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Ah noo Beardie is beating his anti ad bongo drums again - but interesting feedback all the same dudes

Look around - websites don't run off donations for good reason... ads are a fairer and proportionate way of gathering income based on on usage. Im not advocating ads at all .. but im deffo saying donations wont work and may create undesirable side effects..

The website BAU is cheap and id rather pay for it as it means I have a legal contract with a big company if something goes wrong... It would be lovely to generate extra funds for things to pay for stuff like flickr pro, vimeo pro, some seo stuff, bits of software that cost a few quid here n there etc, and dare I say it do some ads ourselves hahaaha... and whatever else I fancy experimenting with in the short term that might cost some dolllllla.

Exmoor cakes are a fiver - but worth every penny. mmmm cream

I traded the bongos in for a big drum kit years ago, fella.

Any strength you / this site as a collective has is through independence.

Many sites function without advertising, moneysavingexpert and wikipedia must have a million times more traffic than here and has managed to keep ad-free. All private torrrrentt sites live off donation buttons as do many artists, photographers.

Most mtb sites are associated or originated from a printed magazine. The magazine publishing industry is run entirely in the interest of its advertisers, including forums. Editors bang out the "We need to pay server costs" but thats bollox they are in their advertisers pockets.

Why should you impose advertising on people who cant afford the shiny bits when there are plenty of other options?
If you take advertising how would you feel if your were contacted to remove a negative post from a customer? or to remove rival advertisers? If you take a bike shop as the advertiser, what will every 'What bike" thread look like?

Taking advertising will only encourage others to start advertising / spamming and before long it will become the spam-fest the other site was.

To clarify an earlier point about the filesize of the pages compared to the ads, the point of this is that people use mobiles to access this site and the addition of a 39k ad content and the additional ad tracking delivery system for every page is unfair.

Ideas to raise revenue

- Donate button - worked on the other site until admin boasted about how much he earned.
- Sold something - donate a percentage as its local youve saved on postage and will more likely be picked up or swapped at a ride.
- Bought something - got a bargain, donate a percentage as above.
- Add a fiver onto the price of the essexherts top.
- Had a great ride, been shown some great trails, recorded them on gps, saved you couple of quid buying a trail map,
- Been given a lift somewhere, saved on petrol and parking
- Used this site to organise a ride instead of wasting time/money texting/calling on the mobile.
- Turned up to a ride after seeing a post, youve saved money phoning/ texting people.
- Local Business Forum, locked to new posts. The business's pay to start the thread including all their relevant promotional / about us details then leave the rest of the thread for customer feedback.This thread is linked from the signatures. eg "Click here for details of my bike business"
- Theres already a recommend links section, why not charge people using this
- Why not charge people who advertise / spam in the signatures?

- How much is the site worth to its users? Meet up once a year and bring cash to give to Jon based on all of the above.
After all purchases of software / pro accounts, Any funds can be used to hire a van for an away day or get a round of cakes in at Karls or the first round of next years meet.

I might sound like an utter cunt here, but nothing.
I never have, and never will pay to use a website.

When I ran 28dayslater, we had over a million pageloads a day. Never once did I ask anyone to donate.
It was funded by myself and the other co-owner.
Eventually, we had amazon book links, where if someone bought a book thru a set link from the site, we got a percentage.
Fenix also sponsored us for £50 a month, for a tiny ad at the bottom of the page.

There is plenty of ways to sort it out without having to ask people for money....hosting has all-ready been offered here anyway!

I wondered how long it would take for you to pitch up lawbags Guys there is nothing to 'sort out' - Remember it was just noted as an idea to try.

In the end there are numerous reasons why taking ad revenue is much more comfortable/sensible for me that taking cash from friends. Ill chat through it… next time I see u on a ride.

If you look at the contributions to this thread V the amount of people who visit / post on the site each day, the conclusion that has to be drawn, is that in reality people aren’t really bothered weather there are ads or not.. That is is cool, and what I 100% expected. Id be the same

Actually i have read this every update and haven't commented as I have nothing more to add to the discussion than whats been said.

The vocal minority and silent majority.

I have to say....why fix whats working fine??

Do what you gotta do for the good of the site. don't really like ads, but I'm good at ignoring them and pretty sure they won't show up in Tapatalk anyway!

Jon

Your site us great and we all value it. Do what you want to do to make it work for you, it's your baby.

People are on it because it works and that is down to you. I have no problem with ads as a fund raiser or you making decisions on the sites future.

The fact is it is a lot bigger than back in the day (I think I was user 17), this may mean a change is needed.

Completely your call, people will vote with their feet but as long as we are organising quality rides and laughing at the footage I don't care.

If you want to try some things out to take it to the next level than go for it.

Nigel

Completely agree with Nigel Jon.

This is an awesome site, the best I've come across, and I can't see your suggestions ruining it although subscriptions to join may put some people off.

It's your site, you do all the work and we all benefit from it, so if you want to get some funds from add's then go for it.

As Trax says, we can ignore them, like we do for 99% of the rest of the web

@ Jon, how much revenue do you think is needed each month?

Absoloutly agree with every word Jon. Struggling to think of any way to enhance it tbh Massive from me. Respect to you for the amount of oversight you give to this site

Is anybody else getting emails saying theres been a new reply in this thread when there hasn't?
i've had it 2 or 3 times now when nothings changed in here

Ill have a look at the logs could be a bug!