• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

where is Daniel and Wendy Wedeking from scales/exoticlizards.com

R

robin d.

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i miss seeing you guys if you are out there reading... i miss yalls posts and was just wondering how things were goiing. hope to hear from you!!
 
I have to admit that I was extremely surprised at Dan's stance in this decision I had to make. In order for this site to survive, I had to start treating it like a business, which I would have thought any businessman would have understood. I always appreciated Dan's support over the years with his banner ads and webhosting, and was disappointed that he pulled them immediately when the changeover took place here. Wendy apparently continued to post until her previous paid donation expired.

I do see Dan on the user log about every day, so apparently he has chosen to go into lurker mode instead of being an active participant here. I guess there is still information of interest to keep him coming back, but he has chosen to not post any longer.

I knew I would lose some people during the change, but never really expected Dan and Wendy to count among them. But that was their choice to make, I guess. Some people that left I was not particularly disappointed to see go, but Dan and Wendy were good people, and their loss here does bother me......
 
but Dan and Wendy were good people, and their loss here does bother me......
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as it should since they have been supporting you from almost the very begining, i do not think you even listened to one single thing they or anyone else said... you lost allot of GOOD friends to this as well as burned many bridges
 
Not agreeing with what someone said is not the same as not listening to them, Robin. I listened to what everyone said. No matter what I did would have meant disagreeing with someone. It is absolutely impossible to do everything everyone suggests. And what exactly makes one person's opinions carry more weight then someone else's? I believe some of those people predicted the demise of this site because of my decision. Does it look like that is going to happen?

Perhaps in the future it will be best if I just implement changes without getting feedback from the members. I will get flak either way, but at least I won't get some people getting their knickers in a knot if I don't pull their particular suggestion out of the hat. I will just assume 10 percent will be for it, 10 percent will be against it, and the other 80 percent won't care either way. Sure will save me a bunch of time and effort doing it that way anyway.
 
robin s. said:
as it should since they have been supporting you from almost the very begining, i do not think you even listened to one single thing they or anyone else said... you lost allot of GOOD friends to this as well as burned many bridges
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I don't agree with that, I think the implementation of the tiered system and different levels of membership and priviledges, were all influenced by suggestions. Unless of course you mean that he didn't listen to only the people who said don't implement a fee, which wasn't a fair request.

And how good of friends were they if they bailed the minute WS decided (rightly so) that he was no longer willing to spend countless hours maintaining the website while losing money out of his own pocket to keep it running. I think a lot more people burned the bridge from the other end, especially Brian and several others.

As far as pulling ads or banners that's their business decision to make, whether right or wrong. I think it would make more sense to advertise here now, even if hits are less, because the hits are from people who are willing to pay a few bucks to be here, and therefore, probably more likely to spend money. Hosting a site here doesn't really have anything to do with the traffic, so if people pulled their hosting, especially if it was out of spite, I think that is very petty and childish. Just my opinion and to each their own. I know that when I want something, I give preference to FC advertisers and users, if I don't find what I want here, I search the web, but KS is not one of the places I look.
 
you lost allot of GOOD friends to this as well as burned many bridges
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No way. Assuming you are familiar with who Rich's "GOOD friends" are/were, I would say that any friend who bailed because of a disagreement over how someone runs a website that they own & pay for is no friend at all.
 
Clearing the air

I disagreed with charging for the BOI. That's water under the bridge now as it's done.

Since Rich turned Fauna more into a business orientation we did the same. As such we reviewed our advertising on Fauna as a business decision. Our business targets the recreational hobbyist and newbie owner. We felt (based upon years of internet marketing experience) that a charge site would not facilitate our demographic of customer seeing our advertising. So we pulled the ads. We own and operate our own server, which means it costs us nothing to host our own website. Since Fauna was now a business it no longer needed our donation of the hosting costs.

Thank you for your time,
 
ms_terese said:
No way. Assuming you are familiar with who Rich's "GOOD friends" are/were, I would say that any friend who bailed because of a disagreement over how someone runs a website that they own & pay for is no friend at all.
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Wisely said, Ms. Terese.

In fact, I think it is during the heat of this change, where many showed their true colors, that Fauna achieved its cult status, it now counts as much more than a reptile website to many.

Fauna is far more than a business, friendships have been forged here, and I can truly say that I know of no other webmaster that pours the kind of time, patience, and thought into a site, than Rich puts into Fauna.

I appreciate this site and the fine people here.
 
dwedeking said:
Since Rich turned Fauna more into a business orientation we did the same. As such we reviewed our advertising on Fauna as a business decision. Our business targets the recreational hobbyist and newbie owner. We felt (based upon years of internet marketing experience) that a charge site would not facilitate our demographic of customer seeing our advertising. So we pulled the ads.
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That's OK Dan, no hard feelings. Sorry that the more then 800 new registrations here per month are not enough. I'm trying my best to do better.....
 

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I believe some of those people predicted the demise of this site because of my decision. Does it look like that is going to happen?
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only time will tell as far as that

and yes i agreed for a pay site but remember the options asked of us (very early on)... it wwas overwhelming that everybody knew some sort of charge should be impimented but not for the use of the BOI and other features
 
[/QUOTE]Perhaps in the future it will be best if I just implement changes without getting feedback from the members. I will get flak either way, but at least I won't get some people getting their knickers in a knot if I don't pull their particular suggestion out of the hat. I will just assume 10 percent will be for it, 10 percent will be against it, and the other 80 percent won't care either way. Sure will save me a bunch of time and effort doing it that way anyway.[/QUOTE]

I agree Rich, this is YOUR site, you don't have to ask anyone, anything. I appreciate your efforts and will continue to support you in whatever way I can. I don't think asking for $10 is too expensive and why should you have to lose money on this forum?
Friendship is worth more than all the money in the world. True friends cannot be bought and cannot be lost because of money. I feel like I have made some true friends because of this site, and I will be forever grateful.
You know, life is really too short for all of these hassles. If this site ever happens to fold Rich, you will know that you have done your best, given it your all and you can remember it with pride. Then you can head to the beach and live a normal life!:cool:
 
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