• 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....

Is the BOI worth the $10.00 minimum?

Is the BOI worth the $10.00 minimum?

  • Yes

    Votes: 77 78.6%

  • No

    Votes: 21 21.4%
  • Total voters
    98
I'd like to add my thought process prior to my vote.

Now, certainly most people will assume that since I'm a paid member I would vote "Yes" in the poll. Those people would have assumed correctly.

Yet, let me point out "value".

Forget that the BOI has saved me from more than one bad deal. Forget that the BOI has given me the opportunity to spread the word about the ONE bad deal I've had.

Those are both benefits, to be sure, but they came about after the fact. In other words, had I never been exposed to the BOI, I wouldn't have known that I had the opportunity to check out a business before buying, nor that I had the opportunity to warn others about a scammer. It would be like missing a Porsche when you've never owned one.

So how does one who never imagines needing the services of the BOI find value?

Well, when I was in college, I took a course called "Business Ethics". It cost me....well, more than a lifetime on the BOI will cost me. For one semester, I was shown scenario after scenario of business situations that pit ethics against legality, ethics against profit, ethics against opportunity, and ethics against interpretation. It was a damn good course, and I received a respectable "A" in the class. It was one of those classes in which I really felt I'd learned something that would stay with me throughout my life, and it has been.

FC, and the BOI in particular, has taught me more about good business, ethics, morality, friendship, forgiveness, ignorance, investments both financial and emotional, bad business, communication, and trust than I ever learned in my Ethics class, or in college overall.

$10? I'd pit that value against almost any other $10 investment anywhere.
 
Wow, that post brought tears to my eyes.

I remember ... way back when... possibly as much as a year or more before the BOI went to $pay. I thought back then, "I can't pay that." and in fact Hubby and I were struggling to be able to purchase a house, and felt very very tight over our spending money.

I remember, however, when I one day realized how much we all make choices about what we pay for. I go to the store and I buy things I want, things I need, things I can afford, and things that would probably be better for me if I felt I couldn't afford them. I think in the end it was the $14.99 I spent on a little mechanized battery-operated fish. I put it in the swimming pool and watched it swim around for at least twenty minutes. Later when I was feeling rebellious about paying for my favorite site, the BOI (as I think of Fauna more than the name Fauna), I suddenly remembered my plastic fish. It brought me a lot of pleasure to purchase and watch that fish swim, but overall, I spent less time on watching that fish, overall, than I spent in a day on Fauna. And the fish would never bring me anything but a little stab of weird pleasure. Fauna brings me peers with whom I interact. Interesting dramas when I'm in the mood. VERY important notes about the bad guys in the industry. even more IMPORTANT notes about how to be the best person possible and how NOT to be a bad guy. I get friends with whom I can share my own woes and triumphs, from the scare I had when they thought I had cancer, to the receipt today of my first ever check for a published work. Overall, way back then, I was thinking about the fish and about Fauna and realized that it was worth that to me and more. I sprang first for the $10 and within a week realized I had to make it $25. I've never regretted a dime of that money. Not once. It has been worth my time and my money and my peace of mind.

I have to also add, for whatever it's worth, that way back when, when online auction sites were very young and new, I ran something slightly akin to the BOI and the good guy certification forum. I ran it for about 8 years and there was a dedicated core of people who wanted to promote ethical online deals. But it was a pain in the butt, and when it was time for me to make a cross-country move I realized I couldn't keep it up. I yielded up the reins to someone else, and never went back. (my cross-country move resulted in my meeting and marrying my husband and a lot of more important things that made my little BOI-like-site at the bottom of my list. My point in this example is that I know what it is like to face what Rich has faced, to pay for it all out of my pocket, to face the "bad guys" and the threats and the unreasonable requests and assumptions of the users of my forum/site. I salute HIM and his efforts because I've been there and *I* don't have the mettle to do what he does. I'm only sorry it took me so long to pay in the first place.

