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My opinion on the sale of the other site

FordDude

FordDude

Well-Known Dude
Staff member
Moderator
I guess that I will start with a disclaimer and that is the following is just my opinion.
That site grew bigger than the former owner ever expected and was costing him more time and money every month. Yes some helped by donating $$ and others helped by having auctions. He started charging for the for sale section and member status. All in all it never sounded like it was in the black. So he had something that was costing him money every month that he could just throw away. Selling the site was a win/win for him. He got the expense of running the site off of his back plus the software upgrades as well, and he still was able to run the site. Did he make a profit, yes, big profit, no. If you take all of the $$ that he put into the site over the years I do not think that he made enough to cover that. I am not condoning that sites actions towards some members, I am only commenting on the sale.
Who am I? Just a lowly mod of one of the manly local forums that was created years ago. I volunteered to be a mod to help out since at the time money was tight and my job status was flaky at best. I have not been posting over there very much for a number of reasons. Before the sale I was not able to edit my own posts except in my own modded forum. That place has become very conservative and I really did not have that much to say. That is what I am like in real life, I just like to watch and listen or in this case read.
OK that is it... time for me to watch the show. :pop
fd
 
I have never understood why it was always costing him money. For YEARS pictures were not posted on his site. His site only had to deal with text. I don't care how many members you have, it doesn't take much in band width or server speed to run a text only forum. Even after the upgrade, around 2001, or whenever it was, that you could include pictures in your posts, they had to be on some other server, not his. People don't seem to realize, that's other people's band width, not his. Add that onto the fact that he already has a high speed connection for his business, and all the money that was constantly being donated, and I can't understand how it wasn't profitable. For some reason, that I could never understand, he did start allowing people to post pictures on his server in the last year or two, all while stating what a financial drain the site was. It's the hosting of pictures that costs the money. That's where the band width issues come into play.

Like you, Tim, this is my opinion. I could be wrong here, but I have 25 years of IT experience, and for several years had my own side business as an ISP (Internet Service Provider), so have a bit of experience with this stuff. At the time that I had my ISP business, we ran a full news server out of my office. I guarantee you that server pumped far more information through it in a week than VMF does in a several months.
 
Also just my opinion, but I seriously doubt VMF was actually costing the owner anything out of pocket. He has a company that develops/hosts websites. Surely, he just kicked in a little extra across the board for any overhead, which as John mentioned really should have been minimal. The google ads were generating a handsome monthly income at one point too. Also, keep in mind that VMF donations more than paid for the new server, Todd had donated something like $400 alone. I never would have expected for the owner to pay for an enthusiast site out of pocket, but when you look around and start taking note of things, it just doesn't work out that the site was a financial burden and one of the reasons it was sold.
 
Given the group buys and other cash donations and product that was auctioned off, I would estimate we donated around $2K to the VMF in the past 4 years. Look around and see how many donators there are now, a lot of members have a donation icon. It would be interesting to know just how much it cost to run a forum of that size.
 
It will be interesting to see how many donators there are this time next year, I know when mine is up, my donations will go elsewhere....wink, wink :nice
 
Why would anyone donate to a commercial site?
Mmmm so does Mr.Paranoia and his minions get paid now?
 
Bigger question is; how long before Sluggo sells this place and retires to the Bahamas?
 
Guess I'll be the dick here.... but who really cares the "who's, what's, when's and why's"? I sure as shit don't. Honestly, does any of it really matter?

I think the only ones losing sleep over it are Mikey and Pete :dumas
 
Dear Mr. Pumpkin carver,
Who loses sleep? I did last night because........that burrito was way too potent. Poor wife and cats.
 
"70_Fastback" said:
Honestly, does any of it really matter?
Click to expand...

Nope, doesn't really matter at all. I donated probably $100 or so over the years, but felt I got value for my donations, so would never bitch about that.

Bob probably just got tired of all the B.S., but to insinuate that cost was a factor in the decision is probably a little stretch of the truth! :conf
 
My wife is the only reason I miss sleep, and that is for the fun things in life....... :bow
 
"silverblueBP" said:
Bigger question is; how long before Sluggo sells this place and retires to the Bahamas?
Click to expand...

If I were you, I'd worry more about Sluggo dying with his eyes wide open at work. No chance
I'm gonna retire off my friggin' job let alone the board. :amaz
 
"AzPete" said:
My wife is the only reason I miss sleep, and that is for the fun things in life....... :bow
Click to expand...



Ok............nick.
 
Well, I sure as hell haven't lost any sleep over it. I was asked both times we did them to do the group buys. I was also asked to donate to Mark's (and other) auctions annually to raise money to keep the lights on. Those donations were not intended to add equity to the site but that appears to be what happend. I should have said no but as a vendor, there was added pressure to donate. Hey - it's only $2,000.00 .
 
Every year of the 8 Corn Feeds I attended, I donated at least $150 to help defray the costs of the CF's and to support running that site. I would feel better had I bought Credit Default Swaps instead.
 
Like I said "it was just my opinion", what I did not say is that my opinion is subject to change and it has been changed. :amaz I think that John said it best, but the $$ that he got just from the few that posted here. :yikes So just how many have left the site due to banning or just not caring about the former owner. Or due we need to open another thread or poll? :bow fd
 
I was using it less and less but was banned and will not go back. bob will not even answer my e-mail.......so :bird him.
 
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