Are our advertising rules B.S.?

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River Runner

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There seems to be some hardship amongst several members and the PM staff as to why we regulate the hand call advertising, and a few other things on our site.
I'm hoping to maybe clear up some suspicions some of you may have and justify any wrong doing others claim to be feeling or seeing.

Let me start this off by saying those of you that think we are in this for the money, pretty much are on the right track, but your headed the wrong way. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
With all due respect, there is not a person on the PM staff that has benefited in any way due to monies generated from any advertiser. Not myself, not Randy Black, not one moderator, not one advisor. In fact no one has even ever been voted off the staff for embezzlement.

The money that we generate from any advertiser or donation on this site goes strictly to run the site, and provide annual hunts every year for the membership. Both require much more money then you could possibly imagine, and we would like to be able to offer more then the LBL, and the Globe hunts to you each year. In time we will!

Expenses to keep this place up include things like, our monthly server bill, any script work done by Rainstorm, upgrade and routine maintenance, site backups, merchandising, which includes the designing of practically everything we offer. These designers aren’t offering their services for free. Shipping.
Then there’s hunt expenses. Were buying a button machine for the name badges, the material to make those. Sponsors got a framed certificate of appreciation last year. We always tip off the Country Kitchen for their troubles.
Should I keep going?

Last year with the board upgrade, the shopping cart and all the extra time put in and charged hourly by our host, it cost us close to 10 grand.
Sure you can do the math, what’s that leave us assuming all advertising accounts are paid up. Not very much at all, but it does leave some. Who gets it?…where’s it go? Well I paid off my 2006 Ford Expedition. LOL
No seriously…. it gets put aside for recurring expenses. For some reason the bills never stop coming. We have tried throwing them away….but they keep coming back.

Now I realize that there’s always going to be some that think this is total BS, but I’m here to tell you. No one is profiting from any of this in anyway. My ole 78 Ford still leaks oil in the driveway, I’m still one month behind in my house payments. And I can verify no one else is dipping.

Let’s talk about making some serious money. For those of you that still think I’m blowing smoke. How many other websites (the size of ours) can anyone advertise on for less then $400 a year with a banner?
HOB accounts, what other websites (the size of this one) let you advertise till your hearts content for free?
Did anyone here know that 24hour campfire charges OVER $10,000 for an advertising account? Over 10,000 dollars! Makes us look pretty cheap when you compare the traffic doesn’t it? Still think were in this to get rich?

There are a lot of sites and boards with the same theme as ours out there that DO allow free advertising. But what you need to realize is that they do not have even half of the expenses that we have. Why?….because we are so much larger. We have to pay for more space. We offer merchandise, hunting trips, and an invaluable source of information right here on the board, that grows larger and larger every day and raises our expenses as it grows. Smaller sites that allow free advertising do not.

I know that there’s been some smoke shows over in the hand call forum lately about why anyone should have to pay for advertising their homemade calls. And why can’t someone post a photo of some calls they made without being accused of selling things or advertising. If you ignore everything in this post please pay attention to this next line.
We as human beings back here, have absolutely no way of knowing who is really selling calls, who only makes one per year, who gives all there calls to their brother in law, etc. The only, I say the only …way to be fair to everyone is to make sure the rules apply to everyone. How is someone that is actually proud of paying for the right to show off their calls and maybe sell a few going to feel if we started saying, Well this guy only posted 6 calls and he says that they are free, or he’s not really selling them. He’s got 14 rabbit in distress calls that he whittled out of craft blocks but we are hypocrites, and or thieves for assuming he’s going to offer them for sale.
The guys that paid for advertising are really going to enjoy that going on around them aren’t they?

Why even charge anyway? We have to. We have to do it because it helps us with our recurring expenses, and we have got to regulate it somehow… the mass of hand call makers that is. With out any fees in place this place would be destroyed by posts containing homemade hand calls for sale. I’m already getting complaints about the hand call forum being nothing but hand call store. Can you imagine if there was no rules or fees in place?

Like I said, we have done and will continue to do, everything we can to make things as fair as possible around here, but in order to do so…things set into place have to apply to everyone.

Bottom line here guys is that no one is getting rich or making a profit from your supported advertising funds in anyway. We charge what we need to charge to be able to keep the site self-sufficient. Meaning it pays for it’s self. Nothing more. I’d like to jack things up to the going rate of $11,000 dollars a year, hell I WOULD be driving a new Expedition, but that’s not exactly "Will" had laid out here for us.

I hope some of this explains things a little better, as to why we do what we do around here. All we really want is to continue to be the best predator hunting board on the net for a long time.

Who's in??
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I, personally would like to thank River Runner for this post. This website will need full dedicated service very soon. We have seen it coming for a long time. Those who run-or maintain websites of this size are astounded that we don't charge membership fees, or ask for a whole bunch more money in advertising. The annual dues and upgrades alone are running well into thousands of dollars a year. As Jim has stated-add it up. We have experienced unprecedented growth as a predator hunting website. Think about it!

