Hello All,
As a 99% leech, 1% contributor, it is safe for me to say that I have received invaluable tips and advice from from this site.

Everyone has always treated me with kindness and answered all of my questions with professionalism and courtesy.

I have been "saved" many a time from this forum.
I was also fortunate enough to meet several forum members at the Beach Party in Las Vegas. It was a fantastic opportunity to pick the brains of some of the leading business people in the industry.

The question of whether or not I would personally pay for this site is about to be a moot issue as my fledgling business is in the process of disintigrating before my very eyes.

I'm not really sure what the point of sharing that opinion in an open forum like this is anyway. I wouldn't hope to influence anyone else's opinion or try to get the moderators to change their minds. People will have to make the decision on their own. Those who realize and need the value of the site will ante up. Those who don't, won't. Simple as that. I am hoping for the sake of all involved, there will be more of the former than the latter.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone (especially the fabulous moderators) for all of the help you have given me for the last 8 months. I will miss the camraderie and humor and friendship I have found here. Please know that my exit has nothing to do with the new structure and everything to do with my current business situation.
I may be back once my own "smoke" clears.

Now, anyone out there in the market for a whole garage full of trophy parts? LOL

Thanks again everyone
good luck in your business.
Becky

Becky, I think you're missing a good opportunity to get some advice from some good sources. Could be that your chosen area of business isn't pulling the weight, so you need to expand to bring in some more dough. Maybe be more specific on what you're doing, what equipment you have, what area you're located...

Not that I myself can help, but we all like hearing the drastically different advice from the forum members. Post it in a new thread, as I don't read all the posts in this thread.

Shaddy

David,

I had to think a little while to understand why I had such a negative reaction to your reply to Rodney. I have this general feeling (and I am sure you'll disagree with me) that you're shooting yourself in the foot with the defensive and unyielding nature of your replies. Rodney has contributed tons of useful and valuable input and if there's anyone on the forum who I'd think would be exempt from any sort of payment, it would be him. In fact, I think you'd do yourself a great favor and pay people like him who bring such a wide breadth of experience to the forum. Now there's a thought...pay for content. You expect the rest of us to pay for it...it might be a good idea for you to do that as well.

What saddens me is that I see other ways that this could have been handled with largely the same positive result for you. All of us have enjoyed being part of the forum, but now you are unilaterally changing the value proposition and, in my opinion, ignoring the input that your potential customer base is giving you. If I was you, I'd listen, back up and ask for input on how to achieve your goals. You might find better ideas there, retain more of your potential customer base, and avoid ending up as "Admiral of the Rowboat".

For my part, I don't plan on joining the "for pay" site. I do wish you good luck though!

What a poor choice of wording I used. To me it meant one thing, on re-reading it it can easily mean something else.

I meant and inclusive, not and statement. In real English that means the replacing the 'and' with an 'IF' reads more properly.

Your generous offer will be thought about. It was not a search for someone, but you are making me give it thought. The David's and I will have to see if that is realistic at this moment.

Thanks for the offer, it is greatly appreciated.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Sheesh, Miss a topic for a few days and spend hours catching up on 133 posts! I'm sure more will come in as I eat dinner and type my response.

There have been a lot of well-thought statements and a lot of heated comments. For those of you posting snarky comments, BEHAVE.

Advertising banners? Sure. No problem. I ignore them all anyway.

Clip art, corporate logos as enticement? Not for me. I design most of my own graphics.

Do I learn from this site? Yes and no. I'm an avid reader. I don't apply most responses to my business needs, but merely store facts learned as "mental notes."

$99/year? Not without full knowledge of what I am paying for. I have the same concerns that many have expressed. We want to know what we will be paying for BEFORE we pay for it.

Deleting people's prior posts from the new pay-only forum? While I fully stand behind any person requesting their posts be deleted if that's what they choose to do, if you do that, you just greatly decreased the value of the forum as a resource.

My suggestions? Leave the forum intact and free or at most $30/year as that is what drives many people to visit this site and contribute information. Offer products such as "How to maintain your <insert equipment here>" articles and supplier databases, file downloads etc as items people must pay for to access.

