question about this forum/website

  • Thread starter Thread starter nachoman
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RonP said:
No nerve hit, I said bud to be friendly, seeing as we came close the other day to doing the ram thing.

Again misread, should I be using smileys ?
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Smilies alway help!!! goldtoth1 tooth1

Even the ones, I designed: goldtoth1

Put it this way..... You are reading your posts "in your mind" with the original emotions you thought of when you wrote it -- I read "bud' as both snide slang and as a pat on the shoulder - but I'm an Admin and I have a few years experience.. :D

I was actually (along with Ralph) waiting to see "just how you meant it". I do a lot of e-mailing for work and we have gone to seminars that included this kind of thing. It never hurts to add smilies!!!

Examples:
(Read rhymes with REED)
read this you'll like it

read this :D you'll like it

(read rhymes with RED)
read this!! -- it stinks!!!! :cry:

Read this - now I'm upset!!!wall1wall1
 
The reason for all those "read" words was to confuse your mind as you red them (no spelling error)

It's very confusing to a person reading a post, as to exactly what any post means. We always recommend everyone to click on "Go Advanced" and re-read your post 3 or 4 times before posting it!!!

It really - really does help!!!!!
 
riverotter said:
This link brings up a page that says "Invalid Announcement specified." Maybe it's supposed to, but it's kinda confusing ...

P.S. I like the $5/month recurring donation option. That's cheaper than an issue of MR or RMC ;-)
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:D That's because the auctions ended for now... please keep checking at the top of the forum listing for more announcements... :D :D

~~ Thanks!!!!!
 
Yes guys, please keep this civil! :wave: I am learning quite a bit from this conversation about some things I previously knew very little about.

I used to be dead-set against using smileys, too. But then there was the one time I almost ruined a good friendship because the other person didn't know I was being sarcastic, and then my subsequent attempts at explaining myself ony kept getting misinterpreted even further. She politely suggested to use smileys in the future, and ever since then, I've been converted:mrgreen:

Now, back to advertizing. If I had a small upstart company selling model train items, I am not sure how I would go about letting people know. Suppose I bought equipment for casting small parts, and I decided to try and cast some detail parts for sale. I suppose I could throw them on ebay, and my "advertizing" is the ebay search.

Given some people's wariness towards ebay, my next options would be 1) try to get a LHS owner to stock them on consignment or sell them outright. The target audience here is whoever comes into the LHS and is willing to browse the racks. 2) I could start my own website, and maybe have it pop up when people search on google. 3) I could run an ad someplace directing people to my website.

Now on to #3... How long does an ad need to run for? I don't know about prices for print ads in magazines, or prices on other websites. But If I decide I just want to "test the waters", 35 bucks to run an ad for a week just to see what happens is not a big investment. If I had just started trying to sell stuff, and had just constructed my website, that's what I would do. I'd pay for a week, and if it brought in business, I would then consider putting up a longer-running ad somewhere else.

Kevin
 
RonP said:
Advertising in a site that does not do any form of promotion at all for $150/month for a wee ad is a bit steep.
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From a potential advertiser's viewpoint, I wonder if the lack of promotion might not be as important as the volume of traffic.

While this forum may not be widely promoted, it does appear to attract a significant amount of eyeballs and mouseclicks. I don't think there is any other English language card modeling forum remotely comparable. In terms of reaching North American and other English-speaking card modelers, I think it would be hard to beat this venue.

On the other hand, the low cost of this hobby, usually one of it's prime virtues, here creates a challenge, as most suppliers have got to be operating on miniscule budgets.

Hopefully the popularity of card modeling will continue to grow and eventually reach some threshold where model prices can remain low, but suppliers can attain sales volumes that allow for advertising budgets. When that day arrives, we will have Peter, the mods, and everyone else who helps keep this forum running to thank for being instrumental in making it happen. :thumb:
 
Now there, now we have a very informative discussion happening here. These views, disagreements and the wee bit of head butting is really needed to get some of this out.

It is good to see that we can all patiently wait and see what the next guy thinks. Even though my motives are personnal they still are directed at The-gauge and its prosperity. Now the mods have to keep an eye to make sure they get their dues for all the hard work they doo :mrgreen: (Thats just in case anyone misreads my intentions)
 
As far as I am concerned, I've always found hard to find the better way to operate a site or a forum. It seems that what I like is exactly what others dislike. Why? Because if something is good for someone, probably he will write it to someone else; on the other hand if something is not so good, the same someone will write it to much more people and a lot of times. In other words, bad things make more noise.

