SNOWEST FORUMS: Member Comments on "Letter to All Members"

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

snowmobiler said:
if a premium member violates a no no like thread drift,pottymouth or borderline bashing,will they be punished and sent downstairs to a basic or guest level.?

NO.
Getting yourself banned from this site takes CONCERTED EFFORT on your part. Its never a one time deal, in fact it would take several repeat offences to get yourself kicked off the site, unless you make it clear that you are attacking the site and trying to deliberately do it harm

tudizzle · Nov 16, 2009

christopher said:
NO.
Getting yourself banned from this site takes CONCERTED EFFORT on your part. Its never a one time deal, in fact it would take several repeat offences to get yourself kicked off the site, unless you make it clear that you are attacking the site and trying to deliberately do it harm

Exactly when will you be banning yourself?

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

polaris bob said:
Why can't a site the size of Snowest keep going along, even with all of the new content you are wanting/ promising, on the revenue generated solely on the income generated by advertising dollars alone?

I suppose that is could, and that they could give away free snowmobiles and week long vacations, but they don't. After careful evaluation of where the forums have been for the last decade a decision was made to take them in a different direction from where they have been in the past. A decision that they knew would be HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL and prone to some major heated discussions and user discontent.

Whenever there is a major course correction such as this, there will be many who will say the captain of the ship is lost and doesn't know where he is headed. After 30 years in this business, is it possible, that just maybe, they actually know what they are doing and have a clear vision of where they want to take these forums going forward for the next 10 years?

x-guy · Nov 16, 2009

tudizzle said:
Exactly when will you be banning yourself?

now thats funny, and thats why I come here for my fix for the monday morning blues!

Christopher, I am just wondering, I know the bottom line is its not our business since its a private company, but will HP as an act of good faith be releasing cold hard numbers as far as how much of our membership dues will go into donations, compared to profits/upkeep? I know you had addressed this earlier, and said it has not been decided yet, but when the decision is made, will this be public knowledge? It would make me feel a whole lot more secure in the fact that this isnt about turning this site into a for profit site which is also what your wanting to prove correct? Again, I know its not our business, but it would go a long way for the many members unsure exactly what the motives are here who may have lost faith in what admins are saying to be true, and bring dignity and trust between the members and admins/HP once again like it used to be. If it dosnt happen then fine, I will still take a wait and see approach, but I do hope you consider it, and pass it along to the higher ups. That alone would gain alot of my respect back personally that may have been lost along the way over the past few months.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

dustbuster said:
Is there an expectation that the number of people that leave will be replaced by new members drawn by the new features? If not, doesn't it follow that maybe the site should have been left alone featurewise, and therefore the performance issues would not have occurred? Seems to me that would have saved a lot of typing.

While I have addressed this issue many times, I will try one more time.

While it seemed like everything was just Hunky-Dory on the forums before we installed the first upgrades, the reality was that the patient had undiagnosed cancer, and that it had not yet been detected.

The entire server array WAS operating at it's limit, but no one had noticed it. It was throwing out the occasional database error, and there were some very minor delays here and there that no one noticed. But all was not well on the ship.

As we began upgrading the site we increased the load, and rapidly began to see performance degradation. Some of the modules, such as Live Topic, placed a huge demand on the servers, and were removed, others placed a much small demand and were left in place. After a few weeks we had installed sufficient tracking software that we were now monitoring the average Load Factor for every 15min period of the day to determine just what was going on. In the background we swapped out servers, we changed databases, we optimized everything we could. We even "borrowed" servers from other functions on the network to try to bolster SnoWest. but all the time our daily numbers were increasing and the demand was constantly increasing.

Regardless of the modifications that we installed, these servers HAD TO BE REPLACED. It was only a matter of WHEN and not of it. In the past it was done a just enough to get by basis, as the site was not supporting the kind of investment required to really do it right. So in light of where everything was, and where they really wanted it to be at in the future, the decision was made to massively upgrade all aspects of the SnoWest Hardware Infrastructure to be able to support the forums for years moving forward.

bluebear · Nov 16, 2009

christopher said:
I suppose that is could, and that they could give away free snowmobiles and week long vacations, but they don't. After careful evaluation of where the forums have been for the last decade a decision was made to take them in a different direction from where they have been in the past. A decision that they knew would be HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL and prone to some major heated discussions and user discontent.

Whenever there is a major course correction such as this, there will be many who will say the captain of the ship is lost and doesn't know where he is headed. After 30 years in this business, is it possible, that just maybe, they actually know what they are doing and have a clear vision of where they want to take these forums going forward for the next 10 years?

To me it boils down to value. The tricky thing with the forum is that the product is provided by the customer. There are a few value added things that the forum can add, but the bulk of the product comes from the members. If I can get the same info, from the same people on another website for free then why would I pay for a membership here?

On the buisness end of things I can't see this increasing revenues at all. Web traffic will decline and trailing that will be advertising revenue. Again, why would an advertiser on a limited budget spend money here when they can buy space on a more active board and reach the same audiance.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

rkbrkr said:
It's not about the money, it's about the sport. Shoot i pay more to watch one UFC fight. If you can afford to sled then you can afford $9.99 a year. SUPPORT YOUR SPORT!!!!!

