Suggestions and Ideas

[leety]

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Umm... Band width out here is a super slow. 25 Mbit down and mere 2 Mbit up. Not even close to handling. My current server is 3 TB of bandwidth on the backbone. If I move it home I could only hand maybe 10 people at a time.

 

Link Speed: 27,838 / 2,228kbps at $139 a month. (Ziply Fiber - Ex Frontier Communications)

 

 

My entire house is solar and hydro powered. That is not an issue. But the amount of power outages where the internet is dead out here is more common that you think. I'm WAY OUT. My closest WalMart is a 125 miles drive. 

 

 

Where I'm at...

 

 

That’s an awesome solar setup!!!

1 hour ago, Mason The Dev said:

What I'm saying is find a user you trust, in good locale, and have them host the server for you. Have the site pay the bills for it or whatever.

Then you remove the the need for the larger hosting company, The person just needs to be setup in a way downtime is unlikely.

Wish I had the wicked solar setup! Power isn't cheap here.

Although not a bad idea this may not be practical.  I think one of the issues I see is in the marketing.  This is not just a forum.  This is a different model from a forum “often free” this is actually more of a tech support site, heavily weighted on excellent support content.

 

This site should be able to produce revenue.  I sent out 8 emails to truck owners in my area.  One of them joined.

 

If we reframe the purpose and branding of the site and differentiate it from other forums, and go out into other forums and recommend this as a place to get tech support, which is what they are getting here, I se no reason why this site cannot make $$$.

 

I believe if marketed in a different way, people who need help will pay.

[Mopar1973Man]

No matter what if you looked at the bills hosting is not my largest bill... 

 

Actually, between my local internet, phone service (landline), then my Cell phone is actually higher. 

 

Between landline, DSL internet, and my cellphone is $3,000 a year. Being my phone gets used more these days there isn't much of a way to cut the phone cost down. I can't really switch carriers being there is only Verizon here in the area. 

 

So right now being I've been waiting on the hosting for the first year of the server is now down too $1,088 for 12 months. Hosting is only a fraction of the cost. I've only got one phone company and one internet provider. So I've not able to do much about pricing. As for phones only Verizon works out here like @Wet Vettemost of her family is on T-Mobile and more of the area doesn't have any t-Mobile coverage. Still in all hosting is a yearly thing and will always go up in price for every time this site grows. At the same time the site grows again we will have to grow on the host company... Needing more resources like bigger hard drives, more memory, etc. 

[Mason The Dev]

Well I've had an idea that I think is a happy medium for everyone, I still think it's a bad idea to force a subscription on everyone just to post, but I also understand where you're coming from when it comes to people coming in for a quick 1 off question and gone forever.

Free users should be able to respond to posts, maybe even to a limit? 3 posts a day? 1 post an hour? something like that, then allow them to work themselves up, because I feel like if they're contributing to the community in a positive manner, being helpful etc. People will +rep them, with the like feature or whatever. Once they've contributed enough slowly loosen the chain on them. Maybe if they get some arbitrary amount of reputation, they can create threads? This would promote positive interaction with the forum, without locking out potential new members, keeping the wealth of knowledge that some unpaid members would have, and if the issue for others is serious enough they can pay for a subscription to bypass the restrictions and post with any amount of reputation.

[Mopar1973Man]

Only way I could pull something like what you asking is a point system economy. In other words you make points for certain actions. Currently don't have the software for such but could add it later being in need a current OS more than point system. Again it will take time to setup such a plugin.

[Mason The Dev]

I can likely help build a plug in, and what’s going on with the OS? Do you mean the server needs the OS updated? 

[Mopar1973Man]

Current hosting company has no means ot upgrade the OS where I'm at. I have to relocate to a new server internal and buy a second account. The problem is the current hosting company got rid of all there US support team and gave my Philippines support that is dumber than a post. Like I just told another I'm trying to get out of the EIG umbrella and get to a private company. So the only company that sells strictly VPS and dedicated servers is Liquid Web. They are owned by Birch Communications. Liquid Web has no share hosting plans. Better security!

 

@Mason The Dev I've gotta ask a good question when was the last time you got to go to Dodge dealer have them look over your truck for a problem and tell you the problem for FREE? Let you go home to fix it yourself. Of course you get sacked at the door of the dealer for at least minimum of $120 an hour. Yup One Hundred Twenty dollars and Zero Cents for one HOUR.  I'm only asking $10 buck for entire month. Heck skip eating out one night you'd have the funds for the subscription. 

