Quote:
Originally Posted by antnee
Rob must make a fair bit of money from the forum, I think I counted 19 club forums, at £50 a time that's 950! Manufactures will pay more than that, then you have main banner sponsors. Do the events pay anything? Plus a hundred full members at £15 a time!
So he could potentially be receiving around 3-5k, and it costs no where near that to host such a quiet forum!
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I've run a few forums (still do run a couple) & moderated on a load in the past. Realisitcally i reckon the running costs for a site like Racechat would be about £10 a month for hosting - £30 a month if he's running it on the back of a reseller package with someone like WebFusion would get you "unlimited" hosting (unlimited in Bandwidth & webspace) & to use a VB forum would cost around £80 a year for the licence for the VB forum software (same as what oople use), although switching to SMF or even MyBB he could save himself the £80 as realisitically he's running the basic forum without modifications or hacks. OK i know there are some other running costs such as advertising (should he advertise in one of the mags or trade books) along with the domain etc - i'm also guessing they have a few parked domains but even so a .com works out around £30 a year & a .co.uk costs about £7 for 2 years if you shop around.
I think my only gripe with Racechat is that some of the people on there (& a couple of the mods as well) it seems to me are of the mindset of "well i've run in the nationals & you haven't so as far as i'm concerned you have no say in this thread" or "you weren't at the BRCA AGM, so you don't have an opinion as far as i'm concerned" & "why ask that question, have you not read your BRCA handbook?" seems to be a fairly universal responce when people post because they want to clarify the rules & regulations on racing & what their BRCA membership involves.. so as a result some people new to the sport or people wanting to ask questions because they want to progress further with the sport or wanting to get back into racing after some time away & of course those who want to try to make sure they understand the rules & regulations in the handbook to cut the wheat from the chaff, may often get made to feel inferior by some of the responces. If Rob Stamped on those types of things (i.e making the newcomer feel a welcome part of the site, rather than just another mug with money to spend & regarded the newcomer as much as those who run nationals who are in the "click") rather than banning people or removing threads that go against his logic it would be a much better place.
Personally i don't like the idea of paying to use any forum - i'm sure the paid site would have an equally good competitor who doesn't charge anyway - but i don't mind the site's having a donate button & i'd be more willing to offer a few quid as a donation from my paypal rather than a "thou shalt pay" hard-sell attitude, but that's just me. Plus i'm pretty sure the taxman has other ideas on accepting payments as gifts & demanding payments as an income.
At the end of the day though, it's Rob's forum & he can run it how he likes, i'm pretty sure we all have an opinion on the place, but is it right to slag off the competition & the administration.. at the end of the day we are all here on forums like Oople & Racechat plus many of the other RC forums on the net because of RC racing & the RC cars we run along with the spirit of doing so. Rob's probably a very nice guy in person (i've never met the bloke so am only generalising), but as with the picture of the hardnut behind his computer screen a few pages back, the same image of the person probably doesn't come across online - especially when people just want to slag off his site & are judging the man by how he runs his site. It's a world of difference between someone intending to run their site with a rod of iron & the person intending to be mean to everyone.