Advertiser Free Sawmill Creek - Vote Now!!

[Tony Porter]

Peter,

There are other woodworking Forums that generate over $20,000.00 per year with Google ads, most are smaller in size then SMC. Now you know what that gray space at the top of this screen is worth and what I give up every year. Plus it costs me $300.00 per month for a bank loan I had to assume responsibility for in order to keep SMC online. Everyone here knows that I hate advertising but if you want it as a means of us providing a totally free SMC we can go that way.

We started the Fund Drive ads in our signatures November 1st to bring attention to this annual event. Lots of Members complained that they didn't know that SMC was Member Supported and never knew we had a Donate button. Now there are those who are expressing a dislike of our pushing our fund drive. What we learned is that you can't please everyone all the time

The fund drive is going to end the last day of November and every thread will be deleted, we will also return our signatures to a more normal state. In the future we will be using our signatures to promote our FreeStuff Drawing Tool givaways since many of our Members don't visit our FreeStuff Forum.

The 2007 Titles are going to stay, we have to have some method of letting Members know that we are Member Supported and the titles show who is providing financial support. We are looking at adding more perks for contributors in an effort to entice more Members to donate which would sure be less offensive than fund drives.

.

you cant please everyone, if you go member supported you have to do a fund drive some dislike that, then you get i donated so i should get more, or i donated more than others so i should get more, allso with donations you dont know how much you will get to plan for the sites future.

So keith i say to you as the man with all the responabilty for paying the bills and taking all the flack do whats right for you, if accepting ads relieves some of the stress i am sure you have worring about this site 24/7 accept ads, people will get used to it and i am sure you wont be putting anoying pop ups all will be tastefuuly done ,people dont like change but they get over it

[Peter Lyon]

To clarify, I don't find the fund drives offensive at all. I can totally appreciate the need to cover expenses, and dare I say, even compensate yourself for the time, effort and expertise you provide.

What I find bothersome is sense of public shame that goes along with not having the "200X Contributor" under your name - whether intended or not. I often wonder if those who have the "member" label feel like a modern day Hester Prynne.

Thanks for putting a dollar value on the banner. I can honestly say, there aren't many people (including me) who would say no to that kind of money if given a choice.

[John Piwaron]

I vote for ad free.

If, however, contributions don't rise to the level needed and ads must appear, I think they should be very relevant and not the annoying pop ups taking up a lot of screen space.

Heck, one reason I buy a print magazine at all is for ads. The kind of ads that appear in FWW are what I mean. Ads aren't the reason for the mag mind you, but they are useful.

The kind of ads to avoid are "off topic" - cars, drugs, public service, and so on. The kind of ads to have are for things to further the hobby or business of woodworking - ads for schools, tools, lumber, etc.

[Keith Outten]

To clarify, I don't find the fund drives offensive at all. I can totally appreciate the need to cover expenses, and dare I say, even compensate yourself for the time, effort and expertise you provide.

What I find bothersome is sense of public shame that goes along with not having the "200X Contributor" under your name - whether intended or not. I often wonder if those who have the "member" label feel like a modern day Hester Prynne.

Thanks for putting a dollar value on the banner. I can honestly say, there aren't many people (including me) who would say no to that kind of money if given a choice.

Thanks Peter,

Possibly we could use an icon instead of the title if that would make people more comfortable but I seriously doubt it makes a difference to many. Lots of Members who have been here for a very long time haven't noticed the titles at all. They haven't seen the DONATE button either or the contact link at the bottom of each page or .....you get the picture.

Woodworking is now a very expensive hobby. I doubt that 50 cents per month is out of reach for any woodworker including children, which is why we selected such a low figure for our suggested annual donation. I have accepted donations of just one dollar per year and gave them the same title that those who donated a hundred dollars and nobody knows but me. At The Creek the kids can hang with the big dogs for a buck a year if that is all they have or I will give them a Contributors title for free if they send me a private message and ask.

I'm sure you understand that it isn't really about making money but there is some satisfaction for me when people recognize our investment and hard work by donating something to show their support for our Community.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone,

Keith

[Jim Benante]

I am amazed that $6 is too much to spare for anyone on this site. I can think too many ways to save $6 to put toward a good cause.
I could skip one meal a year for access to this site. I could drive my car 3 gallons less in a year. I could buy something used instead of new once a year. I could utilize this forum to save $6 in wood by limting mistakes. I could save $6 a year in tools by buying tools that last a lifetime based on reviews here. I could build something instead of buy it and save $6. I could turn my heat down a degree in the winter for a few days a year. I could do hundreds of things to save $6 in a year.

This thansgiving evening I want to thank the creek and its members for saving me from many mistakes and helping me work through problems. I don't have anyone else to teach me woodworking and this site has taken that role.

Those of you who want to question everything, stop and realize the benefits of this forum and pony up 6 bucks to help keep it going. There shouldn't even be a question about ads as we should all help to keep the community we expect to be part of going.

[John Bailey]

Thanks Jim,

And well written.

John

[Tim Morton]

I am amazed that $6 is too much to spare for anyone on this site. I can think too many ways to save $6 to put toward a good cause.
I could skip one meal a year for access to this site. I could drive my car 3 gallons less in a year. I could buy something used instead of new once a year. I could utilize this forum to save $6 in wood by limting mistakes. I could save $6 a year in tools by buying tools that last a lifetime based on reviews here. I could build something instead of buy it and save $6. I could turn my heat down a degree in the winter for a few days a year. I could do hundreds of things to save $6 in a year.

This thansgiving evening I want to thank the creek and its members for saving me from many mistakes and helping me work through problems. I don't have anyone else to teach me woodworking and this site has taken that role.

Those of you who want to question everything, stop and realize the benefits of this forum and pony up 6 bucks to help keep it going. There shouldn't even be a question about ads as we should all help to keep the community we expect to be part of going.

It is not always "can I afford it". For me personaly its the "contributor label". And a close second is all the " Checks in the mail" Or "paypal sent" posts...I feel the contributions should be completely invisable and behind the scenes. I know we can continue this forum "ad free" and anonymous.

[Keith Outten]

Tim,

Share your thoughts with us about how we can collect donations without any advertising and letting our new Members know that our Community is self supporting. For three and a half years I have only been able to convince a very few to donate. The current fund drive has 227 Members donating as of last night in 23 days.

There are probably over 5000 active Members here, why is the donations ratio so low?

Is the self supporting model where the majority donate small sums even possible in a woodworkig forum?

I really like the ad free and anonymous idea because I dislike fund drives and begging for money. I don't know of any public Forum that has accomplished this in a large scale yet and I have had many Forum owners contact me and share their comments. Most just tell me to quit trying this model because it won't work and transition to an advertising model.

Would shutting down our server for one week each year be acceptable, just to get everyone's attention? Of course I'm joking about temporarilly shutting down The Creek but it does get lots of attention when it happens even for a couple hours.

I refuse to give up on a user supported community without a fight.

.

[Kristian Wild]

Thanks for keeping to your noble values Keith. While it's pathetic that we can't get 20% of the membership to cough up 50 cents a month, it is an unfortunate reality check of how much people take for granted.

If you have to go to a tastefully done advertiser supported forum just to keep it running - and to get a good sleep at night - then I will support you and the other admisitrators all the way.

Thanks for everything,

Kris

[John Bailey]

Kristian,

Thanks for your insight. And Keith, we've got 6 more days and with everyone's help to remind everyone they know, I think we can get enough for the member supported site. Not everyone follows these stickeys, and not everyone follows the fund raising discussions we have. I think most just take part in the wood working discussions. Imagine that!! So, the more we can do to remind foks, the better.

John

[Cory Newman]

I'll offer my 2 cents - I don't have an emotional tie to this forum so I'll just state some simple facts.