 

I watch guys on here throw down THOUSANDS of dollars on turbos, injectors, and tons of other mods... 10 bucks should be pocket change to them. Educational fees...

 

My problem is I cannot keep working for free. Even on the point system it would be crap show. How would you moderate every post to make sure they are not posting up in the article data for support? How are you verify that every post is of quality nature or not just a box full random text? Then how much price for posting? Who is going to have the job double checking every post then? (Not I) This will back fire and leave me hanging to inspect everything with the staff. I'm trying to lighten my work load not add to it.

 

I've left the article database open for YEARS for other to post up articles. About 10% will not understand and post there help me please in the article section and wonder why no one supports then. It's not truly a reply-able system. Even though the system has been open for years for 3rd gen or 4th gen guys to post up stuff. Nope Hence why there is such a short coming on info. I'm sitting on a bucket load of stuff but I need to get time away from wrench turning and paying bills. Since the Web site COST me more money and time why is low in my priority. Take a look at the authors of the article database and tell me how much help have I had with building articles? Hmmm...

 

I've not had a day off and away from the house in months. My last weekend just got sucked up by all the sob stories. One guy need his truck for work and gave me a wrong used started now I'm waiting for the new starter to get here. The other one is a I got two jeep one is a donor transmission and the other is a dead jeep. Then I got a Ford 7.3L with a bad pedal assembly and got to pull entire dash apart and steering column to get it out to be rebuilt iback east. Yup that what I get to play with today to keep paying bills and keep food on the table which this site is not currently doing. Just to show how far we are yet...

 

Quick books started at about -6,000 with all the donation we barely tipped it down to -5,670. Heading in the right path but its going to take a lot to of time. 

 

Just from traffic stand point we are getting more new registrations now than ever. 55 new member in 1 week. That is extremely good. 

Now to show you this year income. From Jan 01, 2020 to today. I'm going to highlight the job I left my paycheck behind. It was only $1,330. Now once you remove that look what you getting out of the membership pool Nothing per se. So I can't keep putting my paychecks in to supporting a website that takes more in bills than I get out of it. This means the members should ALL be kicking in not just like the last check 1.5% of member kicked in and the other 98.5% walking in for free and raided the site and left. Remember total operation is about 20k dollars worth of expenses per year.

 

 

Now if that graph line hovered around 2,000 a month I would be happy. But you can see it barely gets off zero most of the year. Remember the total expenses are roughly 20k a year. Roughly need 380 dollars a week to make the 20k a year mark that's just breaking even. Still no profit yet. Best just say look at the last graph and see it hit the 500 every week then there is a profit finally. About $150 a week profit. 

 

Simple point is I can't keep working two jobs my wrench job to pay for the web site job plus personal bills which I work a good 8 hour day on the wrench work and then another 4 to 6 hours here. What do I get in return for all my efforts... ??? 

 

Thing is all BoD and Admin staff have access to all this and can review as needed all in the Admin CP. 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Mopar1973Man

[Mopar1973Man]

 

If you want shocker on price see what Mopar's Tech Authority runs for access to all the books and wiring diagrams. Hmmm???

 

 

 

[LorenS]

Not sure if it's helping yet, but as I'm on the random Facebook pages with people having problems, I paste a link to pertinent articles on this site - particularly your simplified W-T Mod. Also the long forum thread about projector headlights.

[Mopar1973Man]

57 minutes ago, LorenS said:

Not sure if it's helping yet, but as I'm on the random Facebook pages with people having problems, I paste a link to pertinent articles on this site - particularly your simplified W-T Mod. Also the long forum thread about projector headlights.

 

that there gives a bit of SEO being there is a link back M73M to an article. The sad part is Facebook doesn't hold the page long enough to make it really any good. Being that post will disappear in a mere few days in the black hole called a database. Might never see the light day again. So what its good for is in group looking for particular help being able to feed them a link to solve there issue now you have the attention of several people looking to see what is going on. Facebook is a platform where you must post daily make it really work. 

