[nearly original] Open Letter to Endless Sphere Community

[Miles]

My preference would be:

Separate page for the "Online Market", with ads to generate revenue.

Forum page to be kept as is (sans "Online Market").
No ads on the forum page for registered members.

 

[trevor]

When I started out researching electric bikes, I went all over the web. I saw everything from $14,000 pre-built bikes to $500 conversion kits. I looked at both brick and mortar retail and online stores. In doing so, I clicked on hundreds of ads and made a ton of phone calls. It took months to educate myself to the point where I felt comfortable make a purchase, and that I would not suffer severe buyer's remorse. I found a lot of that information here.

I lurked on the site for months without even joining. I finally decided to join and reached out directly to some other members and vendors in the community. Every time I wanted to look something up, I would have to do a search and comb through the threads in order to feel comfortable with the decisions I was making. It was pretty confusing. I ended up purchasing parts from a couple of the vendors that I found here. They helped me put my project together and now I'm really happy with my Big Dummy.

The whole time I was going through this process, I was thinking to myself that it could be a whole lot easier to learn about this stuff and to find a well vetted vendor that I could trust. You know how much garbage there is out there. I also thought that there should be an easier way for vendors to reach out to people like me through an ad. It would be a win for both the vendor and the person trying to get the education. The person looking to buy a product could do so much more confidently. The vendor would spend much less time trying to educate the customer on product and also spend less time on the customer service side trying to support the product.

I was seeking out ads at the time and ending up getting bitten by the E-S bug. I contacted knightmb with my thoughts and he agreed with my thoughts. We spent a lot of time and resources figuring out how to move forward.

 

[markobetti]

My preference would be:

Separate page for the "Online Market", with ads to generate revenue.

Forum page to be kept as is (sans "Online Market").
No ads on the forum page for registered members.

Going for wise Miles logic..

 

[justin_le]

Members of our community will have the ability to turn off all ads if they wish. There really is no benefit to showing people ads if they don't want to see them. They just ignore them anyway and they don't generate any revenue for the site. There also won't be any annoying flashed based ads like punch the monkey or anything else like that. So, that's it, members will not be subjected to ads.

Let me clarify that for me the issue isn't whether or not I see ads myself, or if the core/paying members of ES see them. It's the principle that I or others would be contributing information for free and for the general benefit of the community, only have that information 'cashed in' by a forum owner or add click recipient for their own monetary gain, even though they weren't the ones to produce the valuable information in the first place.

Take for instance the axle spintout and torque arm test thread here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14195

If you enable targeted adwords, then that means that company XYZ could pay for an ad saying "Buy my torque arm here, no more axle spinout, best deal on the market!" which would show up whenever anyone who isn't logged in as a privileged ad-free member comes across the thread. Company XYZ contributed nothing to making this thread or the information contained therein, but they would be massively milking it, and possibly misleading people into thinking that there is a link.

It's completely against the spirit in which this was published in the first place, and I'd stop contributing in a heartbeat if that's how the information would end up getting used (ie, ultimately to bring traffic to an unrelated company and in the process generate ad-click revenue for a forum host). So tread waters carefully. I would highly suggest to keep monetizing and commercial stuff in the intrinsically commercial buy/sell forums, and leave the general info an technical sections unadulterated and ad-free regardless of membership status.

Justin

 

[markobetti]

I am a designer; that means alot of marketing discussions.. Completly understand the internet marketing etc... I will not say how to run this forum or protest against new ideas... I just want to say that all administrators did a great job and they linked all site in a way that everything is very easy to find if you know what are you looking for . If primary point is to educate people how to make coversions parts etc... Than making forum easier for buying stuff is not going to help people educate and understand what they are building... Again that person is going to read lukes, miles, hals, arlos, etc etc threads that are completlly non vendor related
Can you tell us how will an avrage person benefit from new concept? How will ads and banners and special list of vendors in anyway help one person understand the build of bikes ?
Previouslly i had an idea to put es badges on products that have been comercialized but inspired by ES . Person would benefit from that by knowing that this product description is on es , that people tested it and that there is a free member support... Guess for vendors to put that on could cost a dollar or two for putting : inspired by es sticker ... But this is for es to decide... Anyway i am relly not against this... But i dont fully understand what is the main idea

 

[justin_le]

I believe the forums can be self-sustaining, through ES merchandise and donations.

