Announcement regarding the site

First topic message reminder :

As you can all see, 606v2 is growing day by day. And for that, we have you all to thank.

The effort and dedication that you have all put in to help this site grow has been nothing short of phenomenal. Every day I am surprised at how you all contribute in making this forum such a great place for us all to carry on the community spirit that was born on 606. And that is only part of the story. I can now see how we have outgrown our beginnings and are attracting new posters from outside our original home.

And I thank all of the new members for this too. Your continued contribution has helped us continue to flourish and become so much more than the original 606. Through the hard work of the moderation and admin teams, we have managed to get some incredible exclusives that were not possible under the BBC banner - interviews, competitions, special offers. These will continue to come and will get bigger and better the more the forum grows.

However, all of this has come at a price.

The original set up of this forum was facilitated by the use of free software. At the time of inception, this was the best and most cost effective solution for us all. And hopefully, you all really like the features of the forum. However, due to the incredible growth in our forum, the costs for housing us have risen dramatically (it’s now 10x what it started at). The owners of the software (forumotion) have to give us more server space, although they benefit from the fact that we generate more advert revenue for them.

The more hits the site gets, the more the forumotion gets from the ads. And it therefore costs us substantially more to remove them (to recompense them for their lost revenue). On top of this, forumotion also charge us more to retain the domain name. All in all, the costs have become much more than we had anticipated, and should the forum continue to grow as we plan, these costs will continue to grow too. So this leaves us with several choices.

1. We continue to pay for the ad removal out of our own pocket.
2. We leave the forumotion ads in place.
3. We introduce ads of our own.
4. We move to a new forum platform

So let me cover these off one by one.

1. The costs are now so great, it is not fair to ask the moderation and admin teams to continue to pay for these ever increasing costs. It’s not fair to ask members to contribute. The moderation and admin teams already give up their time for nothing and to ask them to pay to do this is unfair. For the founders, this is simply not an option.
2. We can leave the adverts in place and pay the domain cost from member contributions once a year.
3. The revenue generated by our own ads will pay for the domain name and removal of forumotion ads.
4. If we move to a new platform, we would lose the historical posts, the name (possibly) and a chunk of our membership possibly. We would also be faced with the same problem as now when we once again get to a certain size. It is merely delaying the problem unless we build our own software. This would cost us money to develop and we would still need to host any bespoke software.

So this means that the only viable option is to go with option 3 - the introduction of adverts that will pay for the domain name and removal of forumotion ads (so hopefully no misleading ‘you have 1 new message’ type). Any excess could potentially be used to advertise the site, as well as potentially paying for our own software to be developed.

So you will shortly be seeing adverts on the site. This is not being done through choice but as a means to better the forum and take away the burden from the members.

Hopefully you will continue to use 606v2 - we have some exciting developments ahead of us. We still aim to achieve our goal of being the best multisport forum in the UK (and beyond) and the addition of adverts will allow us to get there more quickly.

I would just like to finish with a final thank you. When I started this forum, I honestly thought it would be a nice little home for my friends I had made. But due to the work that you have all put in, I can now safely say that it has exceeded all my expectations. From thinking I would keep in contact with a dozen or so friends, I have nearly 3000. So I may not be the next Mark Zuckenberg but I can tell you that I consider you all to be my friends.

Hero

How has it run it's course if half the people haven't read it??

The advert is clear to see. Even more reason to have the important explanation as to why as an obvious global announcement

It seems to me that you want to be able to say you informed everyone but really would prefer no one noticed?
I'll ask again, you must have made a conscious decision that it was no longer needed globally. Why? What is more important today?

The ads banner looks fine and isn't intrusive, at all.

I'm sure anyone who didn't catch this thread yesterday, and notices we now have ads, and asks about them, will be given a link to this thread.

This is a great forum......lets move on,

Solerina

The announcement was posted to inform people the ads would be coming. Now the ad is there, why have an announcement saying it is there...they can already see it. If they care they can check the announcement section.

Solerina, i'm sure they can.
I just think the fact that the announcement wasn't out there for even one whole day is indicative of the thought process behind the scenes. Yesterday i wouldn't ever have considered this but today after this i'm concerned.

Had it been an annoucement saying something like, oh i don't know "we've opened a shop", it would have been up for a week.....

Enforcer wrote:The announcement was posted to inform people the ads would be coming. Now the ad is there, why have an announcement saying it is there...they can already see it. If they care they can check the announcement section.

It was a long announcement to say that. To my untrained eye, some of it looked like explanation. Can you explain to me why it would be considered a bad thing to leave that up?

Enforcer wrote:The announcement was posted to inform people the ads would be coming. Now the ad is there, why have an announcement saying it is there...they can already see it. If they care they can check the announcement section.

But the original thread is now misleading as some of us (including an Admin) thought it was up for debate.

Maybe it's worth deleting this and starting (and locking) a new one for reference.

The thought process behind the scenes is I'm laying out cash every month to pay for people like yourself to moan at me.
If I wanted to get into sadomasicism I'm sure I'd spend my money better elsewhere!
What I was paying shot through the roof and I want tthe site to pay for itself, any extra can go to promoting the site elsewhere, that's it. If you want to think of it as the next Who shot JFK you can.
It's far easier to just switch to the ads that forumotion provide (which on reflection of the russian mail order brides ad may not be a bad idea!) but we wanted the ads to actually be something that may be of interest!

guys can everyone just move on please.

Hero wrote:The thought process behind the scenes is I'm laying out cash every month to pay for people like yourself to moan at me.
If I wanted to get into sadomasicism I'm sure I'd spend my money better elsewhere!
What I was paying shot through the roof and I want the site to pay for itself, any extra can go to promoting the site elsewhere, that's it. If you want to think of it as the next Who shot JFK you can.
It's far easier to just switch to the ads that forumotion provide (which on reflection of the russian mail order brides ad may not be a bad idea!) but we wanted the ads to actually be something that may be of interest!

I'm not sure if you have an inferiority complex, but where have i moaned at you? I asked a perfectly resonable question. Get a grip!

I said i had no problem with the adverts. You're trying to deflect my question.
I'm just interested in why you don't want people to know.
Is the 'Partnership with Leaderboard' announcement more important to the golf board than this one? Because that's been up for 2 weeks today, and this annoucement got not even a day!

Simple question; do you think everyone would want to read this announcement?

get over it and move on

What's annoying is people asking genuine question and being told to move on! CF, leave the Admin to deal with it!

cricketfan90 wrote:get over it and move on

Why?
I'll bet that at least 50% of the members haven't yet even read this

It's not the most important thing in the world today but it is the most important thing going on in 606v2

If you have a problem with the leaderboard announcement, ask your moderators to remove it from the announcement section.

With regards to this thread, you are free to ask any questions you like. However, the one that you have asked as to why its no longer a global has been answered.

Either ask something new or move on.

Hobo, again deflecting the question.
I have no problem with the Leaderboard announcement. As you well know, i've responded to it twice.

I do however consider this one more important.

And no, plenty of the questions haven't been answered -

Do you think everyone would want to read this announcement?
Can you explain to me why it would be considered a bad thing to leave that up?
How has it run it's course if half the people haven't read it??
What is more important today?

The only answer has been, "it's not global because it's not, move on"

That's a very odd decision and odd decisions usually mean there's something someone doesn't want you to know

You have been given the answer a few times.

The ads have now gone up, so there is nothing left to discuss. If the ads were being put up tomorrow, then fair enough.

If someone is concerned about something on any website, they would go to the announcement or news section. This is where the announcement is. If we were intending on hiding things, we would have :

1. Not tell anyone and not made an announcement
2. Hidden any announcement we have made after a certain amount of time.
3. Not engaged with you over this question.

You have been given the answer. Just because you dont like the answer doesnt mean it hasnt been responded to.

With regards to your other questions:

Do you think everyone would want to read this announcement?
Can you explain to me why it would be considered a bad thing to leave that up?
How has it run it's course if half the people haven't read it??
What is more important today?

1. No
2. I dont its just pointless to
3. How do you know that half havent read it?
4. I dont really understand this question. But if you are saying that nothing has taken precedent to replace it, then thats just plain stupid. Would you carry on to run stories about sporting events days after the event if nothing else had happened? No of course not - this announcement has been made redundant by the fact that the ads are now live.

MustPuttBetter - I think you're really insulting the intelligence of your fellow posters. If someone is concerned about the ads, I'm sure they have the gumption to look under the "Site Rules and Announcements" threads, or in the least, ask in the Help section and get directed here. As long as this thread keeps getting updated (which it is) it's there for all to see at the top of the page anyway. If someone else refers to it elsewhere, they can post a link. Is that really too much for people to cope with?

Also, how do you know "half the people haven't read it?" People will read what they want when they log on, which refers to my point above.

Posts aren't listed in order of importance they move around according to how many posts are on them (again see my explanation above). I think you're complaining for the sake of it. They did answer your question about why this was no longer a "global announcement".

Sorry, why was that deleted?

Some of the admins have a poor, antagonistic attitude.

Scottrf wrote:Sorry, why was that deleted?

Some of the admins have a poor, antagonistic attitude.

The reason why it was deleted was that it was off topic.

If you have a problem with the way the site is ran, then I suggest you complain to the moderation team.

Due to a raft of off topic hijackers, the moderation team has been asked to delete anything by certain posters that is derailing threads.

To answer your question, if members cannot understand that by insulting the moderation and admin teams continually will result in a ban, then that is a shame. I would take this to heart Scott, as I believe that you have had trouble with confrontation and button pushing in the past.

Hoope that answers your question.

Have a nice da

Hobo,

Just because you give an answer doesn't mean you've answered the question.

There is nothing left (and there never was) anything to discuss. That doesn't change the fact that everyone will still be interested in the annoucement.
But then you don't think everyone will want to read it? a) i don't believe you and b) what a ridiculous thing to say

I know many people will not have read this as if they hadn't logged in yesterday - as many won't have - they wouldn't even know it existed. That's the point of what i'm trying to say.

If something important had happened since yesterday then your last comment would be validated. But for a start we're not 'days after this event has happened', it happening now and secondly it hasn't been superceded by anything?!
Do Sky News make an announcement once and then say 'well we've told them, we won't mention it again' - no!

MPB,

If you scroll to the bottom of the main forum home page it shows all the people who have been logged in over the last 24 hours. The majority of regular members have been online since yesterday.

Cari, i respect your view but i don't agree.

As i said before, everyone knows that important annoucements are shown globally on each sport. So i bet many won't look here often. I know i wouldn't have. Why is this one not still shown globally? That's all i'm asking.

No it hasn't been answered, and i'm not complaining

Hobo wrote:

Scottrf wrote:Sorry, why was that deleted?

Some of the admins have a poor, antagonistic attitude.

The reason why it was deleted was that it was off topic.

If you have a problem with the way the site is ran, then I suggest you complain to the moderation team.

Due to a raft of off topic hijackers, the moderation team has been asked to delete anything by certain posters that is derailing threads.

Umm, that's what I was doing, but my PMs are disabled.

Hobo wrote:To answer your question, if members cannot understand that by insulting the moderation and admin teams continually will result in a ban, then that is a shame.

It's not that, it's the act of daring them to insult you like you really want to ban members.

Hobo wrote:I would take this to heart Scott, as I believe that you have had trouble with confrontation and button pushing in the past.

Not really, never banned in about 3 years on BBC. The only time I was banned here was when you were on another trip and banned a member for a week for using yellow text while others admins were doing the same thing in a light hearted way.

You'll probably delete this, but you know your attitude was wrong.

Can I ask, what is the answer you would like to hear?

We have given you the reason but you are continuing to bang on about it. So to speed up this very repititive argument, just tell me what you think the answer is and I will say it.

Y I Man wrote:MPB,

If you scroll to the bottom of the main forum home page it shows all the people who have been logged in over the last 24 hours. The majority of regular members have been online since yesterday.

Thanks YI Man, that helps.

I've not counted every name but if you say an average of 14 names per row and 51 rows there, that's 714 members in the last 24 hours. The annuocement was global for 12 of those (being generous) so say 357 of those will have seen it.
How many members do we have? 3000?
So 88% of members will still not have seen this important annoucement

So Hobo, following on from the above, the question is -

"I think you should leave this thread as global for a few days so everyone can see it. Can you do that? If not, why not?"

It's as simple as that and always has been.

The answer is "Yes, i'll sort it now"

Easy enough?

MPB,

We don't have 3000 active members. Some have never even posted or even been on the site yet.

The majority of regular members will have seen the announcement which was global for 24 hours.

As mentioned, they will see the ads, so an announcement notifying them of incoming ads is obsolete. They will see them, and if they ask about it, they can be directed here or another member can tell them.

It's really not the end of the world.

Y I Man wrote:The majority of regular members will have seen the announcement which was global for 24 hours.

I don't really care whether it's global or not - that is obviously an issue for some but I can't get excited either way. On a point of fact however it was not global for 24 hours. It only went up at 12:52 yesterday and was "ungloballed" sometime yesterday evening

Was it? oops my bad. I thought it was around lunch time today.
I'll pop back in my box

YI

I don't consider it the end of the world. It just disconcerting that the answer seems to be such a resolute 'no'. I'm interested as to why.

Whatever the numbers of active members are, it's a pretty safe assumption that a good number haven't seen it or don't know it exists. We both know that.

The annoucement was written and put up global yesterday at 12.52pm. I got into the office this morning at 8.30am and it wasn't global. I posted my message on here asking for it to be reinstated as global at 11.52 am this morning. In no way was it global for 24 hours.
You agree it should have been though right?

Just so people who are joining us are aware, the men in green who can't tell the time are responsible for the upkeep of this site......

WE'RE ALL SCREWED!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Davie, beat me to it

Mustputtbetter - let me explain something to you.

The matter is now closed.

There is nothing suspicious going on and we are not putting the announcement back as a global.

You may not like this response but that is the final word on it. There is nothing left to discuss. Global announcements do not need to be made for 24 hours or any specified amount of time. As soon as the adverts went live, the announcement was no longer needed as a global topic.

One question,,,, Has anybody dated a Russian ? not sure what to put on my profile.

Cymroglan wrote:One question,,,, Has anybody dated a Russian ? not sure what to put on my profile.

Just say you love Lenin and Vodka.

And be sure to quote '606v2' to receive discount on your first order.

Looks like somebody has loved him already or he had neat vodka.
http://englishrussia.com/2009/04/01/april-lenin-prank/

Hobo, that's not an explanation but good effort.

So basically the answer is "it's not global because it's not, now get over it" - as i said it was.
And not "i'll explain....." as you said it was?

Let me explain something to you.
Whether something suspicious is going on or not, it looks like there is. So well done for that. Good people management.
I have no problems with adverts, in honesty i wouldn't really have a huge problem with someone maknig a little money out of it, and i had no worries about this place until the way this issue has been handled.
You had a good thing going with 606v2, really good. But going down the route of dictatorship rather than democracy, as you're going down, you're going to ruin in.
That's a warning for you as well as an explanation. Good luck

Thanks for the warning, I'm sure we'll all bear it in mind.

My take on the matter:
We haven't had anybody complain about the ads and not being told about them.

Given that our members aren't shy in telling us when they're not happy, I'll take that there can't be that much of a problem!

Enforcer, you're welcome

Any chance that could be something to do with 88% of members not having logged in yet?

Anyway, Hobo said his was the last word on the matter

MustPuttBetter wrote:Hobo, that's not an explanation but good effort.

So basically the answer is "it's not global because it's not, now get over it" - as i said it was.
And not "i'll explain....." as you said it was?

Let me explain something to you.
Whether something suspicious is going on or not, it looks like there is. So well done for that. Good people management.
I have no problems with adverts, in honesty i would really have a huge problem with someone maknig a little money out of it, and i had no worries about this place until the way this issue has been handled.
You had a good thing going with 606v2, really good. But going down the route of dictatorship rather than democracy, as you're going down, you're going to ruin in.
That's a warning for you as well as an explanation. Good luck

Its a shame that you feel that way.

You have been given the explanation on numerous occasions by several people but dont like the answer.

It would be a shame to lose you as a member, as you have contributed a lot to this forum. Thank you for the advice though, I will take it on board.