 

Like back in my CF days (ive got a life long agreement) I can post links to my articles but that was the limit I could do. That work beautiful and allowed for working link to be visited on a daily basis. I know one member here just got banned from CF by trying to be helpful. You can go out and swamp other sites with links either. It has to be done in a supportive role where you offer info to aid the OP. 

 

My day is getting screwy and trying to get water lines blown, winterize the RV, and irrigation system out first before I head to swap two transmissions today if I make it that far. 

[leety]

1 hour ago, LorenS said:

Not sure if it's helping yet, but as I'm on the random Facebook pages with people having problems, I paste a link to pertinent articles on this site - particularly your simplified W-T Mod. Also the long forum thread about projector headlights.

That’s a great approach!! 

[LorenS]

@Mopar1973Man just hoping if I can steer 100 people to the site, maybe 5 of them join, and maybe 10 others recommend the site to others. At the very least help your ad revenue. The link may disappear to the Netherworld, but I can cut and paste links like a champ.

[leety]

26 minutes ago, LorenS said:

@Mopar1973Man just hoping if I can steer 100 people to the site, maybe 5 of them join, and maybe 10 others recommend the site to others. At the very least help your ad revenue. The link may disappear to the Netherworld, but I can cut and paste links like a champ.

Yep it's all on the fly stuff on FB.  Everything is transient and temporary.  But that's okay, if we get to come over and if they find it useful they will be hooked and stay for the ride.  

[That1Guy02]

Put all things mopar, tech, write ups, how to in their own forumn with the ability to see title and description but not read the contents or the Q&A

Base the site on levels of membership

Free= browse entire site dated back 1 yr. 1 post in each general forums unlimited replies in said posts. 1 sent private message a day except to mods and admins. Access to the store. Ability to view and purchase all things full price in tech and how to forum, or with the purchase of a membership 10/20/50% for each tier off of one item. 7 day trial excluded. 

7 day trial= SLT perks for 7 days with an automatic switch to SLT after 7 days. Membership discount In tech forum does not apply with trial membership

Paid=3 tier SLT, Laramie, and Laramie Longhorn.

SLT: Same as free + 5 posts in each forum a week. +3 sent messages a day so 5 messages a day. 5% off one article for viewing in the tech and how to forum with Q&A in comments of said forum with ability to see past comments to eliminate repetitive Q&A.

 

LARAMIE:  Same as SLT+ unlimited posts unlimited messages. A one time purchase of one article get one article 50% off. Ability to purchase all article after 1 month membership at a 20% discount if the member’s contribution level is at _______. 
Laramie LongHorn: Same as Laramie + ability to purchase all articles at 50% off 

upon activation. Chance to earn life time memebership after ____ months of continuous activity no less than 7 days without inactivity or admin notification for prolonged activity. As well as making  _____  Posts must be useful to the forum tech& how to posts, helping other members on posts.

volunteering your time or donating towards the upkeep of the site at a dollar amount to be judged by the site admins.based off of your contribution to the site length of membership and over all site

Give each member no matter their level of use the ability to earn their way instead of paying with contribution to the site but those contributions must come with donations to the upkeep up the servers in some form. 
 

Make all things financial open to all members. Be transparent
Have a list of the top ten donors&contributors 

posters of the month

donor of the month

best how to or write up of the month. 
Have a donation goal $ amount with a prize for the top donor.

Have a prize for the top contributor.

offer discount memebership upgrades to members who have been active and contributing for a certain amount of time but may not be able to financially afford more of the site. 
There is more but those thing could be discussed later on down the road. 

I’m on several paid forums For various things and the one thing that have never cared for is the lack of financial transparency. It brings a lot of distrust out. If your gonna require payment you have to be transparency people are more likely to give if they can see where their money goes

 

I hope some of these structures help or give rise to even better solutions to the financial burden that you are under.

 

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Currently all the addons are hooked to the forum. 

 

Example if you create a post in the classified area in the 2nd Gen 24V for a part your looking for it will automagically create a forum post for you. Now you can interact on the forum about your classified ad. Same goes for a lot of functions like creating a new article it will create a forum post automagically and allow every one to discuss your article. 

 

Best I can do right now till I have time to catagorize the expense better I need time... These are current numbers. 

 

 

As for expenses the only personal that has bee add to the site helping me in thin times in my hospital bill. Which is a mere $400 a month and be totally honest I've manage to get it down to $13,5xx.xx as of yesterday. Yuo also got to remember there is part sales, my wrench, and other incomes invoice from the backend. 

