jeff g Posted September 2, 2006 Report Share Posted September 2, 2006 Growing Pains. There is a hard core of members and moderators here, and at TRC, who won't let Admin, or the rest of us down. This forum is solid. Paying to play has always worked for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KB Posted September 2, 2006 Report Share Posted September 2, 2006 Ok I've got a dirty secret..... Since the formation of this board I have been kind of swept up in the whirlwind to the point that until Thomas posted this thread I had completely forgotten about upgrading to a supporter account. That has now been rectified and I also chose the 1 Month re-accuring so I automatically pay $5 every Month. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryyannon Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 "That has now been rectified and I also chose the 1 Month re-accuring so I automatically pay $5 every Month." That's interesting - I didn't think the payment process could be so simply automatized. Meaning that the option of 'paying as you go' is really feasible and not an additional nightmare of keeping track of member subscriptions.... Another incentive for offering a painless system for membership support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotoman Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 "That has now been rectified and I also chose the 1 Month re-accuring so I automatically pay $5 every Month." That's interesting - I didn't think the payment process could be so simply automatized. Meaning that the option of 'paying as you go' is really feasible and not an additional nightmare of keeping track of member subscriptions.... Another incentive for offering a painless system for membership support. Especially a buck - and you can even sign up for a 1 dollar a time till you feel comfortable that the forum isn't a total scam. Who will care about a buck coming out here and there. If 10% pay 5 dollars a month - then, 75% (assuming some drop off) would easily pay 1$ and that would be more. Only question i have is - we obviously want to allow the forum to grow and new people to contribute. I don't think many of us would be concerned if growth slowed. - But - We have to all be reaping some benefit from our dealers due to size of our market. So i assume there is a diminishing return where we risk of not just losing a potential future contributor because of barrier to entry but also reduced dealer interest? I guess maybe, maybe not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonthebhoy Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 A night of pub-crawling through the back streets of Glasgow with Johntheboy? A normal weekend thing then? JTB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gran Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 These last couple of weeks I've deliberately not spent the same amount of time that I usually spend on these forums. To be perfectly honest, I've been extremely fed up with RWG and there are several reasons to this. Admin I know exactly how you feel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAHLER Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Personally, I have been collecting watches for almost 5 years now. I have about 50 watches in my collection and I love them all, despite the flaws, either if the CG is wrong or the pearl is way of. I know a lot of members are not like me. When I see a watch I like, I buy it, regardless of the flaws. I ever go looking for flaws either. When I see a watch I like, I don't start looking for pictures of the real on to compare and to find tons of errors. I go with my "guts" and they tell me "Heeeyyy. Nice watch" If I then start to look for errors, I'll just disappoint myself. The point I am trying to make here is that we are dealing with "low" cost watches. So please don't expect it to be anything like the real thing. A lot of watches are really good, but they are not the real thing. Right attitude !! Thanks for your words !!!! Joseph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryyannon Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Bump. Any more of you guys feeling generous today/tonight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KB Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 I'll bump this too just to add..............I can understand guys being reluctant coughing up $20 for a year on a new site until they are absolutely sure they intend to use that site for a year, but did you know that you can be a full supporter for 1 whole Month for just $5..........I'm sure everyone who comes to this site is going to save a whole lot more than that on one purchase. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melvin.x Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 I just signed up for a 1 year membership in the "supporters club". Keep up the good work ! Greetings DJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted September 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Well, I've been a busy bee, as usual, this weekend. I've been doing some background work here to set up a new help/support system to handle all the different questions I get. This will also store all your help requests so that you don't need to ask the same question twice. it also has a knowledgebase that I will populate with useful info. And you should be able to use your current username and password to access it OK, I'll try and respond to some of the things in this thread. 