Enforcer wrote:Thanks for the warning, I'm sure we'll all bear it in mind.

My take on the matter:
We haven't had anybody complain about the ads and not being told about them.

Given that our members aren't shy in telling us when they're not happy, I'll take that there can't be that much of a problem!

I've just sent Hobo a PM but thought i'd respond to this.

Given how this thread has descended, you could forgive people for not wanting to approach the Admin's right now or make a complaint.

What happens if the add space dont sell ?

It will, we had 297 pending ads just before to vet.

Then we will have to send the Admins company cars back.

Hobo wrote:Then we will have to send the Admins company cars back.

My private jet is on order now!

I've approached to ask, but that obviously doesn't count!

Just because people don't complain or shout doesn't mean they are overly impressed.
Only someone very short sighted can imagine all the members that came here because they liked the BBC, being deliriously happy when they log on and find adverts everywhere with no major flashing explanation, just an article in the 'welcome' section that says "we don't have to tell you, we figured you'd notice"

Nice work

MustPuttBetter wrote:I've approached to ask, but that obviously doesn't count!

Just because people don't complain or shout doesn't mean they are overly impressed.
Only someone very short sighted can imagine all the members that came here because they liked the BBC, being deliriously happy when they log on and find adverts everywhere with no major flashing explanation, just an article in the 'welcome' section that says "we don't have to tell you, we figured you'd notice"

Nice work

Would you be happy to pay £30 a month and rising instead then to keep the site ad free?

KB, I can understand where you're coming from, but you know how frustrating it is to be asked the same question repeatedly just becasue the person asking doesn't like the answer!

Some of us have got annoyed, mainly because there are other areas of the board demanding attention and 'real-life' things like work that need some time too! We all have more pressing things to do than running round in circles on this thread!

If there are any new concerns then they will be replied to in the manner that they are asked.

MPB, you have approached on behalf of people that you assume will be annoyed. It didn't affect you directly yet you have dedicated an afternoon to banging the same drum.

Hero wrote:Would you be happy to pay £30 a month and rising instead then to keep the site ad free?

Once again, you've missed the point.
But then i suspect you know that....

MPB,

From what I've been reading, they have explained the situation. I dot know whether you're trying to stir things up, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. As Hero has previously mentioned, he created this place to keep his group of friends from 606 together. That is something he didn't have to do. They could have found a new forum to all move over to, but instead he put a lot of time and effort (and money) into making this place. The admin are doing their job for free and shouldn't be expected to provide the exact service you desire.

From what I've seen since joining the site, Hero and co have put in so much effort into this place and it's unfair to expect them to be paying. There's no conspiracy here. They need the money from the ads to actually pay to keep the site the way it is, to keep the domain name. It's not like we have to subscribe to the site or anything, so unless you have hundreds of pounds to donate to the site, move along.

E,

Yes, i do understand. However, at times this place is gonna erupt and things will need to be dealt with in an adult manner. Currently toys are being launched out of prams, childish comments are being resorted to all because one member has a query.

Regardless of how MPB asks, he's been nothing but polite and doesn't really deserve to be treated with the quite frankly obvious contempt he has. If you're getting grief elsewhere then fine, take a page out of your own book and contact the member privately.

Enforcer wrote:KB, I can understand where you're coming from, but you know how frustrating it is to be asked the same question repeatedly just becasue the person asking doesn't like the answer!

Some of us have got annoyed, mainly because there are other areas of the board demanding attention and 'real-life' things like work that need some time too! We all have more pressing things to do than running round in circles on this thread!

If there are any new concerns then they will be replied to in the manner that they are asked.

MPB, you have approached on behalf of people that you assume will be annoyed. It didn't affect you directly yet you have dedicated an afternoon to banging the same drum.

I didn't want to spend all afternoon, just as i'm sure you didn't. My query was not responded to in the manner it was asked. It was responded to with a "i have better things to do" by the 'Founder'.
I expected a "oh good point, we'll put it back up". Oddly the asnwer was "no we won't".

You can pretend you've spent all afternoon explaining why but you haven't.
If you have more pressing things to do, go and do them. You're not a martyr. Honestly if you have work to do i'm worried you're on here anyway! Cheerio....