If the new format proves to do well and people are paying for the optional services as well as use the forum, then offer a "full service" option where they pay $100/year and can download anything they want.

Michel

I told Rodney in a post that he would get a free year for his article, once he approved/disapproved the editing of it to format. You saw the slap in the face he gave me.

David's offer to remove his posts were only if Rodney wanted that to happen. Rodney was objecting strongly to his free contributions going on a private site. We were just trying to be courteous and responding to a possible request. Either way on either point, it is entirely Rodney's call. We will do what he wants.

TO ALL:
David was right, I should not have let the cat out of the bag on the logos. I was just trying to show that we were working on improvements. The response has seen posts similar to 'Who needs 700 stinking logos, what else are you going to do for me.' Now I know why I usually give his comments a huge amount of thought.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Harvey,

My point about Rodney was in support of my main point, which was about the approach being taken here and about alternative approaches which I believe would reduce collateral damage. I can't add anything more to my comment, so I won't. It appears that you guys have made up your minds that this is the way it's going to be, so all I can say is good luck.

Thanks for your wishes of luck.

As far as going private, yes our minds are finally made up. There have been a few threads in the past on the subject that we have analyzed thoroughly to come to the decision. It was a hard set of choices and variations to go through, but we hope we have come to the optimum finalization.

We may be wrong, but will never know unless we do it. Who would have thought of taking nearly two years to get it set to go, and then feeling that we need more time? But we are stagnant as only a forum at this time, yes a great forum, but only that. We feel that we can take it up a few notches, so we are trying to do that.

Thanks also for your participation in the family.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Well since I do not know you from Adam, Eve, or Satan himself, I do not really feel that I need to chronologically break down my entire life to you, but for the...YOUR record,
I have been freelancing as a mural and handpainted sign artist since I was 16.
Starting in 1992 I worked as a theatrical technician for the Oklahoma Christian University of Science and Arts where I also began working on a degree in graphic design.
Soon after this I started working for a printing company in Rush Springs Oklahoma where I had my first experience with a large scale screen printing business.
Being young and stupid, I decided I wanted to take off for a year and live in Mexico. This jacked me around and I was forced to quit school all together and get a full time job as a landscape designer/ installer. Like many people, I fell into a rut and this became my career choice until I went through a windshield in October of 1996. Five hours of emergency care and a bad attorney later, I was left with a body that just can't really handle the labor of landscaping any more.
This caused me to make the decision to return back to design school, but this time I went to Arizona. This is where I received my degree in visual communications (covering graphic design, multi-media, digital video, desktop publishing and advertising) which during this time, I was working full time, but continued doing freelance items.
As of 2001 I had my degree and was working on a second degree in animation, when I got hooked up with the wrong person and it led to me dropping out of school, quitting my full time job, and moving to Tennessee where I got screwed over royally and lost everything that I had.
Still with me? After being on the street and doing without, I finally swallowed my pride, contacted my mother and since then have rebuilt my life.
In 2003 I moved back to Texas where I worked for a vinyl sign company and began developing the foundations for the company that I wanted to start.
I met my wife who lived in Oklahoma and when I knew that I wanted to marry her, I thought it was a logical move to go back to Oklahoma since I was getting ready to start my own business, she was already established in hers (teacher with tenure), and I had more connections in Oklahoma.
Since I have been here, I have worked temp jobs and freelance work that has helped me develop my own graphic design company. No longer freelance. I have done everything from business murals 16'x28' down to business suites for a few start up companies.
I have been featured on a radio show that has been archived on their website and I can send you the link should you care to listen to it, as well as I have gotten a lot of free press in two local newspapers in which I can scan copies and email to you should you require to see them.
Because of my bad decisions in the past I am still suffering in some areas like credit history. Only working temp jobs and freelance work does not keep steady paychecks coming in. Anyone who freelances will tell you this. It is my wife's steady paycheck that has allowed me to pursue my business and get it off the ground here in Oklahoma. If it were not for her, I would probably be set up in a dead end job dreaming about a business that would never have happened.
"Since this issue was brought up, I guess I must specify that technically I am doing most of the actual engraving work"
In English class this statement would be called future present, meaning that as soon as I get the engraver, I would be doing most of the work.
I will be more specific with my statements so that there will be no more confusion (at least until this site goes pay and you move to the free site pouting because Rodney almighty wasn't able to get David to change his mind).
Again I state that the engraving part of my company is new. I have been freelancing since I was 16. I have had my own legitimate company for two and a half years. I am getting ready to go from a sole proprietary to an LLC in which case I am putting my wife as an owner in the company out of honor to her because of all she went through supporting me while I was bringing in sporadic paychecks to start this business.
Check out Proverbs 11:2. This is in the Christian bible and is a book in the old testament. I would keep writing, but I think that that one verse sums it up... Now I see everyone that reads this post pulling out there bibles to see what it says :D .

