Net54 board housekeeping topics

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Posted By: leon

Hey Folks,
I would like to take a minute to address a few things in an effort to continue the wealth of power of the board and continually improve it, through communication.

1. Recently at the National I was involved in numerous conversations with Steve Verkman. All were pleasant and I find him to be a very good dealer. I think we all live and learn and Steve might have learned a little about grading cards as I see most of his marked correctly and some marked trimmed too. He also bought me a nice lunch at the National so I must say thanks for that.

2. Hal Lewis had given me some money to pay for a round of drinks at the NET54 dinner, at the National. If you were there you know that it was almost impossible to hear from one table to the next and it was a little bit of a fustercluck (*if you don't know what that means email me privately). I was unable to make that happen. For his generosity to the board I owe Hal a thanks...so THANKS Hal....btw, you never responded to me about paypal'ing your money back.

3. The board seems to be going mighty nicely lately with little bickering and arguing...though some would say that they enjoy that I know there are literally hundreds of lurkers and would make a small plea to post at some point in the future. It won't kill you....I promise.

4. The power of the Buy/Sell/Trade threads is unbelievable. I have sold about 80 cards in the last 24 hours to about 15-20 different folks. All I can say is "WOW"....it works well.

5. I have been approached by a few companies, and individuals, about advertising on the board. With the number of daily users, and hits to the website, there is certainly some buying power here. As of now I don't care to do that as I don't want there to be a bias and don't really want to feel beholden to anyone. I might give that some more thought in the future. I don't want this site to be too commercialized though. I have spoken to a few individuals about some ideas but nothing is imminent on that front.

6. Feel free to chime in about what you like and don't like. I won't promise we moderators ( I almost always ask my sidekicks opinions on stuff ) will change anything but I do promise we will listen. As for changing the format of the board I don't care to do that as I don't believe it's broken.

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Posted By: Wesley

It looks like all your color E cards disappeared in a matter of hours.

Amazing

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

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Posted By: leon

I agree we need a "w" space. I think it should be in the 20's-50's stuff as that's when most of them were (not all but most) put out...for now I think it would be the "etc" part of:

VBC Forum B/S/T - '20's to '50's cards
Exhibits, Goudeys, Playballs, other R cards, etc.


But that's not exactly correct either...I think there should be a "W" too..thanks for the input....I'll see if Brian can put that in there.....

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

Actually, we've always included "W" cards as a part of the Caramel thread. This consists of the 20th century thread for cards prior to 1920 but not including tobacco cards and is where requests/sales for these have typically been placed in the past. For instance, I used this page when advertising a w600 Cy Young a few days ago as it is a 1903 issue.

I have previously set that caption header for the page to read:

VBC Forum B/S/T - Pre-WWI cards
Caramel (E), Bakery (D), Magazine (M), "Strip" cards (W), etc.

It's listed out this way on the BST Index page as well. Hope this helps.

-Brian

I didn't want to bump this to the top again but THANKS Brian.....(leon)

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Posted By: robert a

I think we need tons of advertising!!


Not really though.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

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Posted By: Wesley

Many of you were not here a few years ago when we logged on to this site and were welcomed by dozens of pop-up ads that have nothing to do with cards or baseball. Those were the good old days.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

What would be so bad about seeing a PSA pop-up right before you apply your fingers to the keyboard to write that scathing slam about our favorite grading service, PSA?

For the overly sensitive PSA fans, that was just a joke, OK....

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

I would be more than happy to make a monthly contribution, as many others would, in order to stave off pop ups. I know it is not about the revenue to Leon but thought I would at least voice my unwavering objection by putting my money where my mouth is.

Over and Out...
Greg

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Posted By: Richard

Although there are many advertisers who would be willing to pay handsomely for ad space on this forum with the traffic that this site has, I am sure that I would be echoing the sentiments of most people when I say that I would much rather turn this into a pay site before we welcome any advertisers.

And Greg beats me to the punch - I need to learn to type and think faster.

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Posted By: dstudeba

Ads are one thing, but the popups were horrible. I couldn't read this site for over a year because the popups would choke my computer. Thanks for getting rid of those! I too would gladly pay rather than see popups ever again.