1. First off all, I am not out here to toot my own horn and have everybody praise me on the job I do. I do appreciate to hear that you people like the job that both I, the moderators and the co-admin does. The reason that post was made is/was that I felt extremely tired of what is going on and I just wanted to get this up in the open so that new members could read about this also. I prefer to do my work in the background and have the "admin things" be invisible, if possible. The same thing goes for the moderators and the co-admins. They have been advised that if it is possible, to solve the different problems we encounter via PM. I think it is a good board when you only see the moderators/admin participate in the regular postings and that's all the members see. All the other "gory" stuff is solved in the background. This is our primarily focus, but sometime things do come to the surface and we try to deal with these issues as best we can. Working this way apparently have it's backside, because very few of the members seem to realize what it really takes to run a board like this, so I guess a post like this was necessary to open some of the members eyes. Since the post was made, this is the result: 12 months RWG Supporter: 8 6 months RWG supporter: 1 1 month RWG supporter: 3 12 months RWG Supporter (recurring): 2 6 months RWG supporter (recurring): 0 1 month RWG supporter (recurring): 1 Donations: 1 Canceled RWG supporter memberships: 2 A big thank you to those who have decided to become RWG supporters! I'm not asking for much. I'm not expecting this board to provide me with tons of money, but I do admit that it would be nice to take the rest of the money that is left after all the hosting bills, licenses bills, etc are paid and go out and be able to buy myself a couple of beers or even a good bottle of cognac. 2. Support Basically, I have no problems helping members who have problems. I've done it at TRC for the last 4 years and I've been doing it here for almost 6 months now. It's just the general attitude a lot of members have when emailing me or PM'ing me that is really pissing me off. And like I said; when you e-mail me to complain that the server is down and you have never paid a single dime to use the site, you accomplish two things. You piss me off and you take me away from the work of restoring the server because I have to answer your e-mail. I always do the very best I can, in any situation, to provide info to the members about downtime, server maintenance, etc. If this server goes down, TRC will usually be on-line or vice versa. Both are on individual servers so hopefully nothing should hit them at the same time. Backups are being taken every night of the site so the site will ALWAYS be back online. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than usual, depending on what the problem is. 3. TRC/RWG As far as I can see, there is currently no reason to "merge" TRC and RWG. Even though the forums might have become similar with me as the admin of both, they are still very different. This is one reason. Another is that it's not really practical to merge them either. One of the forums would have to become the "main" forum, and the other would just become an archive. Also, importing duplicate memberships is a big waste also. Anyway, this isn't really an issue. I will not choose between TRC or RWG. I choose to have both of them here. Because of the lower traffic at TRC there is not the same technical needs, in regards to the server, as RWG requires, so the expenses of running TRC is lower than running RWG. 4. Closed forum/member sonly/limited access These ideas have been discussed several times before and my mind is very clear on these matter. These forums should never become closed communities. This will effectively kill a forum. A forum should be; Open - to get new members Friendly - to make new members feel comfortable Informative - Help new members This will make new members comfortable here and will hopefully make them see that they need to support the forum. From either today or tomorrow all new members will automatically receive a PM from me with a little info about the forum, practical info, etc This will also contain information that we rely on the members to be able to run this forum. And like somebody mentioned, it's not really fair that 10-15% of the members are paying for for the remaining members..... Now, we could discuss that certain areas should only be available to supporting members. I remember someone once suggested to only allow RWG supporters view the dealers sections. This will not be possible. The dealers are also supporters of our forum and they do of course want maximum exposure, so this forum will be visible to all members. 5 Ads/site design As soon as the time allows it, I will do a little redesign of the site, so that the Goggle ads will be more visible. This will hopefully remind some members to click the ads more often than what is the case today. Take yesterday. RWG had about 30.000 page views and 19 clicks on the ads The goggle ads can be a good extra income source for RWG if people remember to click the ads. So maybe you wanna help? Well, you can! Place this code in your signature; [adsense][/adsense] and you'll display 1 line with google ads in your signature. It looks like this: google_ad_client = "pub-1298306806357288"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 15; google_ad_format = "468x15_0ads_al"; //2007-01-18: Adsense Code google_ad_channel = "2444019975"; google_color_border = "FFFFFF"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "0000FF"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "008000"; //--> (Please do not post any "encouraging" words that people should click the ads. This will only get RWG banned from the google adsense program. Again, I think that was it for now. I'm starting my last "BIG" houseproject tomorrow. New roof. Hopefully should not take any longer than 7-10 days and I'll be stopping by as many times pr. day as time permits me to do to answer your questions or participate on the forum as usual Oh, and one last thing.....what's REALLY taking A LOT of my time is helping Star with his computer....If he paid me by the hours I would be richer than Bill Gates by now...... Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Watchmeister Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 You mean Star's computer is what set this whole thing off? Star- Would you please get your computer fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted September 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 You mean Star's computer is what set this whole thing off? Star- Would you please get your computer fixed. Star has a computer that is based on the german "Enigma" from WWII...at least he claims his computer to be at least as "cryptical" as this machine used to be. Usually, his 286-based processor machine crashes instantly on eye contact or if you even think about touching the keyboard. His wireless mouse interferes with his garage opener, so it's quite a show.... . It has alo been known to host some mystical fluids from baby grape juice, if my mind serves me right, and it might burst into flames any time now, by loading this long thread.