There are 10,313 members if that indicator is correct. And of that 226 feel it is worth $6 a year. What is that saying?

And from what I have read, the host has taken out a personal liability to keep this site afloat?

Saying no to advertisements isn't being noble, its being foolish. Post the banner ad, pay off the debt and use the rest to improve the infrastructure of the website. Improve the speed and reliablilty of the forum and perhaps more of the 10,313 will feel there is a value here. Then do the noble thing and remove the advertisements at some later date.

[Tim Morton]

Keith,

Do you think it would it work if you sent a PM to all 5000 members announcing that as of 1/1/08 there would be a $5 dollar charge to be a member. Explain that the reason for this is that we are determined to keep this an ad-free community. And then the server would be shut down for X amount of time to clear the cookies and relogging in would require the $5 contribution. Plus all new members would be required to pay a $5 dollar fee for a one year subrscription. I completely agree that reardless of financial situations we must get more than 227 out of 10000 to contribute or else the site will fail. Personally I am just grasping at straws here as well and throwing out possible reasons in my posts as to why the fundraising has hit a snag. I never have a problem shooting off my mouth when it isn't requested of me

I think the initial fund drive you did in the beginning was SO successful because it had the feel of a barn raising...we all wanted to keep SMC afloat and it had the feelign it was going to close or be taken over. I guess the question is how to get the feel of the barn raising back.

But one thing about using ads, I think maybe if you did a mock-up of what you were thinking it would give people an idea. As opposed to them thinking it might be THIS:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/

[Frank Hagan]

But one thing about using ads, I think maybe if you did a mock-up of what you were thinking it would give people an idea. As opposed to them thinking it might be THIS:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/

Tim, that has to be the worst one I've seen yet! I quit visiting one forum when they had the keywords in the content ... certain words in the posts themselves ... double underlined. If your mouse cursor hovered over those words, a little pop-up window came up with some ad.

A Google ad in the upper right hand corner would probably provide at least part of the income ... I think probably $200 a month based on what I pull in on a site with 1/10th the volume of this one (or even less traffic ... I can't do LOOOOONG division!) Add an Amazon.com affilliate store we could all go to and at least have Amazon.com kick in a few bucks of the money we are already spending, and you might have it. But would that be enough? $2,400 to $3,000 from Google, another $2,400 from an Amazon.com affilliate store, and you have almost enough for daily expenses. But not enough for growth.

I suspect it will be a "tasteful ad" and "user supported community" even then.

While there are "no ads ever" folks here, most people don't care if there's a banner ad up in the upper right hand corner. The ones that do care do so out of very noble intentions, and I certainly don't want to denigrate them, but their numbers are evidently small enough that they may not be able to support the community all by themselves.

[Laurie Brown]

But one thing about using ads, I think maybe if you did a mock-up of what you were thinking it would give people an idea. As opposed to them thinking it might be THIS:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/

Holy $$$$!!! If SMC turned into that, I'd be gone in a heartbeat, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Where the heck IS the forum in all that mess??

I vote no to ads. I run a web server and host several sites, and I refuse to allow a single ad of any type to touch my server. I get inundated every day in life on the TV, radio, billboards, pop up ads, email spam, telemarketers. I only frequent web sites where there is a minimum or no advertising. Seeing ads on a site just turns me off. There is too much of it already everywhere we look, please do not add to it here!

I run a forum on one of my sites, which is a fantasy horse racing game site. I ask for voluntary donations and get quite a few because those who donate get a bonus that other users don't get, to encourage donations. Restrictions for non-contributors and extras for contributors are a great way to get donations, and are fair. Not sure what those could be here on SMC. But if there are 10,000 members and less than 300 contributors something is wrong, especially since they're only being asked for $6.

[Tim Morton]

I think they would be looking more like this, which BTW is not even noticable IMO.

http://www.tundrasolutions.com/forums/