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Posted By: Rhys

What would a public forum do with advertising revenue anyways?

I say no to advertising, unless it was say... placed in a pot and used to pay for the N54 dinner at the National every year. That is just a joke by the way.

Once you allow any type of advertising you loose your ability to be 100% objective. Not that this forum has ever been 100% objective with its love for SGC and hatred for PSA and other areas of collecting as well, but it still would create an appearance of inobjectivity which would be very unwelcomed.

One more vote for no advertising.


Rhys

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Posted By: leon

1. There will never be pop ups on this site again...as long as I am here.

2. Ad's could be banners at the top but it was just a question I was asked at the National, a few times, by some large companies we all know and love. I wanted to see the responses. I have no intention of it at this time....I like the fact that us moderators don't have any other agenda than vintage baseball cards...no one to please but ourselves and no one to answer to

3. I don't like the idea of a "pay" or "fee" based site. To me it loses some of it's appeal if that were to happen.

thanks for the feedback
regards
moderator dude

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

For those who may not know, there is a free program you can download (with more sophisticated versions you can purchase) called popupstopper that does just that. You can find it through google but I think the website is popupstopper.com

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Leon:

Please keep my $200 and use it to maintain the board and eliminate pop-ups. Thanks!

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Posted By: cmoking

How much does it cost to maintain this site? I think it's a great thing you guys are doing, but I wouldn't blame you for trying to at least break-even on the cost it takes to have this site up. The way I see it, this site is a free gift to everyone of us who doesn't have to pay website fees and other stuff. So I wouldn't mind paying in some way or another - be it fee-based (I don't think fee-based sites do well either), or indirectly with ads.

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Posted By: honus3415

Before we all jump on the bandwagon for NO advertising, lets explore what possibilities exist. Don't get me wrong, popups are the steroids of a websites\forums and I would never like to see ANY advertising\steroids on the opening page of this forum.....banner or otherwise.

But..........are their other possibilities???? Something that could improve the forum, GENERATE FUNDS and keep everyone happy???? Could a win-win situtation exist for the forum?

Is it possible to create something along the lines of a sub-link (such as the "Vintage Links | Forum FAQ's" pages) where sponsor banners could be dislayed AND could genetate funds, help improve the site and maintain the overall clean forum that we all have grown to love. Great job Leon and the rest of the team.

If so......then the generated funds (less yearly fees of couse, despite the fact Hal's probably got it paid through 2008) could possibly be used to increase forum interest and participation through a monthly contest or give-a-away.

How much are we potentially talking about through sponsors??? Would there be enough that the forum could have a worth-while monthly vintage card give-a-away? A contest that would purchase a card from a community member to be lotteried off to the community.

So before we all start screaming "NO POPUPS". I would vote for further investigation as to what possibilities exist. All advertising is not pop-ups.

If there is any interest and some fingerwork needs to be done, Leon please let me know and I will help anyway I can.

Just a thought found in a dusty corner of the batting helmet rack.

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Posted By: leon

The site is actually free to have altogether if you don't mind the pop-ups. For $99 per 6 months we get up to 2,000,000 page views per month with no pop-ups. For that paltry sum we get a pretty good site. We only get around 350k-375k hits per month so we are safe there. That's why I said there won't be any pop-ups on my term. A term is non-definite. There's really no rules or set time period. There are quite a few people that have been on the board a long time and I am one of them. I was asked by Bill if I wanted to take over, I guess because he trusted my opinions, for the most part, and he was asked by Elliot probably for the same reasons. I guess I could be ousted...but not sure how No biggie there...I think for the most part folks are ok with the way it goes. For the time being I am going to shelf the idea of any advertising although I do have something in mind for the future, potentially. It wouldn't be too bad, or commercialized, as I don't want this site to get bogged down in that kind of stuff. One of the main reasons about the advertising decision is that, like I said, we (Brian and I)are beholden to no one and no other biases come into play. And many THANKS to Hal for his support of the site. I/we appreciate it...and welcome back too....regards all....moderator dude

edited for grammar