Adverts in the forum posts now

[Gator Paddler]

I think ads within posts diminishes the integrity of the site. Now, we can no longer trust whether the content in a post is legitimate. My primary method for visiting BPL is Chrome on Android, but I don’t see how I can continue doing so from mobile until this is removed …

I find myself shaking my head at this site lately despite patiently waiting for bugs to be ironed out. However, you almost couldn’t write a better script for ruining a site. It’s extremely slow, has ads placed even for paying members INSIDE their posts, riddled with login issues, lacks identifying features for recent posts (not even timestamps for when the thread was created), lack of new content, removal of lifetime memberships, etc. I participate in many forums, and this is the most unfriendly from a usability standpoint by far.

[Matthew / BPL]

So should we switch our conversation to somewhere else?

[JCH]

Good question Matthew…Wish I had the answer.

[Peter S]

Well, Ryan, every single member writing in this thread agrees. What to do now??

 

I like the idea of another site. I’m only here for the forum these days.

 

[Ethan A.]

I can accept that BPL may need some ad revenue to survive, even though I also paid for a $100 Life subscription. However no one should have to tolerate ads right in the middle of posts. And for those reading with an iPhone Safari browser, Purify works great.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi all

BPL is migrating to a new web site, as you all know. This does include some advertising in the ‘google-ads’ sense. It was meant to be fairly mild, but a check box in the config file defaulted to ON when it should have been OFF. Ryan is fixing this now.

When this sort of thing happens, how about letting Ryan or myself know?

Cheers

[Matthew / BPL]

Roger,

With respect, that is pretty much what happened here by posting in the appropriate subforum. There is a lot of frustration over the lack of response from the administrators here and the slow development time. I’ve never seen a forum take months to iron out kinks like these.

My $.02 is the site should focus on providing value first and worry about monetization second or it will risk it’s sustainability.

[JCH]

Roger, with respect, how is posting in a forum titled “website: bug reports, known issues and change log” NOT letting Ryan or yourself know?

Please make it clear precisely how we should report problems and I’m certain we will do so.

Edit: looks like Matthew beat me to it.

[Ken Thompson]

Perhaps RJ and staff should check their work by actually looking at the site, Roger.

[BlackHatGuy]

Hi Roger!

Your response would seem to indicate that, though trying to monetize the site, either Ryan also uses an ad blocker when he visits BPL, or he visits BPL rarely, if ever. Otherwise he’d know from the first forum he visited. :-)

Edited: Ken beat me to it!

[Anonymous]

In chaff, i brought up alternatives to BPL–as in this community creating another forum that is not primarily profit driven/motivated.  I said i would be willing to donate or pay money occasionally to help this, and i assumed others would do likewise.

Didn’t receive much attention, support, etc.  Either because it was in chaff, because i started it, and/or people have the tendency to like to complain about problems more than create solutions.

At this point, this community and the forum is what primarily makes BPL have some worth and value imo.  I strongly disagree with the shenanigans going on of late,  But i don’t see how we can force Ryan to make the changes that many of us want, and while i think Roger means well and is honest, perhaps he’s not always being told the full truth.

[monkey]

…and/or people have the tendency to like to complain about problems more than create solutions.

This :) But it should not be an obstacle to take action. Its in the nature of things that only few are leaders, the rest are followers. If a group of people gets together to secure a domain, hosting, basic reliable forum software, and start a relevant discussion or two, the member base will grow swiftly.

The BPL forum would still be there as an archive of information to consult, but the new forum will be a primary place for discussions, free to its members and pleasant to use.

Bricksetforum.com (which is an extension of Brickset.com) is a great example of how a good popular forum can operate without charging their members or throwing ads at them.

 

[Peter S]

@Justin, I would donate too. Great idea. I’ll also help out in any way I can (Not programming though).

 

 

[Billy Ray]

It’s all been down hill since the kicked Bob Gross off PBL.

If they ever block people who use ad blocker I am out of here…

billy

[Matthew / BPL]

Actually hamfo does charge and it’s a genius plan (I’ve happily paid there for a couple years). Hammock talk is free. Anything outside of that is in the paid members area. This includes backpacks, cooking, clothing…

[Matthew / BPL]

Justin, I never saw your post. I haven’t really tried the chaff subforum. I suspect that is same reason others did not respond…

[Ken Thompson]

“It’s all been down hill since the kicked Bob Gross off PBL.”

What’s this PBL?

–B.G.–

[monkey]

Matthew – I hadn’t realised, only used it for hammock-related enquiries and didn’t know there was more to the forum!

I’ve edited my post to include an example of another great and very popular forum I use, which is totally free and no ads. (Its aimed not at backpackers as such but rather at those of us with inner children inside ;)

[dreamer]

Thank you! for removing them, much appreciated.

[Roger Caffin]

We lack a Report button: a negative feature of the Forum SW. I complain to Ryan regularly about its absence.

You CAN report such problems directly to [email protected] or to me [email protected] .

Yes, I do try to monitor the web-bugs channels – but remember I am 12 hours out of phase with you guys. If I am away for the day, it’s longer.

Cheers

 

[Roger Caffin]

Two extra points of info for you guys.

You want a fast response to all postings and so on? That takes good SW designed for LARGE volumes, and a LOT of the SW out there simply cannot handle something the size of BPL. You may remember delays of 60 seconds and more? That was the fault of some of the 3rd party SW.

But above all else, do you know what the servers used for BPL cost? Somewhere around $4,000 per MONTH. And BPL has several years of debt to pay off yet.

Cheers

 

[Matthew / BPL]

$4k/month?

That is weird. I have a close friend that has a comparable forum. It’s on a specific topic and he’s got 15 years of technical articles, features, photography, videos. He’s got 5.1 million posts in his forums, 78k members. His servers costs less than 10% of the number you mention. Am I missing something?

I’d like to say that I am a huge fan of this website. It has been incredibly useful to me over the last 18 months since I started getting interested in getting weight out of my backpack. I happily pay my subscription. I’m worried that the poor decisions I have seen implemented since last November are driving this community into the ground.

For the record, my friend is having a tough time with his forum as well. Ad-blocking has changed his whole revenue model as well. He took a big hit when mobile ad-blocking became a reality last year. It’s a challenging time for forums right now and you need to be able to monetize your site in order to keep it going. I get that.

[Ken Thompson]

1923 members paying $25 a year generate the 4K a month.

Hammock Forums stats.
Number of Members: 47,271
Total Threads: 113,930
Total Posts: 1,590,573
Currently Online: 462

[Mark V.]

First let me say I really like BPL and I am not trying to say anything disparaging. There are more examples of large websites (forums) that cost nothing to members that are huge with a ton of information. For example Adventure Rider although not a backpacking forum, it is still large with close to 300K members and years of information. I don’t remember ever seeing an add. So there is some way to do it, but that is way out of my scope.

But I do see value in BPL.

[Ken Thompson]

Thanks for removing them.

[Author]

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