREE. if i ever see you at the bar ill buy you a drink of your choice:thumbup:

[CobaltGrl]

not a big deal. just entails a bit more scrolling. I was just wondering what had happened. Free furoms FTW! just suck it up and deal with it! :mrgreen:

[zerioustt]

not a big deal. just entails a bit more scrolling. I was just wondering what had happened. Free furoms FTW! just suck it up and deal with it! :mrgreen:

say werd..

[Ender81]

I'm going to go out on a limb then and bet that neither one of you will see the humor (or irony) in the car forums that are advertised in the google ads lol.

[MuddyREX]

I have a solution.

Either make Dimitri pay to post here, or ban him. Below is a visual aid. :finga:




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v308/muddyrex/EndofTSTBandwith.jpg

[Dave]

while i do appreciate the site being free and the ads helping to keep it that way, I spend enough time on here killing my iraq boredom I'd gladly opt for a premium membership if one was offered.

oh yeah, considering the heavy wrx/sti population here this made me lol
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b369/Khajjathefang/scoob1.jpg
in case you missed the joke NOT a product of fuji heavy industries ^^^^^
and whats up with that camber?

[MPowerKai]

Yes, I would definately like premium membership. The S2000 site has member which gives you red stars and premium member which gives you gold stars. They also send you a card with your user name and stuff (yes, my user name is Dylan Hunt on s2ki captain of the Andromeda Ascendant)

http://www.members.aol.com/ferraris2k/s2kimembership.jpg


3si gives you access to the offtopic section with a membership and there is a korean forum Soompi that gives you hearts under your name if you donate

(Yes, I am paid up and donated up in all the forums I am a part of)
Although you should give something back for premium membership like sig pics.

[TROLL]

Don't want anyone to think I'm ignoring them so I'll try to respond to a few things quickly here...

Its not a secret what vendors pay or how many of them there are... so sure, do the math. There are a few sources of income on the forum and there are quite a few costs involved too. I enjoy this JOB most days, but it is definitely a job and it requires more organization, responsibility, and management skills than I think some might realize.
If it didn't make sense for me to run the site I wouldn't be doing it, just like if it didn't make sense for you to visit the site you wouldn't do it. With that said I'd ask that the members here not worry about financial matters regarding the site, as they are understandably private and nothing you need to be concerned about. I'm not starving from the forum and I'm definitely not getting rich from it, so I think thats all you need to know.

As for the number of ads... an experienced and successful forum owner who is also my forum adviser set up what he thought was best for the forum last night, which included more ads and larger ads, but I felt it was really just too much for us so a lot of it was quickly taken down. At this point, there are only 2 extra ads showing up. The one you all have clearly noticed is the ones that are after the first post in a thread, and they are only 60 pixels tall (your monitor is probably between 800-1200 pixels tall, so they only take up 5-8% of your vertical space). We know these are effective and felt that they were the best compromise on not being intrusive to the 'forum experience'. The only other ad that was added is at the very bottom and I cant see how it would get in the way of anything, some of you may not have even noticed it.

We are discussing having a premium membership which would allow benefits like more PMs stored, more attachment storage space, more photos in your Garage, a custom user title, and it would eliminate the extra ads that we just put up, probably for $10-12 a year. It might be nice to add a couple nice vinyls in with the package for a couple bucks more but we're still in the very early development stages of all of this.
It is nothing you are forced to do so if you're not interested just carry on normally. We are still trying to work out details there and work on implementing the subscription system for it, but you can look for that option in the near future.

So again, thanks to all those who are understanding, and to those who aren't happy I'd just ask you to look at the bigger picture and try to appreciate that you have a place like this to visit if you want to where nothing at all is asked of you. If you like what we're doing here then thats great and I think I speak for all of the mods when I say thats something we're proud of. Continue to enjoy the site as you were and we'll continue to work toward bringing you new content and features while keeping the current ones strong as well.

[Will@TurboTek]

TROLL, it might just be me, but I don't see a single ad...

The 1 after the first post is a tiny blue box that says "Sponsored Links". That is maybe 10px tall. And the bottom ads I can't even find?

[WhiteXFire]

The ads don't bother me at all, but if we're going to talk about costs:

http://www.dreamhost.com/

I've had a domain for 2 years now...almost 200GB of storage and almost 2TB of monthly bandwidth for $7.95/month.

[StreetEG]

you werent on yesterday when the site was super cluttered with ads, car of the month was removed etc. The site looks a buttload better today.
/complaints

[Will@TurboTek]

The ads don't bother me at all, but if we're going to talk about costs:

http://www.dreamhost.com/

I've had a domain for 2 years now...almost 200GB of storage and almost 2TB of monthly bandwidth for $7.95/month.

Dreamhost is **** when you need to use SQL! Our site runs like crap on their servers and they won't fix anything!

