Anonymous thread

A real slang fest... what a great idea, an Anonymous Thread

https://archive.4plebs.org/o/thread/10017133/

... might breathe some life back into this here forum, shake out the club whisper mill a little

Whilst off-base, how many subscribed and paid up members do we have, annual growth and expiration / attrition rates, out-going costs, revenue streams from adds, and how much funding is available from members subs to do things, priority lists etc... any dashboards going to be setup? Or is that a idea? ...

[The Saint]

Morning Martin.
I am working today, but as soon as I get time I will try to answer some of your questions.... but most of them will need Mr Dells input. I can only supply the data linked to the site, and the adverts ( Which still have not paid a penny yet!...)
Also, despite the running costs of the servers and the software expense that has gone into the sites development. I am sure you can remember the previous site and the common weekly outages etc etc. We have come along way, but I admit there is still alot more to sort. We all devote our own time and money, to trying to keep this club alive.

Not sure that a "Bitching off" section would do much, for the image of the club... Life seems to have lots of negativity, and we defiantly all try to avoid that.. It is always easy to find something negative to feed, than positive...

Nothing is perfect, but I do try....

As I said, I am at work today, as it is the busiest time of year for me, so I will reply to what ever questions I can once I get home...

Vince..

.
Morning Vince,

Thanks for the reply, and your heartfelt response, and completely respect that. Point actually isn't about the site, albeit it's the platform, it's about the people, and as a litmus test interesting you were the first to reply good Chrimbo play "The Point"... I think you have done a fantastic job on the site platform and structuring it up, and I think everyone is extremely grateful. You have also been trying hard, to chivy contributions, bouy the content and increase the house price index for the marquè, but that can't be a one man crusade; plus it's a moving target... I'm asking what is it's health index (how many members does it take to break even, how many do we need), are we on the right trajectory, and what are the goals?

Bitchfest, basic human nature though isn't, just done by the round robin expresss laugh... been some great "gate" threads on here, and bet folk remember them more than the project threads ... brakes, clutches, exhaust manifolds, turbos, ecus, engines that didn't, parts that never were, lost in the post, money spent, people that don't, and plain old mine is better than yours So you can't deny we have had our fair share vie la difference I say!

Cheers,
Martin

BigM will be on soon asking about club yearly reports/accounts ...

[BIG_MVS]

I think what Martin is asking is perfectly reasonable and should be the bare bones of any "club". I have asked for the club accounts on and off for the past 10 years and the best I ever got was a sheet of paper handed around a Southern Mafia meet (they must have not known I was of northern ethnic genes at the time) with one line on it saying end balance of less than £20 - that was it. Just to give you an idea I got the full end of year accounts from C.A.R just before their AGM. This in my opinion should be mandatory for everyone to see in any organisation with money flowing in and out....
Ask and you will not be disappointed Clee my son.

On the plus side it gives us all the opportunity to give advice/ideas on where to improve the club, it's a tough ask though as Steve likes to do everything himself (and as I have said before does a cracking job at it). Even if we did have an AGM and started to have a secretary, treasurer, committee members etc I'm not sure how many hands would go up if any...

So I'm happy for it to stay as it is (two faced gob shite I hear you cry) - a forum based club as it works pretty well. Steve does a great job at organising events/liaising with Renault. The only thing I would like to see is a set of club accounts every year to see how we are doing and some input where (if there is any left of course) to spend the money on events etc.

I would love to go to Dieppe for example if Steve can pull some strings for the club to visit the factory to see the new Alpine being built.

Merry Christmas by the way!

I think it's a legal requirement especially being MSA recognised and all that.Club must have certain officials in place blah blah blah .I;m sure there is was a list of that somewhere .

[SuperSean]

Hi guys,
As i'm not actually a member of the club, but only here to assist Vince in maintaining the forums, I cant comment on club internals.. however.. I did want to post a comment on the idea of "Anonymous" postings.

Firstly.. I should point out that personally.. I dont like the idea.. mainly because I .... well... I don't have a filter and tend to say exactly what i think on any given topic (ask Vince if you need evidence.. lol) and my opinion is that if you have something to say... then have the balls to say it.. and have your name attached.

Now.. on to some more technical aspects of why its not a good idea:
Your IP address is associated with your posts. This is to assist mods in their job of making sure the forums are run in a way that is in line with the site's terms of use and public policies. - now that said.. there are ways around that. (the Tor Project is a quick one that comes to mind).

