Supporting Membership

[peakbagger]

Hi All, recently I noticed the "become a supporting member" banner appear and wondered what was up. I today got a PM with a similar somewhat generic request for funds. With the recent transition to "new management," beyond the introduction of a new technical support person, and a reference to new moderators would be coming, to date I have not seen any info on who actually is in charge of VFTT? Thus my concern on who actually owns and controls the VFTT forum these days. I have supported VFTT in the past, but in the past, I knew who was running the show and on occasion with a generally light hand, content moderation has occurred. If I go into the Member category; the same three staff members are still listed as prior to the swap. My question is who owns the site and is ultimately behind the curtains these days? Dave M had mentioned that the collective staff had looked at many options on keeping the site going when Tim was planning to step down and they were down to one option before calling it quits. This was a couple of months prior to the swap over, so I do not know if it was that one option who is currently running the site. When I was in contact with a logical member to take over the site, they had not been contacted if they were interested but when I had discussed Darren's transition years ago with them, they were interested.

A WHOIS lookup of the VFFT.org does not appear to show an owner to my very untrained eye. In the past when Tim asked for support plenty of folks stepped up, but we knew that Tim would spend the funds for the site. I know I would be far more comfortable supporting the site if I knew who is collecting these funds and making sure that they expended appropriately and what sort of oversight is being done.

Not trying to raise a ruckus on this but my thoughts are these days given the myriad ways of getting scammed on line, I would really like to know who is asking.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Yeah, I got the same solicitation recently to upgrade my membership. I do not think that the new ownership should need additional funds given the bundle that they must be raking in from ads. If this ownership is anything like that for the college hockey board in which I participate (my only two), which transitioned to ads about three years ago, the ads here also will transition to misogynistic mild porn soon.

 

[Peakbagr]

Dave and I are still moderators. We looked at a lot of options to keep VFTT from shutting down. Upgrading membership thing is news to me.

 

[DayTrip]

It would seem like everyone got that support message (or so I am assuming). At least I assume anyone who has donated in the past. I also have it

 

[peakbagger]

Dave and I are still moderators. We looked at a lot of options to keep VFTT from shutting down. Upgrading membership thing is news to me.

Do you have the capability of contacting whomever is attempting to collect funds and getting an explanation of where these funds will go?.

 

[BillyGr]

It would seem like everyone got that support message (or so I am assuming). At least I assume anyone who has donated in the past. I also have it

Even new people had such a message (on Thursday, hadn't looked at it since then).

 

[TechAdmin]

Supporting Membership is what funds everything, ads generate about .40 - . 60 a day. It barely covers the forum software fee.

 

[JoshandBaron]

Supporting Membership is what funds everything, ads generate about .40 - . 60 a day. It barely covers the forum software fee.

How many people need to sign up to cover things? What happens in the absence of that? What happens to excess funds?

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Supporting Membership is what funds everything, ads generate about .40 - . 60 a day. It barely covers the forum software fee.

Really? In that case, I think that a lot of us would contribute whatever it takes to get rid of the ads.

 

[peakbagger]

I would be up for that. I guess it comes down to VFTT appears to have been handed off to commercial owner who expect to make a profit. If that is true what do they expect to make for a profit and are there enough VFTT users willing to contribute to pay the expenses and the profit?

 

[Kimball]

…I do not think that the new ownership should need additional funds given the bundle that they must be raking in from ads. …

Ads on a hiking website will not rake in revenue anymore. Ad revenue dropped significantly above a year ago. From my experience this year, 3 more or less ads per page will generate $1+/- for 1000 page views.

 

[Ken MacGray]

From the account upgrade page:

"Here at Views From The Top we strive to provide a friendly and technical oriented community with limited advertising that works towards our hobby and rights ..."

What "rights" is this referring to?

Also, one of the paid benefits is listed twice:

"Editing time increases to One Month"
"Longer self editing time"

https://www.vftt.org/account/upgrades

 

[TechAdmin]

Really? In that case, I think that a lot of us would contribute whatever it takes to get rid of the ads.

You can disable all ads here with 1 click; https://www.vftt.org/account/preferences

 

[peakbagger]

Okay I will give it shot. I do really dislike a subscription based billing versus a one time charge.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

You can disable all ads here with 1 click; https://www.vftt.org/account/preferences

Ok, many thanks! I did not realize that getting rid of ads was an option. Will look into making a donation.

 

[peakbagger]

I am now ad free (back to the good old days)

 

[JToll]

Done, a one time donation

 

[Ken MacGray]

If anyone can turn off ads, why is it listed as a paid benefit?

https://www.vftt.org/account/upgrades

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Done, a one time annual donation.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

Done.