Hello everyone, I feel like I should say something here. First thanks for everyone for either being a regular member or VIP member. Also we owe Les a huge Thanks!!
The server for A/N costs me just under $300 monthly. There are annual things I have to pay for too. I pay amazon S3 monthly to backup off site as well. I have backups going everywhere.
I probably spend about 10-20 hours of my time monthly dealing with things forum related and it can be annoying when I am trying to run my other business when its busy. There are a lot of security concerns these days. Luckily I am a server admin anyway for my company, so I know how to do this!
As an example we lost the one of the server hard drives last month and although i was up all night dealing with it, nobody noticed. Its ok, I am very happy with the way it is.
I think I still run this at a loss, but I dont care. Norton Commandos are my life! (and my wife/ dogs).
There really is no pressure. VIP members were introduced a few years ago to help me cover these costs and it works! I dont care if you are a VIP member or not and seriously NO PRESSURE. the main thing is keeping all this info to help all, especially the younger generation understand how to keep them on the road.
During the initial VIP setup I was thinking what I can do to offer more. There is a list of all benefits at the VIP link page. The most important thing to me was to encourage users to upload their photos here instead on 3rd party places, so the pics are always here (ref photobucket problem). There are many advantages by being a VIP that most dont even notice. I agree with others on this thread that the reason most sign up is because they care about keeping these bikes on the road and are trying to help anyway they can.
I could easily take more permissions away from regular users and force VIP. I will never do that though.
So what happens to the forum if I ride over a cliff?
Sorry Matt, I already told my wife to call you haha
Cheers everyone- Have a fantastic day
Jerry