Thank you Rich, for this site.
 
dwedeking said:
One of the no votes was mine.
Click to expand...

Hey Daniel,

Was your no vote truly based on what you consider a value?

Or was it based on your philosophical belief that the BOI should not require a paid membership and should be there as a free benefit to the herp community?

Not trying to stir crap with you in any way, so please do not take it that way, I was just genuinely interested in what you based your vote on.
 
I am not a paid member and I voted yes.
I am just not on here often enough right now and my wife does all of the research, so she is a paid member.
 
Hey Daniel,

Was your no vote truly based on what you consider a value?

Or was it based on your philosophical belief that the BOI should not require a paid membership and should be there as a free benefit to the herp community?

Not trying to stir crap with you in any way, so please do not take it that way, I was just genuinely interested in what you based your vote on.
Click to expand...

I do not think that Fauna has retained it's value with the changes in format and attitude in the last year. This is concerning both the BOI and the non-paid areas of the site. Especially when you look at the large selection of reptile-community related sites on the web that do not charge for membership.

This is not a reflection on the members of this site both paid and unpaid who for the most part I admire and enjoy communicating with on a regular basis.
 
Thanks Daniel,

While I may not always agree with you, I do however always respect and value your opinion. You always make valid arguments and have sound reasoning for your position on things.

Thanks again.
 
Absolutely no question in my mind.

100% Het for Albino BP pair - $900
100% Het for Jack sh*t BP pair - Much less
Finding out on the BOI that the seller is a tool before you get the shaft - Priceless

Ok so that sucked, but I think there was a point in there somewhere!
 
If you just read the posts and are not concerned about posting then the answer would be no since I believe pretty much everything that matters can be viewed by anyone regardless if they paid or not. If posting is important to you (as it obviously is for some people) then yes it is worth it. Personally, for the participation I would vote no. I do not need to post. Sometimes I can't help myself and it might be a good thing if I wasn't allowed to, but if I were not allowed to I doubt it would matter much to me. As long as I can read the important forums that is all that counts. I know at least one person that held off paying until they felt they had something they had to contribute and thats fine. What I think the 10.00 is good for (the value) as others have put it, and the reason I voted yes, is that I would rather have a site like this that I have to pay for than to not have a site like this at all. I don't think that the BOI is as effective with the charges that are required. I am sure it has kept and will continue to keep some people from reporting bad deals but it's still better than having nowhere to post them if you wish to do so.

Steve
 
I think Steve hit the nail on the head. When I instituted the paid membership plan, and made the BOI available for posting only to paid members, in effect I posted my own poll which asked Is this site, which like it or not is largely centered around the BOI, worth $10 per year to you to have it continue? I think I was quite clear about this in the discussions about this change. And I was fully prepared to accept it if the answer had been a resounding NO.

From the results I have seen so far, most people willing to contribute at all to keep this site here have been willing to pay more then the bare minimum I requested. That has been very gratifying to note.
 
I also voted "no".

To me, it is not worth 10 bucks to have the ability to respond to polls like this.

I will not be re-newing my membership next year, largely due to a difference of opinion with some of the decisions that have been made here in the last six months. I totally respect the owner and moderator's right to do what they want with the site, but that does not mean I have to like it enough to pay for it.

greg
 
cthulhu77 said:
I also voted "no".

To me, it is not worth 10 bucks to have the ability to respond to polls like this.

I will not be re-newing my membership next year, largely due to a difference of opinion with some of the decisions that have been made here in the last six months. I totally respect the owner and moderator's right to do what they want with the site, but that does not mean I have to like it enough to pay for it.

greg
Click to expand...

It doesn't require the $10 for you to respond to a poll in this section.

What decisions do you have a difference of opinion about?
 
cthulhu77 said:
But, wouldn't that be going "off-topic" ???? :)
Click to expand...

No no no, as long as you're NOT me and owens ISN'T watching, you can pretty much go off topic whenever you want.
 
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