I noticed today, that non-Contributing members have reduced functionality in the board, and thats why I'd like to write something about contributing and making donations on commercial boards.
Before I start, please keep in mind that this is not an attack, this should be a remark to think of facts and everyone can come to his own conclusion and so do I. Also, please don't be picky on single sentences - I'll try to form objective and correct sentences so if you feel offended, please ask back if it was the fact that I meant or just bad formed sentence. Thanks in advance.
When I first saw the "Contributing Member" coin I was a little bit disappointed. I first thought that this would become another site trying to earn money with other ones knowledge. I read, that such members get their own subforum and at this point, it became quite OK for me. Such a sub forum is a place for presenting your own animals and so "breeders" can use it as a small commercial platform. It's quite OK to spend money for that!
What I dislike is the fact that many people state that we have to "help" this site cause Rich is the only one who's paying and we are only taking, taking, taking. Let's try to analyse this fact:
A board itself can be a great please to present yourself and your animals. When I visit this board, I see a "Sponsored by SerpenCo". I see subforums like the "SerpenCo Photogallery" and other subforums dealing with pricelists and so on. Since the kingsnake-story, where I'm really on Rich's site of the coin, Rich has some kind of god status in this forum and the name "SerpenCo" speaks for quality on this board. (I mean this in a positive way!)
To me - THAT is one of the best commercials that a company, so Rich, can have. And IMHO, that is quite OK.
But let's come back to the "we have to donate" topic. I personally don't see the reason that I spend money to Rich's commercial platform. The whole thing is a give and take. Rich gives money and time for the board and I gets, as I stated, a super-duper presentation of his company that will show up in the amount of animals he sells. We take Rich's traffic and Webspace and give him a living community with knowledge, photos and discussions about new stuff and so form the platform. Thats our give and take.
A different thing to me would be a site that hosted by a private person without selling animals and without commercials on the board (I see plenty of them here BTW.). That would be a situation where I'd also donate things or contribute to the site in the way Rich allows it here. I myself run and pay for a site with over 250 visitors everyday (NO board on the site!) and over 100 of them use my Calculator every single day - for Free! We do not sell animals over our site so everything I earn with it are people telling me that I did a good job and I also have to spend money for webspace and traffic. That I spend lot's of hours programming and so on even doesn't count in this calculation.
Example: I'm quite into the whole web thing and I can get the webspace to run this board for about 20$ per month. That would mean - selling 12 normals a year more because of the board would make no costs for such a board. I don't know the prices in the US, but that 20$ would include about 200GB Traffic and 30GB Webspace. If there is a huge difference to your prices, please tell me so that I can recalculate the thing. I just don't want to offend someone because I used wrong assumptions on costs!
What I mean in general with it is: If Rich sells one e.g. Lavender Motley more cause someone thinks he is a good source for animals because of this nice board - the money he spend into the board already paid off. Thats the way commercials work all over the world and BTW. is true for every "breeder" presenting his animals on this site, especially in the own contributing-member forums. Thats the point where I come back to what I wrote above why it is OK to pay for your own subforum.
So, the get the whole thing to an end. If someone wants to donate to a "commercial" board, that is quite OK. If someone gets a subforum for his donation to promote himself or his animals, that's more than OK - I think it's quite an aspect of fairness to pay then. If you should donate to get full functionality to spend your knowledge to a "commercial" board, thats not OK for me. I read the "we have to give something back to the board (and that means money!)" in every 5-10th thread know and slowly I feel pushed into a direction that I don't want. That gives me the feeling that I exploit Rich because I'm wasting his traffic and as I stated above, I don't think thats the only aspect.
...if people would donate money for using my calculator?
In this case, they give NOTHING back to me!
I hope that I don't get replies like "if you don't like it, shut the f*ck up and go away". I really enjoy this board, the discussions and the members. I learned a lot here and hope that this will continue and that I can also give a small amount of my knowledge back to others here.
Greetings
Michael