Can you imagine all the funny ES T-Shirts that could be drawn up from posting snippets in the quotable quote thread!?:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=593&hilit=quotable+quotes

I think there is a LOT of potentially fun stuff for creative ES merchandising that would be way more interesting and probably more revenue generating than ads. Selling advert space is such a boring and base way to make an easy buck, I'd like to think we as a community are classier and above that.

Justin

 

[spinningmagnets]

knightmb, I can't thank you enough for what ES has meant to me personally these past few years. Trevor, I'd like to welcome you, and encourage you to please exercise patience, as this new development is deeply concerning to the frequent posters.

Only time will tell...what the response will be to the new changes. Regardless of what happens, I want to say now that, this is the most interesting group of people I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. In the general discussion section (and even the toxic discussions), I have been more interested in hearing what ES posters have to say about any current news subject.

Someone who is interested in electric bicycles is (in my humble opinion), already identifiable as a forward-thinking individual who is not embarrassed to be different than the crowd. From such people, we can sometimes find great ideas. The next decade is certain to see big changes and great challenges in the world. The opinions and technical answers from ES posters has been my "fist stop" whenever there has been an important new development.

 

[trevor]

Thanks for your support spinningmagnets. I too have a deep respect for the members of this community and the last thing that I want to do is lose anybody because they disagree with changes that take place around here. Careful consideration will be made before any major changes take place. Concerns such as the ones that were posted previously must be fully examined and put into place prior to making any drastic changes. I fully appreciate that.

 

[bigmoose]

Would appreciate a detailed explanation of what "monetize the forum" means.

Just a FYI, I love this place and thank knightmb for his vision and support over the years, but I will not pay to post if it comes to that.

 

[liveforphysics]

Let me clarify that for me the issue isn't whether or not I see ads myself, or if the core/paying members of ES see them. It's the principle that I or others would be contributing information for free and for the general benefit of the community, only have that information 'cashed in' by a forum owner or add click recipient for their own monetary gain, even though they weren't the ones to produce the valuable information in the first place.

EXACTLY!

If my personal work and contribution goes towards helping Joe's-douschebag-ebike-box-shuffler company to sell parts because somebody wants to read my thread, then I'm out (and removing all posts and hosted images). That's simply how forums collapse. Your core players, your core contributors, your 5% group that makes 99% of all useful content packs up and leaves, because the entire reason they were making such a wildly strong contribution effort is because it's about the non-commercial, non-polluted, free exchange to help grow the e-revolution.

The ONLY way you draw such a powerful and strong core member group and forum content is because the posts and articles and write-ups are gifts to the members and the community. They are NOT NOT NOT going to be advertiser bait to lure buyers to get exposed to ads. This is WHY forums collapse. I will crawl over broken glass, and spend hundreds of my own dollars to make a thread that freely helps the electric revolution and the community to advance. If it was on fire, I wouldn't even piss a forum out if it's purpose is to assist some box-shuffer to make his margin. Speaking of that, who are the companies that blast forums with ads? The ones that f*cking suck, the ones that are in it because they saw $$'s over their eyes, the ones that can't draw sales from the community based on merit and contribution, so they blast ad's out instead.




All day my email inbox has been filling with people offering contributions and help if I want to make my own forum for ebikes. I would be fine contributing a few thousand bucks myself (and I worked for MS datacenter development for 5 years, I know exactly what it costs to run an almost pure text forum like this, it's dirt cheap aside from the labor time.) However, the last thing I would want to do is make a new forum, I love ES, I have loved ES everyday for years, and I love this community. If ES is going to change into something that leverages my work and huge time investment to be the bait for a marketing machine, then POOF! All the work/text/pics are gone, most of the core member group would follow this, most of the emails I got today all ready had people wanting to do it now. A new forum is created, the core members move over and remove what made ES great, and new non-commercial forum is born that will never become a marketing machine.


Not any sort of a threat, just the simple reality of how it goes down if you try to turn the gift of people's work and insight into bait for a marketing machine.


And to the folks emailing me about a new forum and quitting and deleting posts etc, I'm super slammed at work, will likely work all night, and I'm racing an endurance event at Thunder-Hill this weekend, so if I don't get back to you all, I'm not ignoring you, I appreciate the input and commitment, I'm just too busy to reply until Monday.

 

[justin_le]

Careful consideration will be made before any major changes take place.