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Place this code in your signature; [adsense][/adsense] and you'll display 1 line with google ads in your signature. I think I can do that. Does it mean I need to post more to get more ads available? ps. odd, it doesn't want to work ... is it limited to once a page? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 ok, replying to my own post, I've taken a quick shuftie at the code and only the first signature loaded with Adsense will be shown, which is why your example, Admin, doesn't show up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted September 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 ok, replying to my own post, I've taken a quick shuftie at the code and only the first signature loaded with Adsense will be shown, which is why your example, Thomas, doesn't show up. Forgot to mention that. To comply with google adsense rules, it will only show up once pr. page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonthebhoy Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Just trying it out. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melvin.x Posted September 3, 2006 Report Share Posted September 3, 2006 Since the post was made, this is the result: 12 months RWG Supporter: 8 6 months RWG supporter: 1 1 month RWG supporter: 3 12 months RWG Supporter (recurring): 2 6 months RWG supporter (recurring): 0 1 month RWG supporter (recurring): 1 Donations: 1 Canceled RWG supporter memberships: 2 A big thank you to those who have decided to become RWG supporters! I'm not asking for much. I'm not expecting this board to provide me with tons of money, but I do admit that it would be nice to take the rest of the money that is left after all the hosting bills, licenses bills, etc are paid and go out and be able to buy myself a couple of beers or even a good bottle of cognac. So this thread is worth $375 ( including the $35 donation from mikellem ) until now. Not too bad... Just drink a cool beer after you finished the new roof... Greetings DJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonthebhoy Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Didn't work. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted September 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Like I said above: to comply with the rules of the google adsense program, the ads will only be displayed once pr. page. On this current page, ken is the first one with the ads-code in his signature, so you can see the ads there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonthebhoy Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Like I said above: to comply with the rules of the google adsense program, the ads will only be displayed once pr. page. On this current page, ken is the first one with the ads-code in his signature, so you can see the ads there Got it now Admin. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcrooz Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Good post Admin. I haven't read all the replies due to lack of time so forgive me if I'm repeating stuff. I upgraded my account a few weeks ago and the thought struck me that all members with more than 50 posts should be paying up to help keep running this place. By that time you know if you like the place, and you've certainly saved on your watches thanks to the advice on offer here. just my $0.02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neuhoover Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Admin, I guess I didn't realize what it takes to run a forum. Thanks for the note and the "kick in the pants." Some of what you put in this post should be in an auto-generated email that goes to newbies who sign up for an RWG account. Well, I've been on RWG (I and II) since 2004 and consider it "home." Even over the last 16 months in grad school, I still found a few minutes here or there to keep up with the forum. My "membership" on the board(s) has cost me a lot of money, with over 25 reps purchased (not to mention straps and other accessories). And I always thot my contributions in (meaningful) posts and the discovery of the WatchHonpo site was payment enough back to the board. Well, as a result of your post I've become an RWG Supporter for 1 yr. Sorry for being a slacker and a freeloader for the last two years. No more. I'd really miss RWG if it went away (altho my wife wouldn't - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 First of all great to see so many supporters posting here... As i had been the last three months absence because of writing my dissertation i haven't noticed the server probs and have to spent several hours and days to read all the post made during my absence but i can only assent Admin in general beeing a mod or admin isn't a nice job... you're doing a lot of work here and you have the feeling that most of them doesn't notice all the time, work and money you spent here that all members have a great place to hang around... I really hope that you take a minute or two per hour you spent here to click on the adds.. so we can cover our costs So this thread is worth $375 ( including the $35 donation from mikellem ) until now. Not too bad... Just drink a cool beer after you finished the new roof... Greetings DJ As said i hasn't been here for a few month but as far as i know our bills are way higher... but each single dollar helps us to run the site... if you dislike to have an supporter-membership you click the adds or just donate a dollar or two... is everyone of you is doing that it would be much easier... Thanks And great to be home again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAHLER Posted September 4, 2006 Report Share Posted September 4, 2006 Bump. Any more of you guys feeling generous today/tonight? google_ad_client = "pub-1298306806357288"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 15; google_ad_format = "468x15_0ads_al"; //2007-01-18: Adsense Code google_ad_channel = "2444019975"; google_color_border = "FFFFFF"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "0000FF"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "008000"; //--> after an action of generosity takes some relax........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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