 

Like another reason why I'm building around the website. Now if I'm out in the field I can text @Wet Vette and she can generate a invoice for the customer and I don't have to race home 30 or 60 miles and print the invoice drive back to the job site and then pull out my debit card reader for my phone. Too much BS. She generates the invoice, email is sent to the customer and I'm heading home and I'll be paid in mere few hours to the website. Then I some time leave it all there to help the site or peel off the labor part for my own personal bills. @leety is now been workin on the back end as well and she is now catching on to why this works so well and allows any staff member ot handle the site now with out needing me. 

 

6 hours ago, That1Guy02 said:

Make all things financial open to all members. Be transparent
Have a list of the top ten donors&contributors 

posters of the month

donor of the month

best how to or write up of the month. 
Have a donation goal $ amount with a prize for the top donor.

Have a prize for the top contributor.

offer discount memebership upgrades to members who have been active and contributing for a certain amount of time but may not be able to financially afford more of the site. 

 

That would have to be a addon software being the current software doesn't provide those function currently. There is a point system economy that allows to make point and spend points. Like you could reward a user with writing article giving points. Then if he's post to the forum in cost him points. Anyway the idea is a balance give and take. But this could stem into a moderator issue. In other words in the past I've use such system and say you need 5 articles to do another action so a user will smack the keyboard for full gibberish for 5 articles and wait for the reward. Back in the early years. This means we would have to turn on moderation which mean one of the moderator would have to read and check the posts to verify it good then allow or disallow. More work for me or staff.

 

My old donation software from 4 year ago was that way allowing to rank the donor. BUT!!!! I was told by many including staff this information should not be displayed. Hence why I got rid of that software. Not to mention back then in was only 0.7% out of the total membership that donated while the other 99.3% took as much as they wanted.

 

I'm trying to make it equal for EVERYONE. This means EVERYONE pitches in EQUAL amount. Not the 1% that holds the system up while the 99% raid and run like the past. Not fair to the one that donate... $10 bucks to any Cummins owner is chicken feed. Heck when I see people spending $2,000 a turbos and injectors. Seriously I'm providing that info for peoples designs and what every 1% I get possibly paid for my knowledge? How is that fair for me? How is that fair for the 1% that just donated and got raided from all the free members walking in for hand out? How do you make it balanced where the site gets paid, myself getting a paycheck for once, and everyone equally pitches in? If there is a free anything 99% will head for that open hole like a hungry mouse. 

 

So in what your asking is for every hundredth job I do I get paid, but I work FREE for the 99 other people that come to my shop/web site. I would have to just quit from lack of income, stress, etc. I can't work for free any longer. 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Mopar1973Man

[That1Guy02]

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

So in what your asking is for every hundredth job I do I get paid, but I work FREE for the 99 other people that come to my shop/web site. I would have to just quit from lack of income, stress, etc. I can't work for free any longer. 

As this is a big mis interpretation of what I was trying to say I’m quoting this first. When I said make everything financial available to the members I was purely speaking of members donations. Not towards the business you run not at all as I say I am only speaking towards the funds funneled through donation is all. 

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Best I can do right now till I have time to catagorize the expense better I need time... These are current numbers. 

I can help with those things and be happy to do it if you would like. You just need a couple of guys to help you get this site to what you want it to be. It’s seems like your drowning trying to juggle this site being in the black instead of the red and trying to run a buisness and your personal life man that’s an impossible task. I’m getting laid off today so I have a lot of time and  Resources I can and will donate to this. 
all of the things I posted were only suggestions that’s all I know me personally I just don’t want to see this site go by the wayside because of trying to provide an impossible service and an incredible monetary loss. 

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

My old donation software from 4 year ago was that way allowing to rank the donor. BUT!!!! I was told by many including staff this information should not be displayed. Hence why I got rid of that software. Not to mention back then in was only 0.7% out of the total membership that donated while the other 99.3% took as much as they wanted.

