Quote:

It may be helpful if all of us to got those answers.  Maybe I'm not the only one who is not knowledgeable about the operations of a web site forum. If we ALL had a greater knowledge and understanding of the options, what we are buying and how it is going to work, it may encourage more CJ-3A members to come forward and pledge.  It may also be helpful to keep us updated on the current pledge amount, like the public radio stations do.

Thanks Bill for all your work on this.

Bill has graciously taken the reigns to commandeer the website. In my mind, you are making a contribution to the website and will have "token" ownership. It's impossible for a bunch of you to "own" the website, but you can help maintain it by being a moderator or writing articles, or volunteering to update pages.  I've always said this is YOUR website. However you work it out is up for discussion.

I would hope that everyone agrees that this website has intrinsic value, whether it's the tech section, restoration pages, or the forum. I wish I could just give the website to someone (I've tried, no one has the time to take on the responsibility - 2A Page, 3B Page, Jeep Chasm, Bob W), but this website represents years of hard work, research, and $$. If someone wanted to make it a revenue generating venue, they could easily pull in $5k a year. I've turned down plenty of advertising offers and sponsorships.  If you think this website has no value, then you need to walk away.

This transaction is an open book and I have answered everyone's questions, both in public and in private. It's cut and dry. The sale of the website includes the domain name, full website, and forum.  MY cost is $20/year, plus my time, which I no longer have as evidence in the lack of updates.  I will not pay someone to do this work for me, nor will I pay for software to update the site or upgrade the forum.  It's time to cut ties and move on.  

Hosting costs can vary, but it shouldn't exceed $20-$30/month at most.

I have lost free hosting. I've had it good for too long, and I am not going to pay for hosting for a website I can't maintain, update, or administer. Folks, I am an active duty Marine with 3 kids and a pending move to Japan, I am not a retiree with tons of free time.

For the those complaining that the website was down for a day and is a "sign to come," that's ridiculous. That's the first time the site was down in 5 years.  Get outside and get some sun!

The bottom line is that I have dropped the price FOR THE MEMBERS to a token amount.  All I ask is that my written pages remain attributed to me. Other than that, the sky is the limit on what you guys want to do with the website.

Happy Jeepin'
Jonathan

Thank you Jonathan for your service to our Country. May life be good to you for serving.

I think we need to keep the old site and current site data for reference if possible and I hope we can collect enough money to purchase the site and rebuild it. I hate to see it die and I'm sure you do to because you put a lot of work in it.

Dez wrote on 06/28/12 at 04:30:12:



Russ from NJ owns the 2A page. He deals with all the admin issues, and has a few different moderators for different sections.

What do Pirate and Zuki do??

Pretty much what we are proposing is myself and our hired gun will be in charge of the admin issues, we will sign up a moderator or two and solicit help rebuilding tech faq and 3A information faq sections at first.  No specific person will be the actual owner...If the site were to be transferred to someone else eventually when I move on, (Heck everyone moves on eventually, its life, ya know) it would be another member in good standing.

The big nut to crack is the buy of the site from Jonathan (Less than half of the original price BTW) and the  costs to improve and update, which we will have to hire someone to do (UNless there is an experienced webmaster in our midst who would like to volunteer..I am not qualified and would probably have the site down for the count as soon as I tried to fix the simplest thing. My computer experience is in the signmaking trade, and not in webhosting. Heck, when I started, we had stacks of computer cards and programmed in Basic and Fortran.


We pretty much have what we need now to buy the site, in verified pledged funds.  We are still a little shy of what it will take for a minimalist transition, wherre we keep the YABB board and the old board.  IF we want to go modern and update further...we are still about $600 shy .

$1000 in email verified pledges received to date. No actual money collected yet but it should start soon.

EDIT JR has given me permission to share that the buyout amount is now $1000 for us instead of the original $2500 ...

Only a fool would think that their donation to save the site makes them an owner. By that I mean, so I pay my $100 and then what? Do I get something to show ownership, NO, do I have special privileges, maybe, can I sell my share to someone, NO, and only a fool would buy it. All of us that have pledged money, and it is only a pledge now, should be doing this out of the kindness of their heart and the desire to see the site continue. So, am I a fool for pledging $100, I suppose some would say yes but I don't feel that way because I learned a lot from this site while I was trying to get my Jeep in shape and am still learning. I visit other Jeep sites but I like this site best. It is the most laid back and friendly Jeep site.

Now, as to the pledges of money. If you pledge a given amount then for God's sake pay up that amount or more. Many times people will pledge and never pay, please don't be one of them. If the deal goes through, please pay your share.

I see nothing wrong with a $5 dollar membership for full privileges on the site. A visitor could have posting rights for maybe 3 or 4 months and then be required to join. I am a member of a tractor site like that. They do however, have a life time membership fee and I paid that because I like the site and the people on it.

One thing that irritates me about the CJ2 site is when you click to make a post you can only view the last post. Many times I want to reference other posts in the thread and have to open another page to view the site on. PLEASE don't do that on the new site, keep it like it is here now.

Several forums I am on have dealers listed at the top of the opening page that roll through the list and they have a line for the dealers to click on to view all of the dealers on one page. I like that a lot. It would not bother me if there was a dealer add at the top of every page but I sure don't want them up and down both sides like some forums have.

Carls_jeep wrote on 06/28/12 at 19:44:02:


Thanks for that, that makes me feel good as that has always been the intention of this website and forum. I hope it stays that way.

I am

Guys, I'm wondering, I think most of us are pretty busy, we all like this site and want to keep it going, thats good.  But as Bill has indicated, it takes some doing to keep it up with moderators and IT support.  Quarterly or monthly donations were mentioned and I think that could turn into a billing and collections nightmare for someone, and I hate to see that much effort go into the admin work.

I'd like to throw out there that a lot of what I've learned and passed along came from some of the various vendors that I've dealt with; guys like Louie Larson at Willys World Wide, John at Midwest Military, Army Jeep Parts, Walcks and a host of others.  I'm suggesting that we allow enough ad space for these guys and others like them, use that money to pay for a professional IT guy to keep the site going from the Tech side, do the updates and all the stuff ( I Know some of these guys and they are all contractors at heart, some night work is pretty common for them).  Then we just need a couple moderators and a guy to be the "TMFIC" like JR does for us now.  I think we need to generate a revenue stream to keep this easy to manage is all I'm sayin.