What I want to say (if even I know it...)?

Sometimes the web administrator needs to take unpopular decisions despite of what some may say. Surely most of the Members and lurkers will agree with such needed change in rules.

If the costs of the forum rise more then the personal fundings, something need to be added to introduce money into the system. Ads, membership fee and donations seem to be the only way to have incomes. People should have clear that the alternative could be the interruption of the service.

So, from my point of view, the ads are welcome. I don't bother them and sometimes I think they are useful because they update me about hobby news, for their colorful appearance and because they let me have a free service.

Forgive me for my long post and my 1.5cent opinion.

Claudio
 
How I came to be here:

A few years's back I would do google searches on model railroad related topics I wanted more info on. I would search for things like "HO steam locomotive weathering", and some thread from The Gauge was always in the top 2-3 of the results. After this happened a few times, I realized the Gauge seems to be a pretty good forum, so I joined.

I don't know much about how google searches work, but I do know that I don't get results for 2guyz threads on the first few pages of google results. I only know about 2guyz through here. Not trying to pick on 2guyz, because it is also a great forum :mrgreen:, just giving an example.

And thanks Peter for sharing a little bit of info on how all this works :thumb:

Kevin
 
Peter T Davis said:
Ron, if there's no promotion going on, how do you figure that we got to 5,000 people visiting here each day? By the virtue of my magnetic personality? LoL
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If The-Gauge wasn't swallowed up by a Card forum I wouldn't be here.

Maybe you should start using smileys. I feel there is a tone to your responses. :confused:

I'm going to stop my part in this conversation so that I may protect my ability to be included in my model railroading learning. :twisted:
 
RonP said:
If The-Gauge wasn't swallowed up by a Card forum I wouldn't be here.

Maybe you should start using smileys. I feel there is a tone to your responses. :confused:

I'm going to stop my part in this conversation so that I may protect my ability to be included in my model railroading learning. :twisted:
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Well, just about anywhere on the net "LoL" can replace a smiley. Yeah, not as affective as sign1 but, I'd accept that as a smiley nonetheless. :mrgreen: And you're right, the judicious use of smilies can make a world of difference when trying to convey emotions or intent.:thumb: :thumb: Notice I said, "judicious". Sometimes 50 "dancing chickens" or "dancing bananas" can be as irritating as no smilies. stooges8
 
Peter T Davis said:
The ongoing costs in two categories, the regular ongoing cost is the server and the irregular ongoing costs are software upgrades and freelance programmers to support it.

The few ads that show bring in more revenue than the server costs, but less than the aggregate of the historical and ongoing irregular costs.

I've resisted putting too many ads on the site, because I think it distracts from the community. On the other hand, sometimes it becomes a financial burden, and last year was a tough one for me on that end. This year is better already.

The next step (I hope) is to try to attract some sponsors directly, and bypass the Google ads. The Google ads only pay when y'all click them, but I'm researching avenues to facilitate letting related businesses to purchase ad spots directly on the forum instead of going through Google.
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Can I pledge $20.00 U.S. to help keep the site going and defray costs?
 
Advertisements

Peter T Davis said:
The ongoing costs in two categories, the regular ongoing cost is the server and the irregular ongoing costs are software upgrades and freelance programmers to support it.

The few ads that show bring in more revenue than the server costs, but less than the aggregate of the historical and ongoing irregular costs.

I've resisted putting too many ads on the site, because I think it distracts from the community. On the other hand, sometimes it becomes a financial burden, and last year was a tough one for me on that end. This year is better already.

The next step (I hope) is to try to attract some sponsors directly, and bypass the Google ads. The Google ads only pay when y'all click them, but I'm researching avenues to facilitate letting related businesses to purchase ad spots directly on the forum instead of going through Google.
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As stated before, I will be more than happy to be a sponsor! :thumb:
 
nachoman said:
How I came to be here:

A few years's back I would do google searches on model railroad related topics I wanted more info on. I would search for things like "HO steam locomotive weathering", and some thread from The Gauge was always in the top 2-3 of the results. After this happened a few times, I realized the Gauge seems to be a pretty good forum, so I joined.

I don't know much about how google searches work, but I do know that I don't get results for 2guyz threads on the first few pages of google results. I only know about 2guyz through here. Not trying to pick on 2guyz, because it is also a great forum :mrgreen:, just giving an example.