[D Money]

I have a solution.

Either make Dimitri pay to post here, or ban him. Below is a visual aid. :finga:




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v308/muddyrex/EndofTSTBandwith.jpg

No biggie, tell him to Ban me. I'll be honest, I don't really post that much anymore. If I do, it's only to bull**** with friends. Nothing serious comes from this site and you can guarantee that I wouldn't pay $1 to be a member.

Looks like you spent alot of time on that drawing and got "0" laughs. :wink:

[WhiteXFire]

Dreamhost is **** when you need to use SQL! Our site runs like crap on their servers and they won't fix anything!

Yeah, I've never had to run anything under heavy load. Just figured I'd throw it out there and get a response from someone. :)

[LiL PJ]

I ain't got a problem with the google ads. I use google all the time for my homework.

F Yahoo!

[05Accent]

umm yea i just got in for the first time today and looked and was suprised at the ads, being where they are.. at frist they bothered me seein them in every thread. but whatever, if it makes the site stay up then sweet.

it was just at first i didnt like the idea of them being in the thread and just being annoying. i liked them on the side of the front page. but as u stated if google wants them there then so be it..
thanks TB for keepin this place running.
junior

[ScubaSteve]

I didnt even notice them untill I saw this thread, I tend to miss somethings from time to time. The ads dont bother me at all, the way its set up now. And for anyone thats bitching about Troll making money: I dont know how much a site like this costs but even if he does make money on it we have no right to complain. Hes not charging us and profiting off of us from it and im sure he puts a lot of time in maintaining the site. He deserves anything he might gain just becasue he gave us the oppurtunity to be a part of a site like this. I understand if people were mad when it was covered with ads (I didnt see it at the time) but with the current setup there really shouldnt be an issue.

[Ender81]

Its not a secret what vendors pay or how many of them there are... so sure, do the math. There are a few sources of income on the forum and there are quite a few costs involved too. I enjoy this JOB most days, but it is definitely a job and it requires more organization, responsibility, and management skills than I think some might realize.
If it didn't make sense for me to run the site I wouldn't be doing it, just like if it didn't make sense for you to visit the site you wouldn't do it. With that said I'd ask that the members here not worry about financial matters regarding the site, as they are understandably private and nothing you need to be concerned about. I'm not starving from the forum and I'm definitely not getting rich from it, so I think thats all you need to know.

As for the number of ads... an experienced and successful forum owner who is also my forum adviser set up what he thought was best for the forum last night, which included more ads and larger ads, but I felt it was really just too much for us so a lot of it was quickly taken down. At this point, there are only 2 extra ads showing up. The one you all have clearly noticed is the ones that are after the first post in a thread, and they are only 60 pixels tall (your monitor is probably between 800-1200 pixels tall, so they only take up 5-8% of your vertical space). We know these are effective and felt that they were the best compromise on not being intrusive to the 'forum experience'. The only other ad that was added is at the very bottom and I cant see how it would get in the way of anything, some of you may not have even noticed it.

We are discussing having a premium membership which would allow benefits like more PMs stored, more attachment storage space, more photos in your Garage, a custom user title, and it would eliminate the extra ads that we just put up, probably for $10-12 a year. It might be nice to add a couple nice vinyls in with the package for a couple bucks more but we're still in the very early development stages of all of this.
It is nothing you are forced to do so if you're not interested just carry on normally. We are still trying to work out details there and work on implementing the subscription system for it, but you can look for that option in the near future.



Troll we aren't trying to jump on you here but you brought up the cost of the site so we responded. I really don't care if you want to make a buck or just need extra money to keep the site going. I'm just saying that maybe before consulting a successful forum owner maybe you should have consulted us, the people on your forum. If this guy thought google ads were the best way for you to make a few dollars here maybe you should have had him spend a few hours actually reading the site. It wouldn't take a forum guru to figure out that people here would be willing to pay for a premium membership of some kind.
For some of us one of the really high points with this forum was the lack of stupid and useless advertising (see Nasioc or the Nico forums to see where it could go from here). Hell if all you want is a few bucks a month ditch the ads, come up to the Allentown meet every week, I'll buy you a beer and some hot wings and we'll call it even :wink:

[Drftpretty]

The next time I need Mining Equipment Ill be sure to head right to TST.

WTF? I wouldnt mind the ads if they had anything to do with cars.

[PotenzaSub]

nublets wqefghjkl;'

[Will@TurboTek]

nublets wqefghjkl;'

Exactly what I see! :lol:

[TROLL]

can you tell me what browse you're using and what version? mac or pc? i dont know what else to ask but i'll try to figure out why thats happening at least...

[Will@TurboTek]

I'll post up as soon as i m at work again!

