• 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....

B.O.I. participants play favorites?

What do you think?

  • Yes

    Votes: 11 55.0%

  • No

    Votes: 9 45.0%
  • Total voters
    20
Just my not so subtle way of saying this thread has got my head spinning.
That, plus trying to lighten the tone a little...
 
What is your opinion?
Click to expand...

Without knowing what Rich has tried behind the scenes to get advertisers on here, I would say that it was on the track of becoming self sustaining via advertising and selling the bells and whistles of the site. I think an active sales campaign with some of the larger businesses in the industry would prove fruitfull, at the very least you can get some idea of what they are looking for in an advertising platform.

It is scary when you have to look at pricing and survival. Do you raise prices to make an effort sustainable or will raising prices kill the market? I've woken up many a night in a cold sweat when contemplating those same moves. So I am not making light of a hard decision by disagreeing.
 
dwedeking said:
Without knowing what Rich has tried behind the scenes to get advertisers on here, I would say that it was on the track of becoming self sustaining via advertising and selling the bells and whistles of the site. I think an active sales campaign with some of the larger businesses in the industry would prove fruitfull, at the very least you can get some idea of what they are looking for in an advertising platform.

It is scary when you have to look at pricing and survival. Do you raise prices to make an effort sustainable or will raising prices kill the market? I've woken up many a night in a cold sweat when contemplating those same moves. So I am not making light of a hard decision by disagreeing.
Click to expand...

I agree with you on the first paragraph. As far as the second, If the entity was not putting bread on the owners table in the first place, failure of an aggressive move to bring in revenue from advertising would not be the end of the world.
 
Ophis - "go digging through the archives to find the answer". It HAS been covered. I have no intention of repeating it to everyone who asks time and time again over the next several years.

But in any event, for better or for worse, the path chosen was MY choice to make. Everyone has opinions, but the final decision is always mine alone.
 
O.K.....I did some digging and this is what my interpretation of what I read is.
You were using advertising revenue to fund the site costs and were turning the corner into the black. I suppose that would be the natural progression considering the numbers of hits increasing over time. You considering other methods you could implement in order to step up efforts to gain more market share of advertising dollars. At the same time you were considering implementing the fee system you now have in place. after further consideration as well as throwing out a few polls and such as a feeler guage, You chose what you percieved as the easiest route from point A to point B (point B being the loot).
 
dwedeking said:
I reviewed the pay for sites. Once thing I noticed is that they offer a tangible sale item (free software, tattoo pictures etc) to encourage purchase of a subscription. On this site, I can see those things in the bells and whistles of the subscription plan (larger photo allotment, ability to do different things), I have no issue with Rich making a buck or selling the bonuses. And this wouldn't be an argument if the BOI didn't contain that intangible factor of fair play and helping out someone that just got screwed on a reptile transaction, making it different than a standard forum.

The BOI does bring value, saving many people more than the $10. It does this because of the catalog of transactions that were previously posted there. I see this and those that have been here a while see it. You can get all that value without paying, just registering. So essentially you are paying to post after the fact (either good or bad) when there is no value to you, only value to the readers.

Anyway, Wes is right. The die has been cast.
Click to expand...

Addressing that second paragraph first, no, I disagree. Someone registering to post a QUERY about someone is going to reap the benefits of replies being made concerning that person or business. That sort of thing takes place all of the time and people are certainly gaining value from the information they receive in that manner. Those posts are made BEFORE the fact, not afterwards.

Now, not saying I am seeing the issue more clearly then you are, but apparently my perspective covers wider ground in relation to this site. Which is as it should be considering are relative involvements with FaunaClassifieds. The single most common complaint about the BOI prior to the paid memberships was that it was too easy for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to register on this site as many times as they have patience to do and with any number of false names they can come up with, in order to post false feedback, either positive or negative. This was basically lumped together under the broad heading of "frivolous BS". It was obvious to me, from my perspective, that something needed to be done, if not to eliminate it completely, then to at least cut it back substantially. I asked opinions on how to do this. Some people responded and I considered all of those suggestions. Due to technical considerations, workload increases they would entail, cost of programming to implement it, or just plain nonfeasibility, they were rejected one by one. If anyone cares to do the research, way back at the beginning of the BOI this subject was approached and I commented that I felt that the ONLY way to establish the credibility of the people posting messages would be to require some sort of paid membership. But at that time, it was not technically feasible, nor did I think that the lack of inertia engendered by the lower total number of members would support such a move. I knew I would lose people with such a plan, so I needed the percentage of people remaining to still be substantial enough to keep the blood flowing. So I knew this was going to be coming sooner or later, but I had to wait until all of the pieces fell together at one time. In the meantime, I could try to find alternatives.

