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Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078

Posted: 04:56am 26 Jan 2011

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A couple of days ago I disabled the account of forum member Gordon (GWatPE). I know Gordon has many friends on the forum and contributed a great deal, so I feel I should explain my actions. There is no one thing that lead to my decision, it was a combination of many small issues over some time, and I think its best if I explain some forum etiquette and clear up miss information that has been discussed off forum. I will add I discussed this with other forum admins to get their advise on what they would do in a similar situation. I know many forum members will strongly disagree with my decision, and some forum members will go out in sympathy, I'm not happy about that at all, but I can understand why.

This forum is like a pub. Its a privately owned place where anyone is welcome to visit and hang out. Its not like a public park, where you can do what you want and no one can do anything about it. The pub owner ( me ) has the sole right to decide what topics can and can not be discussed. If I feel a forum post thread is getting out of hand, is too far off topic, I may decide to close it, or in rare occasions, delete it. If I do close a thread, then it is not a good idea to start a new one about the same topic. If the pub owner has spend 6 months painting and refitting the toilets, its not a good idea to change the fittings to suit yourself. Basically, be nice to the pub owner, dont make his life harder, because eventually he will have had enough and make you leave. You may disagree with the way the pub is run, but at the end of the day, its his pub.

Now about the rumors that this site makes me lots of money, and I dont like informative posts because they could reduce my earnings!??? OK, I make some earnings from the Google and Amazon advertising. You will see Google and Amazon advertising on many other forums and web sites, its how they manage to stay afloat. I cant say exactly how much I earn, it changes from day to day, but its much less than it was a couple of years ago, the economic downturn has hit this site like many others. In a good week, I can make enough to pay for the weekly groceries for a single person, me, but thats only occasionally, and I dont eat a lot. So no, I wont be quiting my day job any time soon. There are also costs in hosting the web site, about $120 per month, plus domain name fees. However, I have removed most of the advertising for forum members, cause I appreciate your posts and dont want to bombard members with advertising.

Some forum members do sell their own stuff on the site. I've put together web pages for Trev, Anthony, Phill and John, at no cost to them, to give them a outlet to sell their stuff. I do this because I believe they sell stuff that would be of interest to the readers of this site. I earn nothing from this. While I did help in the design of the extruded blades, and was hoping to get a commission, I got screwed instead, but I'm still happy for Phill and Jarbar to sell the blades on my site, at no cost, again because I feel the community will benefit from their stuff.

Fact is, there has been a lot of work put into this site, many hours putting the articles together, managing the server, keeping the forum under control, etc, for very little financial return. From a business point of view, any accountant would tell me to give it up long ago.

The web site is here because I like to share my interests and idea's. I will take a lot of flack, but I do have a breaking point. To date after 8 years only one person has pushed me that far. I know other forums will de-activate members for much less.

Glenn

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ

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