Careful Consideration sounds like veiled corporate speak, how about discussion?? You've been a bit coy in your posts so far about explicit plans, but it reads like you want to have the site use targeted ads as a revenue source when anyone who isn't logged in views the site, and no ads for those who are logged in as an ES member. Fine for some I am sure but a show stopper for me and probably a few others.

That may or may not be your plan so I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but if it is I think we as a community can come up with way more creative ways to keep the site sustainable than that. So why not have a discussion with a bit of transparency? Give us a brain dump of what you've been thinking? If you want to keep a 'community' as you've said so many times, then there needs to be lots of engagement with said community.

-Justin

 

[bigmoose]

I am in perfect alignment with Luke's thoughts above. I am one of the guys that wrote him this afternoon.

 

[Spacey]

The great thing about this forum is that dealers like Justin, Lyen and Cell Man grew to be trusted from word of mouth and real life experiences.

People read other real people's reviews and experiences, noobies were warned away from box shifting companies like Evassemble (allegedly for all you lawyers out there) due to people's real life experiences.

Any company showing biased leanings were quickly ousted for the veiled advert that it was, for once we have a group of people brought together out of a love for ebikes and a collective view on solving problems..... Just look at the amazing torque arms Doc Bass did for next to no profit

 

[Spacey]

If anyone on this forum could abuse this site for their own financial gain it would be Justin.... But he doesn't, he offers damn good advice without even hinting you should buy from him. LFP and Doc Bass and....way to many to mention give their knowledge freely so that we might move forward together.

I would like to think that my documented many failings would have helped a few people into not doing what I did, we all contribute.

Why offer to buy the site? There must have been an exchange of money in the deal? If there was an exchange of money then there must be a plan to benefit financially from this deal?

I'll see how it goes, but I remain the cynical one because most on here are too polite to say it

 

[etard]

Man, I wish there was some kind of warning that the site was for sale, we as a community would have snapped it up in a millisecond and paid Amberwolf to run it. Perfect job for that guy, at least he is a member a lot of us have met before. I hate to judge Trevor, but his answers are very coy and almost seemed masked in lawyerese. KnightMB has been a wonderful and gracious host, hopefully Trevor carries on the tradition. Tell us a little about yourself Trevor, post some pics, give us a face. How long have you been a member? Why so few posts? What are your hobbies? What is your day job? Who are you? I think most of us would feel more comfortable with this if someone we were familiar with was taking over.

Also, we got a good thing here, the search function works great, the reason it's so hard to find answers sometime is that there are often more than one way to do things. also, the technology is constantly changing, problems are being solved, systems are being simplified, it would be hard to make a directory of info when it is constantly changing and the truth is morphing and evolving. It's true we all run into the same problems mostly, but these are easily remedied by asking for help. That's part of the secret sauce, we help each other and don't usually judge, that's why some may find the site daunting, they didn't ask for help.

Luke, got any good ideas on a name for an Electric vehicle revolution forum? :wink: :lol:

 

[methods]

Justin speaks for me - it is time for transparency.
Luke does too (er... sometimes but I cant speak for his personal proclivities )

I have been purposely holding back as I was asked (as a favor) by someone I highly respect to go easy and give this a chance. This is me holding back.

There are a few points that need to be made to clear the air....

1) This was sprung on the moderators only a short time ago in the same way it is being sprung on you guys. There was no discussion. There was no debate. There was no introduction. Action was taken and then we were told.

2) Many of these same concerns (and more) were raised in the moderator forum. Some good dialog started but nothing was resolved. Quite frankly I dont believe we had a quorum in the mod forum so we were not really getting anywhere. I called for a debate on the open forum. Now we do have a quorum - this is your forum guys. Nobody owns it but you. You can make it beautiful or you can burn it down - I will be right behind you.

3) A hot topic of debate has been that no others had an opportunity to bid. There were late bidders who arrived after the deal was done (who will remain unnamed) who offered DOUBLE the asking price to keep the forum non-commercialized..... so dont let anybody convince you that this is the "only hope" for ES or that this is a "Done Deal". Money will NEVER be an issue for the Electric Revolution - it is powered by passion and hard work

4)
5)
6)
7)
(puts soap box away for a moment)


I am not saying that we should select the nuclear option here.... we have too much work put into this. I am saying what Justin said above - if Trevor wants my support then the time is now to lay out an HONEST ACCOUNTING of the game plan for all to see. Tell us how you plan to make money for the site and for yourself.