A few points:

1) Had I been asked to donate $100 to help maintain this forum , I would have done so gladly as it's easily affordable to me.

2) Had the fee required to join this forum been reasonable and offered some value to all , I would have had no objection.

3) Had the reason the forum changed been altruistic and not to line someones pockets , I would not have objected.

4) Offering me money for any contribution is an excercise in futility as money is not what drives me , offering me a years free membership (I missed reading that bit) is even more of a slap in the face as its basically almost a bribe to me to keep schtum about this whole debacle.

5) I have NEVER asked that my contributions be deleted , but in the light of the fact that they will be used to draw customers to personally enrich David or others and his willingness to use the delete button , I would object to them being used when and if this forum officially becomes a pay to view entity. I gave them in the light of people helping people , and would suggest those wishing to utilise them to DL and save em before david pushes his magic delete button. It makes no difference to ME whether they are deleted here , I'm not that attached to em. Even in a free to view area , they are still an inducement in terms of a membership drive and it's not acceptable that they are used that way.

6) As to being snarky , well I really dont need an utter newbie to tell me I'm eating sour grapes etc, but I will admit , the better way for me to have handled it would have been to ignore it. Thats what I'm doing forthwith.

7) At no point were the members who have made this site what it is , consulted as to potential changes. This nonsense that it was always intended to be a site that made a profit for the owner was never clearly stated. We all realised at some stage that expenses in hosting needed to be recovered , but not this. worse than this is that now objections are being raised , they are not even being considered or taken heed of.

The issue right now has become a case of whether I really want to be part of something run by a dictator who unilaterally takes actions and has in the past been seen to be somewhat quixotic.
One can admire zeal and initiative , but I fully believe that this notion of what the forum is to industry and what it can possibly become is delusional. I have been on the internet for 12 yrs , seen em come and go , and rest assured , the recipe for this forum that has been proposed is a "see em go" one. But only time and history will prove any party right.

What is really disturbing is that David and co have found the need to make this site "pay" , had this been a drive to recover some out of pocket expenses for running it is one thing , this is not - it is an attempt to milk the goodwill of others for personal gain and flies in the face of all the noble altruistic sentiments that he professes to have.

At any rate , regardless of the direction of this site , I actually no longer wish to participate here or waste time arguing the points. Those that understand my POV do , those that don't , dont.
I have a distinct feeling of being abused and don't like it. We all move on , so will I.

Mark,

There will be ($) opportunities for people who supply (acceptable) articles or educational content, other than forum posts.

Most of our industry's well-known authors are contractually-bound to exclusivity, with the publications for which they write.

For the short term, I'll be the primary author of articles.

Rodney's an excellent technician, but an author he's not.

I spent valuable time editing Rodney's "Out of The Box Laser Ideas" forum post, to transform it into an article.

Rodney originally agreed to the effort, and also agreed to supply supporting photos for the piece. Upon completion of my edited version of the article, I submitted it to Rodney, who, to this day, has never responded to my questions, as to what he thought of the article.

I asked if the editing, which was fairly heavy, in order to produce cohesiveness and clarity and to provide clarification of South African terms, for a primarily American readership, were acceptable.

After multiple attempts to have that question answered, I didn't want to appear as a stalker and put the project on ice.

This new format effort will have to land flat-on-its-face, before I consider changing its direction and that can only be determined by giving it an actual chance to succeed.

I'm confident that it will.