I know this isn't free.

[Life2k]

Michael, I know this board isn't free, and the traffic has reached some awesome levels. You will tell us when we need to pay up again, won't you?

I noticed that there are very few paying members. I might make a friendly suggestion to the group that if you are enjoying this board, send Michael a little money to help offset costs. Last time he mentioned it, (correct me if I am wrong) but it was like $1 US a month. That is mighty cheap intertainment.

Someone please furnish us with the information needed to get this money to Michael. I had it somewhere, but I have misplaced it.

[kpickell]

Try clicking here: http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/subscriptions.php?
Or go to your "User CP" and click on "Subscriptions" near the bottom right hand side. It tells you there when your year is up. I believe the suggested donation is $15 for 12 months.

[Life2k]

Thanks, Kell.

[Michael]

Yep. We're doing alright. Between that and the ads costs are covered so no worries. :)

I'm hoping to add some new features and that will require a move to our own server (more than likely we'd be sharing it with one other site) so costs would go up significantly at that time but still not anything to worry about.

Thanks for asking though. :)

[veganmuncher]

oh wow! I never knew people paid...

[Tame]

Michael - since we are doing so well, can we finally get a new hot tub for the moderator lounge? The old one is all icky from epski and Cernya holding that tofu wretsling tournament. Not to mention what went on the night Avalon had the tequila party in there.

:tame:

[Christy]

And how about a towel boy?

[Michael]

Let's save some money, I'll be the towel boy. :)

[Christy]

How generous of you. :rolleyes: :p

[epski]

Michael - since we are doing so well, can we finally get a new hot tub for the moderator lounge? The old one is all icky from epski and Cernya holding that tofu wretsling tournament. Not to mention what went on the night Avalon had the tequila party in there.

:tame:

I'm seeing C. tonight here in L.A., so we'll try to get someone to shoot footage of our real-life tofu wrestling match. ;)

[vegan_chic]

.......I'm supposed to pay? :flush:

[revelsunrise]

Yeah, it says something about it in the ToS, but I didn't read that until today...whoops sorry. As soon as I have some money I'll gladly contribute.

[Tame]

Just for the record, no one has to pay. Some do so to help out Michael with the costs, but please don't feel obligated if you cannot afford to do so. You can always help by bringing in new members. ;)

[mayuko]

You can always help by bringing in new members. ;)

who can, in turn, pay! :D i'm broke as a joke, but i know at least one of my referrals (since i don't know who the other one is, exactly..) is a contributing member, so i feel like i've done my part. or something. hehe.

[Dr. Schmeebis]

What are your operating expenses? I'm privy to a fairly powerful colocated server running FreeBSD. If you could PM or email me specs and prices, I could see if I might be able to save you some cash. It's my friend and collaborator's server, and it's powerful as hell. He pays like 60 USD / month for some pretty soy-beefy hardware.

Dr. S.

[Tame]

who can, in turn, pay! :D i'm broke as a joke, but i know at least one of my referrals (since i don't know who the other one is, exactly..) is a contributing member, so i feel like i've done my part. or something. hehe.

Everybody who particpates does their part.

Like Mike-Daddy said - he is good on the funding side right now, so no worries.

(In case anyone didn't know, he gets a 10% commission on all pimpin' on the boards. :tame: )

[Michael]

I make enough to cover the hosting costs for a month in less than two hours at work. It's not a big deal so no one should feel obligated to contribute unless they would like to (and are able to).

There's nothing in the terms of service about it, I'm not sure where that came from. :confused:

Just by making VB a better place you're all contributing. :) Oh and if you visit one of our sponsors and tell them you saw them on VB, that would be cool too. :)

[kpickell]

You can also buy stuff from the VeggieBoards Store and vb gets some of the profit.

[raindrop]

I'm curious, if you're a contributing member you don't get the ads on the page, right?
So...do you get money each time we click on the ads or only for putting them here. I click on the ads frequently but I haven't told them that I use VB. I have mentioned it to all the companies that I email about information. I've started telling them that I will share the information with "all the wonderful people at veggieboards.com."

Anyway - if it helps to click on links frequently I will certainly make that effort. Other than that I am curious to the benefits of being a contributing member. It's a great site and well worththe nominal fee.
Thanks, by the way, for putting it together and maintaining it - I love it here, even if I am a thread killer.

[Michael]

It really just boils down to whichever you prefer. I don't know that one is particularly more beneficial than the other.

Some ads are paid per click and others are paid based upon the number of times they are shown. I definitely do not encourage clicking on ads just for the sake of clicking on them. Only click if you see something that is of interest to you.

And if you visit the site of a sponsor (or even better yet, buy something from them) and mention you saw the ad on VB it lets them know that the ad is effective and hopefully encourages them to continue advertising. You can tell sponsor ads from random network ads because sponsors are listed at the bottom of most pages.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been hoping to expand VB beyond just a message board. If that ever happens our hosting bill will double and though it's still not more than I'm willing or able to handle anything contributed at that time would help.

For now I think things are fine.

[raindrop]

Cool. Thanks.

[Tame]

If Michael doesn't need your papers, feel free to send it to me @ pimpinain'teasy.com . :tame:

[kpickell]

Sad thing is I checked to see if that's a real website.
Sadder thing is, it is.

[sqellie]

It really just boils down to whichever you prefer. I don't know that one is particularly more beneficial than the other.

Some ads are paid per click and others are paid based upon the number of times they are shown. I definitely do not encourage clicking on ads just for the sake of clicking on them. Only click if you see something that is of interest to you.

And if you visit the site of a sponsor (or even better yet, buy something from them) and mention you saw the ad on VB it lets them know that the ad is effective and hopefully encourages them to continue advertising. You can tell sponsor ads from random network ads because sponsors are listed at the bottom of most pages.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been hoping to expand VB beyond just a message board. If that ever happens our hosting bill will double and though it's still not more than I'm willing or able to handle anything contributed at that time would help.

For now I think things are fine.

In regards to advertising, are you looking to keep the ads sort of veg related, or does it not matter?

Just wondering, but what are your expansion plans?

[Michael]

I would like to keep the majority of the ads veg-related since that's our target audience but it all depends on who's interested in advertising. That's why it's good to let veg advertisers know that you found them through VeggieBoards.

As for future plans, I'd rather not comment because a lot of it is beyond my control. There's one thing in particular that I'm extremely excited about and I've wanted to do for quite some time but other people need to be involved and until I can catch them with some free time there's really not much I can do. I have no idea when or if anything more will happen with VB.

That's a peculiar first post. :confused: