Moaning members of new format

HUMBER P4VWL · 12 June 2011, 17:44

TBH everyone has had a service available for free for years. Nothing in life is free, certainly not forever. If john k did sell, good on him, he ran it for free for years and it probably got too big for him, fair enough. Sell it on to someone who can take it to the next step for everyone. It will cost, but thats life, so either we all pay membership or we accept adverts etc to some degree.

The whole point of life, like ribbing is to try new things and experience new stuff. If people are really that perturbed by change, how did they find they liked ribs? Do they just sit on their mooring or actually venture to new places.

If they are that bothered, go and set up their own site!!

It's the age old problem, do things for people for free and all they do is point out faults and moan. I'd like to say thanks to JK and will continue to support it throughout changes including any problems on the way.

The cruise we had with 20 boats at Easter was testament to the site and how it's grown. Such fun and safe group boating is what it's about and the site facilitated it.

IMHO it's an excellent site historically and I am all for going with Amy changes the site wishes to make as it evolves.

tony t · 12 June 2011, 18:41

Wow who rattled your cage lol ...!!

Sent from my iPhone using Rib.net

BogMonster · 12 June 2011, 18:44

As somebody on the admin team for a non boating forum I echo the sentiments regarding lots of work and the need for a fair amount of money. Yes you can get free forum software but try running a decent forum and you'll fall over very quickly, might manage to run West Lothian Pigeon Fanciers Forum or something but the restrictions on storage and bandwidth allowed on any of the free/cheap services are massive and you rapidly need a dedicated server and managed hosting which costs $$$.

On our forum we had major issues with funding and after much angst went down the adverts route, people moaned about it a lot, some put their hands in their pockets but IIRC the reality was that membership donations barely met 10% of the running costs which for us were several hundred dollars a month, I'd guess this place costs similar. The options were, the admin team could fund it, adverts could fund it or we could close the forum down and it got close to the last one.

Adsense now more than covers it and we've been able to switch ads off for the majority of our members. Maybe this will happen here soon, maybe it won't, but £20 a year for the amount of advice and info I get off RIBnet, I'd consider a bit of a bargain.

I liked the old format, I like the new format (I haven't found the friends and stuff and have no desire to so it doesn't bother me - functionally it doesn't seem much different apart from the speed problem) but if I have one criticism it is that it is less office-friendly for those who might be on it at work, something that looks like Excel or Word at a distance is quite handy sometimes.

Just my 2p and echo the thanks to JK both for this place and giving me advice on sources of funding so we could dig LR4x4 out of the financial poo.

alystra · 13 June 2011, 10:52

Er!

Have I missed something?

PeterM · 13 June 2011, 11:59

Dont get me wrong I think Jk and everyone has done / do a great job, and I did put my hand in my pocket for it which was worth every penny and I wish more had done the same.

It seems it was a boating site run by boaters for boaters, I still know it is agreat site has thousands of posts , some funny , some helpful some even related to boating ...

But my simple brain cant seem to jump around it the same way as I could. Nothing against anyone or thier efforts or intentions...just my little brain ....

Bern Hanreck · 13 June 2011, 12:26

To quote Humber P4WL " The cruise we had with 20 boats at Easter was testament to the site and how it's grown. Such fun and safe group boating is what it's about and the site facilitated it. "

The fact is RIBnet has been instrumental in organising Cruises since 2002/3 ! It's not a new phenomena ! I believe that RIBnet wants to be a " wide church " so why not take on board constructive criticism when fairly drastic changes are in the offing ?

see...... http://www.rib.net/forum/f40/what-is...tml#post134322

As JK says at the bottom of the first post...." You'll never please everyone "

eh John.....what's happened to " Todays Posts ? " .... they have gone again !

willk · 13 June 2011, 13:25

To quote Bern Hanreck "To quote Humber P4WL " The cruise we had with 20 boats at Easter was testament to the site and how it's grown. Such fun and safe group boating is what it's about and the site facilitated it. ""

Bu@@er - apparently the "quotes" are broken too...

biffer · 13 June 2011, 13:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by willk

To quote Bern Hanreck "To quote Humber P4WL " The cruise we had with 20 boats at Easter was testament to the site and how it's grown. Such fun and safe group boating is what it's about and the site facilitated it. ""

Bu@@er - apparently the "quotes" are broken too...

get back to work!

Dry Run · 13 June 2011, 14:23

Not too worried about the changes - I'm sure I'll grow to love them. But Please, Please, Please do something about the speed!!!!!

Logging into RIBnet for a quick look has become part of my pre-work routine - it now regularly crosses into work time - and before anyone suggests it, I'm not prepared to come into work earlier! lol ('cos I can't do the smiley things).