While there are many here who say its not about the money and they don't care whether we ask for $1 or $100, as you can see, its also all about the money.

The Internet has spawned an entitlement mentality that says nothing should be paid for, that everything is free. This site has real operating costs that need to be met, and the owners have decided to pursue a paid membership to their site to resolve that issue.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

Adrenaline Revolution said:
Oh, and please do something about the buzz-kill, over moderating Mods that are killing the fun.

Working on this right now for you. Expect to hear more before the end of the week.

Sturgis Sledder · Nov 16, 2009

newmy1 said:
Made it to page nine, can I please have that 20 minutes of my life back. What a bunch of freaken whiners, for those of you threatening to leave please leave now and save us from reading any more of this. PLEASE! Jump on your 10K sled, avoid paying the $10 for this forum and go have some damn fun for already.

I'm off to take some uppers....

Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Posts: 471

LOL 13 whole months here, thanks for your input newbie.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

Maize said:
You get a lot further being honest, than telling people what you think they want to hear. My best guess is that Snowest Magazine is in the same boat. Less sponsors and less subscriptions for the magazine are trying to be offset by charging access fees to their website.

My understanding is that the magazine is doing GREAT and has continued to pick up the tab for the forums for all these years. And now they would like the forums to be just as self supporting as the magazine is.

Doesn't seem like it's too much to ask for.

ruffryder · Nov 16, 2009

Sturgis Sledder said:
LOL 13 whole months here, thanks for your input newbie.

you know, it is this type of attitude that stops this site from growing. I think people put way too much into post count and join date. They are just numbers man. They don't tell the whole story of a person.

Adrenaline Revolution · Nov 16, 2009

christopher said:
What this thread does not represent are the hundreds of private messages I am getting from people who are unwilling to be ridiculed or harassed by posting their support in this thread.

Then please ask them by way of a replied PM to vote anonymously in the poll.
Seems like there's no fear in that???

Nevertheless, several good points have been raised in this thread that we ARE going to respond to and implement, so this has not fallen on deaf ears.

Thank you.
We really can't ask anymore of you than that.
In fact, that's really what most of the bicthen is about...
A lot of people asking "Are they even listening? Will they consider what the customer base is wanting?"

(Besides of course the Overzealous moderating in some instances)

Even I'm getting sick of this subject.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

Adrenaline Revolution said:
WOW...
Even as I speak about the CENSORSHIP in this post it gets CENSORED.
WTF?
Because I spoke of the good FUN threads?
Tug and Rake.
Highmarking the towel rack.
Countersteering pendulum...
ALL DELETED...ALL CENSORED from the original post.
YOU ARE ALL PATHETIC.
And you have the nads to ask me to become more positive as "One of the more outspoken members" and back this change????

PATHETIC.But I'm sure this will get censored as well.

Thank you for helping us prove our point. Losers.

WRONG!
Your post #865 was NOT touched in any way!
Your accusation that it was censored is BOGUS.

MPS · Nov 16, 2009

christopher said:
What you have here is a loud public outcry from those that are strongly against it. But in large part your only hearing the same voices over and over again. I am not sure that we have had even 500 members of the forum post in this thread. A third of the posts here are my replies, another third are the same people jumping in every couple of posts, and the remaining third are the real members.

HMMMMM....I have no doubt that the number will stay around 70% that are oppossed. I am sure the 70+ that oppose this so far in the poll...you have heard from over and over right?

http://www.snowest.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179529

.

Adrenaline Revolution · Nov 16, 2009

ruffryder said:
you know, it is this type of attitude that stops this site from growing. I think people put way too much into post count and join date. They are just numbers man. They don't tell the whole story of a person.

It must be exhausting to be this self righteous.

No, they don't tell the whole story, the contents of his post do that just fine.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

MtnDoo said:
(2) I'm blown away that the ADMIN of this site has registered at that site and taunting members to remain involved in SW. This tells a story.

(3) I'm amazed that the ADMIN of this site, registered at the other site uses the SNOWEST corporate logo in his icon over there, yet has coded a script that changes the other sites's name b**C**R**.**cawm when typed here to "SNOWEST"..

I MOST CERTAINLY HAVE NOT!.

I have never even been on that site, let along registered there. If someone is using this corporation's trademark logo they are going to find themselves in the middle of a lawsuit in short order.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

mountain-powder-slut said:
LMAO....way to point it out. That is what passive aggressive folks do MD....gotta love it! LMAO!

No, that shows the quality of the people running the other site.

While I do not know WHO is behind that account, it's not me, and they are just asking for trouble by doing that.

MPS · Nov 16, 2009

christopher said:
No, that shows the quality of the people running the other site.

While I do not know WHO is behind that account, it's not me, and they are just asking for trouble by doing that.

I can accept the second statement, but not the first one.

.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

Sturgis Sledder said:
I would be totally amazed if that were Christopher on the other site, .

Rest assured, its not me. Just someone looking for more trouble than they really expected.

christopher · Nov 16, 2009

MtnDoo said:
Ya never know - he was bold enough to pull off the stunt we're all talking about. Who knows....maybe he's spoofed. Maybe I'm not me?!

There are those that have long wondered if you really are you or not.

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