And thanks Peter for sharing a little bit of info on how all this works :thumb:

Kevin
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You must have a special google search because on my computer googling "HO steam locomotive weathering" get the first hit from Zealot/the-gauge in about the #50 position. When you click on the link it takes you not to a thread, but an introduction page. The next hit at about #75 points to this thread. So you get no real hits at Zealots on your example. Maybe a few years back 2guyz forum didn't exist? Maybe that's a reason? The-gauge is much older and more indexed, furthermore, lots of the hits in which you get relevant and useful information on google pointing here, appear to me to be several years old. In fact, if you google "ballasting track" nothing from this forum appears in at least the first 800 hits at which point I gave up.

Some may also find this link...interesting? Flip a Web Site Fixer-upper [Community]
 
Peter T Davis. You ask if we get 5,000 people visiting here each day by the virtue of your magnetic personality. You better d@mn bet we do. By virtue of you and Don and Mikey and all of the other Administrators and Moderators who are serving now and who have served before. Out of this rude, crude, undisciplined uncivilised corner of the internet you have built a place where people can come, relax and enjoy a common bond.

And with only one rule. Be nice to the other guy.

It was a place where people can come and bring their families with no care about what evils may lurk here. They can meet old friends and make new ones. Laugh together and learn things that they couldn’t even imagine before. Share their own knowledge, marvel in each other’s achievements, revel in each other's triumphs and mourn each other's tragedy's.

And with only one rule. Be nice to the other guy.

They didn't hear words like, inadequate, trite, shoddy, inferior, deficient, cheap, meager, junk, and of course totally non-prototypical.
They weren't be told to "go away and quit asking stupid questions.
Nor were they shunned because "their abilities just aren't up to our standards."

With only one rule. Be nice to the other guy.


I joined the Gauge when it was only a few months old. I didn’t know much about model railroading, and most of what I did know was wrong. What I found were a group of individuals who were drawn together by one single thing, the love of railroads and model railroading. I didn't see people who tried to build themselves up by stepping on the backs of others, or who were always trying to one-up the next guy. Oh sure, those kind showed up now and again. Funny thing though, for some reason they didn't stick around long; and when they did, well, they turned into some darned fine modelers.

We had our share of problems. Bumps, crashes....But those things didn't weaken us or divide us; they made us strong. Strong because we weren't just a bunch of people doing the same thing. We all supported each other up; WE WERE A COMMUNITY!

With only one rule. Be nice to the other guy.

Then we woke up one day and here was this Zealot thing. What happened to Our Gauge? After a few days it started to settle out that, well, nothing had really happened to Our Gauge. We still had all the Forums, things might look a little bit different, but it was still us. Of course now there were these other hobby sites that shared the Zealot name. Ok. Everyone knew about slot cars and RC controlled gear, but what in the heck were these Card Modelers?
Well, they didn’t seem to be interfering with us, and we’d always lived by the credo,

Be nice to the other guy. And so did they.

And then a strange thing started happening. People from the other hobbies started dropping by and they were pretty cool people, because like us they lived by the rule.

Be nice to the other guy.

We started to find that we had a lot of things in common, and as we mingled more we became stronger. We could discuss Zealot related issues, how it ran, maybe even make it stronger, after all, it couldn’t get better.


So Mr Peter T Davis, The Gauge may not have "The Promotion" of a Google, or an Amazon or an eBay, it has something that they will never have. A strong COMMUNITY and the HEART of the people who made it happen. The others could fall apart overnight. What you have done, sir is to have created a self contained, self sustaining power base with a disposable income and interests in specialised high-market goods in a multi-billion dollar industry. (I'm talking about the entire hobby industry.) Business administrators have always realized the strong potential of a loyal power base, and you, my friend have made it happen. You gathered a group of people, good people who operated by a single principal, Be nice to the other guy.

Oh, and Peter, just one more thing. :wave: Salute (just wanted to make sure I used enough smileys)​
 
Yes, yes, yes.:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

When we run into that occasional new member that doesn't quite understand what's going on here, I'll just point them to this post of Clark's. We thank you Clark, we work very hard to keep things running this way and we're proud of it. We thank you for taking the time to notice.

People have many choices when it comes to train forums. Some choose one, others choose multiple forums to go to. Some forums play by the same rules we do, some do not.:cry: Regardless, for those of you that have chosen us, we are grateful to have you and that you agree with our standards of conduct.:wave:
 
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