I still wasn't sure that the timing was right when I decided to implement this. And I am not sure exactly what the catalyst was, but something happened to cause me to think that I didn't care one way or the other at that point. Either it was going to work, providing what I KNEW the BOI needed in the way of authenticating posts made on it, PLUS provide me with some financial incentive to keep on doing this crap, or the site could just blow away in the wind. I REALLY, TRULY, and HONESTLY did not care which way it would have gone.

Anyway regardless of what anyone thinks of what I have done, I am optimistic about the future here. Enough people have shown that they support what is being done here to pay the membership fees. Some people are evidently seeing boogeymen under their beds, but that has been here from the beginning within one context or another, so I'm not losing and sleep over it.

dwedeking said:
Your correct Rich, that comment was out of line, and I apologize for letting that out. For me personally there are two sides to this debate. The business side and the personal side. On the business side, I felt that the BOI was a great tool to promote a "safer" environment for consumers. My opinion is that this is lost or at the least not nearly as effective as it was, and I find that a shame. No right or wrong that is just my opinion.
Click to expand...

"Letting that out". The "business" you must be quite different from the "personal" you, I guess. I am sorry I had to see that side of you.
 
Ophis said:
O.K.....I did some digging and this is what my interpretation of what I read is.
You were using advertising revenue to fund the site costs and were turning the corner into the black. I suppose that would be the natural progression considering the numbers of hits increasing over time. You considering other methods you could implement in order to step up efforts to gain more market share of advertising dollars. At the same time you were considering implementing the fee system you now have in place. after further consideration as well as throwing out a few polls and such as a feeler guage, You chose what you percieved as the easiest route from point A to point B (point B being the loot).
Click to expand...

Your angle is pretty obvious. Are you a Socialist by nature?
 
cthulhu77 said:
Only nationally. :)

all kidding aside...I doubt you are in this for the big bucks, WS...although that ranch you have in Hawaii is something of a giveaway !

g-fresh
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I'll tell you what I have purchased with the "profits" from this site: Valium, Prilosec, and Excedrin.
 
We could have faunafund drive...everyone, clean out your cabinets, and send all of your pills to Webslave!

nationalistic-socialistic-anarchistic-democratic-greg ( a "nadzi"???)
 
Cool.........I figure I hit the nail right smack on the head then.
Click to expand...
Joe, you brought the wrong bait! It's just not working.

There will forever be multiple interpretations of the thought process behind the restructure of FC. People either agree with it or they don't. If you've "done the research" and you've analyzed all the threads and posts by Rich and come up with your outlook, why would you care what Rich's reaction to that is? You have your opinion, and you're entitled to it! You can choose to be part of this site on a participation level (since you're already part of it on a financial level) or not. If you think the BOI plays favorites, take that into consideration when you look up people's threads and make your own determination on whether or not to do business with them. THAT is what the BOI is for...for disclosure, opinion, questions and answers, and various other bits of information to assist each reader in getting a thumbnail sketch of a buyer/seller's transaction history and business style.
 
Ophis said:
No. Not at all. Do you have any comments regarding my previous statement though?
Click to expand...

WebSlave said:
Nope.
Click to expand...

Ophis said:
Cool.........I figure I hit the nail right smack on the head then.
Click to expand...


What is obviously displayed in this exchange is the reason I see no need to discuss anything with you. You are not looking for answers. You already have your mind made up about what you think the answers are.

So why should I waste my time? (This is a rhetorical question, by the way.)
 
Just a note to let everyone know who is following this thread that shortly it will be moved to the forum it actually belongs in: the FaunaClassifieds Feedback Forum.
 
WebSlave said:
What is obviously displayed in this exchange is the reason I see no need to discuss anything with you. You are not looking for answers. You already have your mind made up about what you think the answers are.

So why should I waste my time? (This is a rhetorical question, by the way.)
Click to expand...

I actually was curious as to the details of why you chose to go the route you did and why you felt that gaining revenue through advertizing dollars wouldn't work for you as well as why you felt It works for KS.

If you wan't to play hard ass and tell me to go dig through the archives, tell me what I think, Tell me what my agenda is and just overall pooh pooh me, thats your perogative, however I must say that most of the assumptions you have made abouy me and/or my motives are off the mark.
 
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