I seem them at home with Firefox 1.5.0.9

[PotenzaSub]

can you tell me what browse you're using and what version? mac or pc? i dont know what else to ask but i'll try to figure out why thats happening at least...

It's happening because I modded my browser to block ads. :-p Don't worry it still loads onto my computer, it just isn't visible in my browser.

[CleanNeon98]

To free up some space, maybe you could delete the accounts of members who havent logged in for say 6 months. This would very much clean up the space, and maybe help remove some of the ads

[MuddyREX]

No biggie, tell him to Ban me. I'll be honest, I don't really post that much anymore. If I do, it's only to bull**** with friends. Nothing serious comes from this site and you can guarantee that I wouldn't pay $1 to be a member.

Looks like you spent alot of time on that drawing and got "0" laughs. :wink:

I agree, I wouldn't pay anything to be a member either.

And that drawing only took all of 1 minute, and was only meant as a joke. Sorry if you took it otherwise.

[D Money]

I agree, I wouldn't pay anything to be a member either.

And that drawing only took all of 1 minute, and was only meant as a joke. Sorry if you took it otherwise.

Nah, it's cool, I was just messin.

[RayArroyo]

i like all of the non forum vendors on here now!!!!!!! lol

[CHAOS]

its a way to bring in revenue to pay for the site as well as bring in some income for the powers that be

[ozthunder]

The ads are fine by me..i've been on numerous forums, and im well aware of the costs (being as I used to run one myself..lol, god have mercy on you Troll!). Ads are a necessary evil sometimes..now..a Premium Membership feature would be ace.

[04 Turbo Spec]

I'd be fine with a yearly subscription as long as it was reasonable.


that is a terrible idea

[ozthunder]

Why? isn't TST like a "grass roots" kinda thing? What's the matter with helping out the community?

[wrx_snobordr]

Why? isn't TST like a "grass roots" kinda thing? What's the matter with helping out the community?

Because people dont like to give money unless they know where it is being spent. If they start a paid membership all the money should go into the site and not into anyones pockets. I dont think anyone involved with running this site are crooks or would screw people like that but they also as previously stated are unwilling to divuldge financial information. This begs the question "how much is beign made?"

As I stated earlier I dont care if money is being made. However, I wont be payign any monthly dues to be a member of a revenue generating operation. A forum like this should be free to the users unless they are provided with features that go well beyond those generally associated with a forum, simply paying to not deal with an abundance of ads doesnt cut it in my book. If revenues are not enough to cover liabilities then increase the fee charged to those who are benifitting from the wealth of potential customers and good word of mouth, read vendors. Also, as someone mentioned cutting the fat, removing inactive users, cutting down on usless subforums such as "Ask the law" or combining subforums that doent get much usage such as the multiple teach forums and the different regional forums. ALso, you could archive less, especially in the off topic and spotted forums.

Just my opinions though.

[ozthunder]

I agree with mostly all of that. I think paid memberships should allow you to get things that you wouldn't ordinarily get- like signatures. This is the ONLY website that disallows sig pics that I go to, and I frequent about 6. That took me off guard a bit. But a paid membership should allow that, the changing of the member title under your user name, and possibly more features and even a special premier "forum". Stuff like that will certainly balance off the membership cost IMHO, esp in bandwidth terms.

Albeit, i'm a fairly new member, so my say really isn't much. However, I frequent plenty of forums, have worked for and on plenty of them, and even founded 2 (CF.net, ECF.net, and I was an original member of supercars.net before it went all crazy and split up about 4 years ago), so I have a good bit of forum experience. Premier memberships have always been the way to go; ads simply cause too much fuss, and IMHO, don't generate nearly the amount of a forum membership could. It also depends on who is willing to be..so far, it seems like not many lol.

But I agree about where the money is going; this shouldn't be a "for profit" organization. When I signed up, I was aware that it was a collection of car enthusiasts from the area who were merely looking for a place to talk, bond, etc. So where I was coming from earlier was that as a community, sometimes you need help out. Now, if that means a paid membership or donation ability to keep it running, I think that should be an option. Notice "keep it running". If the ads, donations, or premier memberships go towards peoples pockets, then you start seeing division. For me personally, i'm not sure if I would contribute with those terms, but if my contribution allowed for the security of the community/forum/site, then it would be strongly considered.

- Dylan

[Will@TurboTek]

TST Arcade for premium members!

[BlackBulletTSi]

hahahaha Arcade, its not bad

[RayArroyo]

i say porn!!!!!!!! for premium members of 18 years of age or older!!!!

[ozthunder]

lol..ive actually seen the arcade thing done before.

[04BlueSRT4]

i say porn!!!!!!!! for premium members of 18 years of age or older!!!!
:iagree:

The ads really dont bother me...they were a surprise the first day or so, but I really dont notice them now.

[Ender81]

I still notice them but apparently there is no point in complaining.