The administration and moderators should be thanked for their thankless, payless service in order to keep Predator Masters running on down the road. It make the job easier on the PM Staff. Just ask the moderators or Pro Staff who have stepped down, or retired. They know how hard this FREE job can be. They are one dedicated bunch!

Those that feel that we are just in it for the money can go somewhere else if they think they are getting taken advantage of. That isn't what this place has ever been about. Obviously they don't know the staff at all, or the members that have made this website what it is today.

It is the largest Predator Hunting website on the internet-PERIOD!

-Mike Paul
 
Jim,

Now you know that I can't foot the bill around here for everything!!

Seriously, I don't give a rip if you charge to advertise or not, but I would expect that if I was getting to hawk merchandise on a site like this, it wouldn't be for free. Maybe instead of charging an advertising fee, a simple 10% on everything that was sold fee could apply for the guys that are complaining? For those that aren't, just continue with the cheap plan.

At the last PM hunt guys, most of the call makers were cleaned out at the hunts end. I guarantee they weren't complaining.
 
And don't forget the fact that many of those same call makers donated absolutely free of charge a lot of the prizes for the hunt in globe and the LBL. They know better than anyone what this site is worth to them and have paid their dues and will likely continue to pay them. How many of the hunt of the month prizes were donated by the call makers of this forum?

How many have done their best to win the hunt of the month because of those prizes?

I personally apreciate the several hundred dollars worth of calls they have donated to this board and all fund raising efforts. Without them and other sponsors the LBL raffle would not have been much. Gentlemen, I thank you once again for your charity!! Jimmie
 
Being relatively new to this site, I must say I think River Runner and the rest of the moderators,etc. have done an outstanding job of overseeing this site. I wouldn't care if they did make a few bucks. Just the opportunity to communicate with others who are so dedicated to our passion of hunting the "little" critters and the passion of our hunting heritage is priceless. The ideas, advice, information and humor found here is second to none. Stay the course guys, keep your focus (crosshairs) on the main purpose of what the forum is all about. Just my nickels worth in saying thanks.
 
I wish there was money for us to make out of this site. I've put enough hrs into this place to solve several problem of mine, if I could bill for them.

I know that the rules we have are problematic. There is some controversy, some misunderstanings, etc, as a result. But I haven't come up with a better suggestion just yet.

We have to have our paid advertizers to pay the bills for this place, or it goes away. That's the bottom line fact of the matter. So the question of fairness has to come into play. We can't ask people to pay for the right to simply allow others to conduct business for free, so we have to have something in place to guide us in handling situations. I'm sure some people, who are not making anything from their calls, get caught up in this. As Jim said, our problem is that we have no way to ID them. We have had some flat out lie to us, tell us they didn't sell calls, when we had solid proof that they were pretty busy at it.

The next guy may be telling us the truth, but how do we know?

It's an imperfect solution to a messy problem. Anyone has ideas on a better way to handle it, send us an email or PM. We'll at least consider it.
 
I have been locked out of this thread in the hand calls forum. I assure you I have flamed no one, and have not broken the TOS of this site. I simply disagreed with Rich Cronk. I apologize for bringing this here but I felt it necessary. On a friend's behalf...

I quote Rich Cronk.....
The example you gave in regard to the member who posted a photo of a couple of calls is totally different than the R.G. problem. The member who posted that call with the Cronk mouthpiece had prior permission to post the photo, and it was very clear that he had no intention of selling calls. R.G. is an expert in call making, and was once a paid up Hobby call maker. He announced that he was going out of business quite some time ago. He recently bought a new lathe, turned several duplicate calls, posted a proud photo of said calls, and told us all right there on the public forum that he was finally set up the way he wanted to be. New Jet mini Lathe and all. I could go on and on but I think you should be getting the picture by now. I have everything documented. Did I handle the latest violation in best way possible? I think so.


Rich Cronk, I understand you made a decision that you feel was correct. I would like to shed a bit of light on a couple misconceptions you may have. Firstly I have been in touch with Richard Grantham many times since he decided to give making calls a whirl again. The mention of him finally being set up the way he wants to be is this.
Richard purchased an inexpensive lathe, and mistakenly bought a 3 jaw chuck for it. The tollerances of the lathe, and the wrong chuck, prevented Richard from drilling a true to center hole. Richard had made trades with quite a few of us, and refused to send out the trade calls until he could make them to his satisfaction. Richard bought a new jet lathe, and a 4 jaw chuck, and set himself up to return a quality call to those he had traded with. I will agree that richard was proud of the calls he posted a picture of. Had any of us survived what he has been through we would be proud as well.

I really hate to see this site loose a living legend in call making to this situation of head butting, and disrespect.
Ridge
 
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