As for that if the members don’t want it then then it shouldn’t. I was speaking for my personal preference. It’s the same reason I like open source software it’s transparent all the way to the source code. 
you know what’s in it. Doesn’t have to be monthly could do quarterly charts where memebership can see hell yeah my 100 buck I donated on top of my membership went to server upkeep.

or site maintenance what have you. Once it becomes profitable again you can even take the extra funds to do give aways where you funnel the black donation funds to your buisness to buy items from yourself to give back to the memebers who donated with a drawing i.e.  $10 gets you 5 chances 25 gets you gets you 10 chances $50gets you 50 chances for ever 100 dollars you get 150 chance (can be done with a live screen showing on a random name generator.) 

4 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

I'm trying to make it equal for EVERYONE. This means EVERYONE pitches in EQUAL amount. Not the 1% that holds the system up while the 99% raid and run like the past. Not fair to the one that donate... $10 bucks to any Cummins owner is chicken feed. Heck when I see people spending $2,000 a turbos and inj

I agree man I do if you woulda had the service manual for sale instead of free I woulda bought it but what’s 50 bucks as opposed to taking my truck to dodge and dropping 500 for them to tell me what’s wrong and another $150hr to work on it.

dont make it 3 tier make it 2, free and Paid.

free let’s you browse. But no tech or how to articles. No posting no messaging.

subscriptions to keep people mostly honest could come out of a reoccurring or credit card charge no cards that aren’t linked to a bank account PayPal Charge at a monthly rate for a minimum of a year or pay upfront for a year with a %off for paying a year at a time .

I personally wouldn’t blink an eye at 19.99 a month for this site for $220 a for a year. If after that year I don’t want it well screw it I’ll forget about it and never have to worry about it again. 

 

One last addition the numbers are purely conjecture you can make them w.e you want. I’m not saying make them 10$ Or x amount off or short yourself at all. The discounts are a merely  marketing tool. Everyone wants to feel like they are getting a deal, they see x amount off they are more inclined to purchase that extra thing. Buy one how to at 50 dollars and I can get that $100 one for another 50 I’m spending $100 on top of a membership premium membership that I just put 320 dollars towards the site. If you get 18 people a year to do that your red numbers turn into black numbers. 

 

My apologies for the confusion I should have been a little more clear that those numbers where just that numbers. I was nearly throwing them out there for context. 

Edited October 21, 2020 by That1Guy02
Double posted

[dave110]

On 10/20/2020 at 2:10 PM, Mopar1973Man said:

 

I know one member here just got banned from CF by trying to be helpful. 

Not only banned but deleted entirely. And I just tried to post a link to a coolant change article over there.  When I pasted it in my reply it clearly pasted the exact link, but when I posted it the https// moparman was changed to https//cummins forum and led to a coolant article for 4BT's. I couldn't change it either. They clearly don't like us trying to refer people over here. Bunch of horses asses 

[leety]

13 minutes ago, dave110 said:

Not only banned but deleted entirely. And I just tried to post a link to a coolant change article over there.  When I pasted it in my reply it clearly pasted the exact link, but when I posted it the https// moparman was changed to https//cummins forum and led to a coolant article for 4BT's. I couldn't change it either. They clearly don't like us trying to refer people over here. Bunch of horses asses 

I got banned from that sea of jack-holes lol

 

M73M is where all the smart people are.

[dave110]

Flattery will get you no where 

27 minutes ago, leety said:

 

 

M73M is where all the smart people are.

 

[Mopar1973Man]

That the weird part I do not block links back to CF but sure enough CF will block anything to M73M.com truly sad. That breaks the SEO chain. Not to mention the fact of people on CF are blocked from good information now. Truthfully I got tired long ago of having to prove myself every step of the way. 

 

On the brighter side this why I spend $360 a year on the software. Our software is alway up to date and secure!

https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/

 

New released update I can install today!

 

Software is all up to date... Now I know this is not released YET... It's in beta test stages with the software company but there will be a soon a mobile app for the site for both iDevices and Androids. I've know about this since the 4.5.0 release. Since it not functioning properly I've not released the app name or anything till the company does a full release too. 

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Mopar1973Man

[Mopar1973Man]

Another great find but our server is out of date. Till I can get updated this HTTP 3.0 is out of reach for me.

• HTTP 1.1 (Obsolete...)
• HTTP 2.0 (Currently using)
• HTTP 3.0 (Chrome and Google are ready!)

The new protocol will make the site quicker. As you can see here... h3-q050 protocol.

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Mopar1973Man