Advertising on Cardmodels.net

[Ron]

Hi all

I think it's come to the point where I have to take advertising into consideration on the site. Up until now, advertising on the site has been kept to other non-profit forums and web sites that have close affiliations with Cardmodels.net. I'm torn between allowing advertising in the forums to help promote the hobby but on the other hand, Cardmodels.net was created by myself, run by Rick and myself but most of all, held together tightly by the members. There hasn't been *any* support by any commercial venture to date. You see my dillemma? Any input from you guys? Feel free to say what you think. I welcome any ideas from any distributors or publishing companies as well :)

All the best

Ron

[RyanShort1]

Personally, I wouldn't care one iota if you decide to have some ads - so long as they're decent and not offensive in their content. It's a lot more work than most people realize to keep up with a site as bit as this or as small as my little website. If you need to in order to keep the site going... do it.
BTW, though. I suggest that NOBI's kit was a form of support, and the fact that a few other designers and kit sellers such as Lighthouse, Digital Navy, and Wings of Horus have been spotted here recently means that you're getting some attention. The support may not be exactly monetary, but then again, I wonder just how much money folks like them or NOBI make off of their kits. I bet it's not as much as it might seem. It's a complex issue...

My two cents worth.
Ryan

[lgl007]

I agree with Ryan, Ron... I've only been an active member of this site for about three months but I find this to be a fantastic community and I find myself frequenting this site more then any other... so do whatever it takes to keep it going

-Greg

[wunwinglow]

Make sure anyone advertising will get the exposure they pay for, but no special treatment when it comes to reviews. I'd hate to think the integrity of the reviewers might be compromised by commercial considerations. I am sure our current commercial contributors will understand this right now, but in the future if anyone asked for advert space, it should be made crystal clear that that was ALL they were buying! Otherwise, revenue earned will go towards keeping this site vibrant and fun, go for it.

Apart from Tobacco related products.......

Tim P

[jrts]

Hi all

As for the site.

If Ron and Rick had not turned their bank accounts from black to red when needed, this site would not be here.

My two cents worth is that we trust in Ron and Ricks integrity which as far as I'am concerned is beyond question, we have all seen the standareds they set here when needed.

Just my thoughts

Regards

Rob

[rickstef]

guys, our integrity is not the issue here

i would love to see some of the publishing houses, and distributors, and even the odd non paper model related vendor, Squadron, or Olfa or X-acto, you know, stuff we use or need from time to time.

I have been toying with the idea of using Amazon's affliate feature for here, we could have lists of all the models they carry, books for the aircraft, ship, armor or anime fan, stuff we might want to fill our collections, and in turn some of the money we spend there, comes to the site too(when you buy it through the link on the site)

just my thoughts, agree, disagree?

talk to us, if we can come to a good solution we will implement it

Rick

[jrts]

Hi Rick

All I ment by the post was that you and Ron know what it takes, both money and time to run the site, 99% of us don't!!

You have both done us proud with it and have put such a lot into it.

The integrity bit was just my way of saying I trust the Admins judgement with the content of any additions to the site.

Dam good idea that last post Rick!!

Regards

Rob

[Ashrunner]

Do what you two have to do. You've done more than enough on your own. My only request is this... No Popups. 8v)

[rickstef]

yeah, nice simple clean ads like in the early days of the 'net

damn am i dating myself?

no comments from anyone

Rick

[wunwinglow]

If you pay the bill, you get the bandwidth. If you don't, you don't.

Tim P

[barry]

Rick

I am a trifle confused I thought you had the cure set up are your comments indicating we have so many more members and guests that were running out of bandwidth again.

The trouble is with this site all the commercial sites are getting their advertising for free anyway.

You could try selling blind links to other sites to help their Google ratings.

barry

[charliec]

Perhaps a simple criterion for the ads like "html only - no Javascript" will
fix the pop up concern. There are a number of other tricks played with ads
besides pop ups - all of which I find personally offensive - permitting no Javascript pretty much stops all of them.

Also prohibiting rotating images or dynamic gifs would also lower the irritation factor and keep the impact on download time within reasonable bounds.

As Rick suggests - have ads same as when the Web started. And if you think that dates you - my first experience with the www used a text tool on a Unix box - the browsers like Mosaic didn't come along until a year or so after that.

Regards,

Charlie

[Ron]

Hi guys

As usual I beat around the bush and try to remain diplomatic Here's where it's at for me

1. The members make up for 99% of the content here. This is *NOT* trivial
2. Rick puts in countless hours on the site in the forums and the chat room
keeping things going smoothly. He also fixes all the little things that go wrong like membership glitches, bad links in posts etc.
3. I personally fix every little glitch in the scripting, always scour the world for better scripting, write articles, dream up ways of keeping everyone content.... the list goes on. 90% of the time that I spend in the dog house
is because of issues with me on the computer working on the site.

What those three points add up to is a ton of commitment from everyone involved. What's bothering me, and I'll be really blunt, is the lack of commitment from any commercial venture that advertises their stuff on the site. As a community, we say more about paper modeling in 1 day than almost any other North American entity. It would only be common courtesy if these companies helped contribute to the site instead of just using it as a means of advertising. Oh...and for those that are curious, here are a few stats
of what we generate every day. It's too bad I didn't have the stats turned on when Nobi's model was released


Anyways I'm done

Keep this one going! It's interesting.
Ron

[Darwin]

I've chimed in on this before, but again my 2 cents. I do have concern that, if paid advertising is taken, there will be a temptation to become "beholdin" to them. However, it is definitely not fair to be asking a limited few of the members to carry the financial burden of the site. I reservedly give my hokie-dokie (to quote Col. Potter) to the idea...however, keep it relatively unobtrusive (nix on popups, or other in-your-face,-ignore-me-now-sucker forms of ads). Do you have any inlking as to whether any of the commercial houses are going to be interested in paying for what we've so far been giving them for free?

[Ron]

I don't think any advertising will ever get in the way of good honest opinions.
Popups or in-your-face stuff will not be displayed either. In case you haven't noticed there is a new block added to the front page in the upper left side. This space will be where any paid advertising goes if we go that route.

Ron