Hopefully this question is fair to this site

[Max]

so many deletions. Makes me unhappy.....

[[redacted]]

Why are people deleting their posts?

[williame3590]

I guess Brent isn't going to stick around. WTH?

Bill

[Sour kraut]

I guess he simply isn't "Happy"

[Cosmith]

As it sits at this very moment this is a big improvement over the other big Canadian forum IMHO. The membership is growing quickly and I hope it continues.

Does anyone else feel that other one is "overly commercial"? Very, very limited features if you aren't willing to pay, virtually un-useable number of PMs, extremely expensive for vendors from my understanding, and lots of advertising.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that businesses are in place to make money and also that there is some work to maintain a large forum, however it just seemed to be getting a little over the top to me. I do have an intimate understanding...my background is in IT and I have setup and run a couple of medium sized forums, all of them entirely on my dime...and it didn't cost a whole lot. For the most part I was able to pay my expenses plus a little extra with just a little advertising...however I never did it as a for profit venture.

Anyway, hopefully whoever is running this can keep it up!!

[[redacted]]

the other site seemed to change after rc rick sold it.

[Cosmith]

I never really understood paying for a membership to get basic stuff, like a reasonable amount of PMs. Tons of huge forums in the US that happily make their $$ from a bit of advertising. It doesn't cost a ton to run a forum, basically a domain name and hosting. That said some specialized knowledge and some time is required to set it up and maintain it. I would think the free forums that provide a good service are going to get the most traffic and largest membership and therefore can generate the most revenue by advertising. I don't see how pushing people away for a few dollars a month would be the most effective way to make $$ doing this. I believe it worked for the other site because they essentially had a monopoly until now. Starting another forum has crossed my mind more than a few times, but thankfully I don't think there is a need now!

[Cecil Marshall]

I'm a "senior" and this new forum is "a breath of fresh air"!
I'm a "lurker" and don't post much unless I can contribute to the thread but I'm on the site every day!
I was on the "other site" since 2002 and have less than 1000 posts!
I didn't mind being a "site supporter", but I'm on a fixed income and they want $48.00 a yr. for what?
I'll be spending more time over here now
Cecil

[Panda900]

I never really understood paying for a membership to get basic stuff, like a reasonable amount of PMs. Tons of huge forums in the US that happily make their $$ from a bit of advertising. It doesn't cost a ton to run a forum, basically a domain name and hosting. That said some specialized knowledge and some time is required to set it up and maintain it. I would think the free forums that provide a good service are going to get the most traffic and largest membership and therefore can generate the most revenue by advertising. I don't see how pushing people away for a few dollars a month would be the most effective way to make $$ doing this. I believe it worked for the other site because they essentially had a monopoly until now. Starting another forum has crossed my mind more than a few times, but thankfully I don't think there is a need now!

I have run a few large forums in the past and I can say that you're correct that it costs almost nothing to run a small site. But to run something larger, where you have hundreds of users simultaneously accessing it, the costs ramp up quickly. Hosting itself is such a vague term because there is $1/month hosting and there is $1/hour hosting and a large range in between. To get into the $1/hour hosting level, it doesn't require all that many users especially if the forum owner is really trying to provide a great and fast user experience while making sure that there is guaranteed uptime and also backups. Disk space at home is still relatively cheap but if you try doing any sort of SSD or redundant space hosting at the server level, your costs add up quickly. The server, the maintenance, DNS issues, and then bandwidth expenses -- all of these are costs which the owner must pay out of pocket every month and then hope that somehow the advertising (which users always hate) ends up making him something back so that it isn't completely all out of pocket.

The number of forum owners I knew who were subsidizing their communities was much more than any I knew who were profiting or even breaking even. This of course completely negates the owner's own labor and time, which he or she rarely is ever compensated for. So from my experience of running a few larger forums in the past 10 years, I can say that the costs quickly add up, whereas the income from advertising is usually slow to increase. Most forums run at a loss and it's not due to poor management or poor business choices, its just that if the owner actually cares about his community, he will be willing to spend out of pocket and hope that one day maybe the income will exceed the expenses, but even if it never does, the joy of building a community and watching it grow and thrive is enough to keep them involved.

Just my outlook on it from being involved in the space for a few years.

BTW, I love the design and look of RCCanucks and am happy to be here. Thanks to everyone who's helping make this a great place.

[Cosmith]

I have run a few large forums in the past and I can say that you're correct that it costs almost nothing to run a small site. But to run something larger, where you have hundreds of users simultaneously accessing it, the costs ramp up quickly. Hosting itself is such a vague term because there is $1/month hosting and there is $1/hour hosting and a large range in between. To get into the $1/hour hosting level, it doesn't require all that many users especially if the forum owner is really trying to provide a great and fast user experience while making sure that there is guaranteed uptime and also backups. Disk space at home is still relatively cheap but if you try doing any sort of SSD or redundant space hosting at the server level, your costs add up quickly. The server, the maintenance, DNS issues, and then bandwidth expenses -- all of these are costs which the owner must pay out of pocket every month and then hope that somehow the advertising (which users always hate) ends up making him something back so that it isn't completely all out of pocket.

The number of forum owners I knew who were subsidizing their communities was much more than any I knew who were profiting or even breaking even. This of course completely negates the owner's own labor and time, which he or she rarely is ever compensated for. So from my experience of running a few larger forums in the past 10 years, I can say that the costs quickly add up, whereas the income from advertising is usually slow to increase. Most forums run at a loss and it's not due to poor management or poor business choices, its just that if the owner actually cares about his community, he will be willing to spend out of pocket and hope that one day maybe the income will exceed the expenses, but even if it never does, the joy of building a community and watching it grow and thrive is enough to keep them involved.

Just my outlook on it from being involved in the space for a few years.

BTW, I love the design and look of RCCanucks and am happy to be here. Thanks to everyone who's helping make this a great place.

I'll admit I've never run a huge forum...upwards of 50 concurrent users at best. My $10 or so a month hosting never seemed to present a problem with that load. I've been away from IT all together for a few years though. A couple times something went wrong updating my phpBB and I needed to restore from backup, but that was never a major problem...I think the host was backing up every 24 hours, included in the package.

In any case, the other RCC lists 40,136 members. Let's just say 1000 of them are somewhat active. Instead of $5 a month, what if they said let's do $1 a month. So, now they pull $1000 a month. Would I be wrong in saying that there would be no issue covering hosting cost and having something left over to the pad the old wallet? I would gladly pay $1 a month for a service like this, but I don't necessarily think that running a couple of forums should put you up in a mansion driving a Ferrari. It's not the $5 a month, it's just the principle.

In addition to that, I personally have no problem with some targeted advertising. Everybody has high speed internet now...on RCGroups for example, there is quite a bit of advertising but I don't notice it at all unless I choose to read it. I actually like it because I've discovered a few new products and vendors that way. I figure that they probably get paid by the click, so if I see something the least bit interesting I check it out...my small way of supporting the forum I guess.

That's just my 0.02...I do realize that greed is a nearly universal human trait and also that some people will complain about everything! I'm excited to see where this place goes!