There is nothing to hide in a virtuous plan...

I was asked to come out and be supportive and I am..... I am being supportive of the community. I don't want to crash this bus before it gets on the road... but I also want to make sure that this bus does not get too far down the WRONG ROAD before we have a chance to turn it around. The way this started out was not transparent and that is why I am not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

transparency = gain my trust and support

-methods

 

[liveforphysics]

Got an email offer from a core member here for free hosting a few mins ago. Said he had around 600Gb a month unused on his businesses server system. Says it wouldn't cost him more than $5 a month power/cooling/bandwidth to host a new forum on his exisiting server setup, and that he would be happy to do it freely.

Looks like its time to pick a name and register a domain, just to be ready for the future. Ironically, that's roughly exactly his ES started. V is for voltage had hacking issues then saw $$$ over his eyes, KnightMB made ES as a temporary discussion place until V is for Voltage came back up, but it came back commercialized, so its tallent all just stayed here on ES, and it took over the world of ebikes.

 

[johnrobholmes]

My preference would be:

Separate page for the "Online Market", with ads to generate revenue.

Forum page to be kept as is (sans "Online Market").
No ads on the forum page for registered members.

Indeed. Plus an easier way to pay for some type of donation/ membership that would allow for yearly renewal. Wisely put.


I don't like the idea of targeted ads and click through stuff either. Vendor supported revenue, yes. Google ads, no.

 

[AussieJester]

Luke and Justin have said it better than I could have, I new of the sale a week ago amd feared it would be the beginning of the end. I will be out of here the moment ANY form of advertising appears on ES.

Trevor has straight out said he's posting ads then in the next sentence days members won't see them if logged in, why not just tell us all to keep filling your new 'cash cow' with free content so you get paid for it, be honest Trevor your not in it for the good of ES your in it for your bank balance, if you weren't you wouldn't have posted the fluff you already have but straight out said there will be no form of advertising whatsoever, the death of ES as we know it is near.

Thankfully I had the foresight to host images for the majority of my posts on my own server, removing them from ES will take seconds.

Was good while it lasted, get that forum going Luke, if you need a hand I have nothing but time you know where to find me buddy.

KiM

 

[neptronix]

This should be interesting.

I have never seen you post here before, Trevor. I think you catch the drift by now though; this is and historically been somewhat of a lawless free for all of a forum, little moderation, no ads, the occasional fundraiser.. very simple.

I really hope you do appreciate this community for what it is. There is money to be made here from an operator's perspective, but keep in mind what Luke has to say even though he may rattle your cage some.. i think that people won't tolerate being sold out too much. Please do your best to take input from this community before you start taking a jackhammer to the forums. You may lose your most valuable people and turn this into a ghost town of newbies if you don't.

 

[methods]

Luke does not speak for me there...

Down boy!
Down!

That is certainly a valid threat that should be left on the table - but I think we can make this place work. Lets give Trevor a chance to put his cards on the table so that we can have a proper debate.

Time for a proper ES Debate.... starting with the facts

-methods
(ok - off to dinner... have fun guys)

 

[gerrydesign]

subscribed...my newbie agreement with Justin and Luke.

 

[johnrobholmes]

Justin and Luke certainly have very valuable points, and the best wording of what really matters. One is cool and contained, the other straight to the point :lol:


It seems the main concern is how ads would be implemented. The downfall of a targeted ad is very real. Tech by a contributor turns into a shill for another company. I think that a vendor area with ads could work however, even if limited to supporting vendors being the only ones capable of running ads chosen from a random pool.


I believe that this community could support the forum merely with donations from members. Vendors could have giveaways to supporting members to give further encouragement to support the site. It would benefit everybody! I love giveaways and would gladly donate $20 per year to be able to join them! Heck, I will start a giveaway for a Mini Stealth Pro controller when a supporting member system is started!

 

[slayer]

Funny that i was thinking only a month ago that ES resisted to all the money and knightmb deserved a gift or something for letting us sell buy post all free of ads and membership...i was thinking it must become more and more tempting to make money out of this site...and it was

 

[wasp]

with this statement does it mean that trevor and all es members now have equal say in the direction the forum goes...?
"all forum control has been ceased by the company Endless Sphere Technology. It now stays with Trevor and all the community members here as the Endless Sphere now""

so do we have a equal say/vote in what goes on with the new site? or did i misread the above statement?