Mods and Admins are able to see these IP addresses and from there are usually able to tell who it was that posted the supposedly 'anonymous' post.

All the phpbb 'Anon Posting' plugins DO in fact keep track of who posted what.. that is so that you are able to go back and edit/delete/take ownership your own posts. From this, anyone with Admin or Mod rights can also see who posted a particular post.

Anon Postings create DRAMA. trust me on this.. Ive seen it first hand.. I have been admin of a couple of forums previously and each and every one has had drama.. One to the point that I personally took the forums down several times before closing it permanently.. and then leaving the project.

If you need evidence of how Anon postings can create drama.. just look at the "After School App" on iphones. That app allows anyone to post absolutely anything completely anonymously and anyone within a 5 mile radius of where the post was created is able to see it. It was created as a way for kids to post things about their lives at and around school.. but immediately became a battleground of cyber bullying and harassment to the point that the FBI was brought in when one child posted that they were going to bring a gun to school and the app was banned from many schools in the USA.

Unfortunately.. its human nature to do and say things that you normally wouldn't when you think you can get away with it. But.. the drama that this causes is simply a bad image for any organization, and i don't think that's something anyone wants associated with this club. It will likely deter new members and create an uncomfortable combative atmosphere that some simply would not wish to be part of whether on the forums themselves.. or at real life events.

[BIG_MVS]

Sorry got clouded by the financials. No don't agree with the anon thread Martin. Can see where you are coming from but no, can see that getting messy.

[The Saint]

As promised… here are a two files that show, what myself and SuperSean have been doing, with the update of the site, and its continued running…We like to keep things transparent, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

RAOC_Advert_Report.xls

You can see that the ONE advert we have does next to nothing.. Personally I do not like adverts, but this was just an experiment to see if it was worth adding them, that is why we only have the one! Google do not pay out anything until you meet their payment limit of £60, this is why we have had nothing yet!!
I suppose its better than a slap in the gob!!!


Here is the cost of the dedicated server the site is hosted on, and the "BackUp" service I use. ( Yes I back it up!!)

RAOC_2013_Payments_redacted.pdf

RAOC_2014_Payments_redacted.pdf

Note, above attachments are in $USD.


I am still at work, but will go though the membership numbers once home...

I was going to add a comment to the posts, that have been added, but SuperSean seems to have covered most of what I would have said.
I will just add, that if you arrange a deal with one of our members, and it takes a turn for the worst, then don’t think that you can use this forum to "botch" them off!!!!
All deals are between you guys and not the club. I do not want to have to start removing posts, but if we have any dispersions about any individuals, then we will remove and send out warnings.

**Fingers Crossed, this works on the company PC.....**

[BIG_MVS]

I'm not keen on the adverts either to be honest. There was a stewards enquiry the other night when Mrs MVS looked at the laptop. Russian brides and dating agencies kept coming up in the adverts!

[The Saint]

Ok...
Now at home so had time to look at the data base, ( Which anyone can go through!) and I now have a few numbers for you..

We have 787 registered users, of which 136 are fully paid members. This year we have had 214 newly registered to the forums, of which 23 decided to join and become full members ( Thank you for the support!! ) There are an odd few that do not count in this such as myself, being a web admin, and Mr Dell... There my also be the chance of a few that registered via post to Mr Dell and I have not updated?? but I think we have it all... nothing is perfect if not done via the on-line system.... Some "Old Farts" like the postal way ( No offence! )

Hope I have managed to cover my area of the club... again any question.... feel free to ask

Vince....

[The Saint]

Martin,
As a member when you log in you should not see any adverts???
Let me know if you are so I can sort the settings.

Hi Vince,

Thanks for taking the time to pull the data. Interesting so if we wanted to run this as a forum club, then a full year of adds as the site grows would probably pay for the that actual site server costs in hard cash, and then the logistics and admin and support that should be funded, certainly compensated in my book should come out of the fees. So for the sake of ball-park budget numbers, it looks like we have the best part of 2.5 - 3k to play with in 2015, plus any residual from the £3,400 members fees in 2014 if any? I'm rather expecting that the sponsorship of events etc in 2014 accounted for all of this, or worse got sub'ed by Stephen which isn't healthy or sustainable for him.

Have we got a bucket list of what people want to do in 2015?

Clee, what sort of budget numbers did / does RTOC run on out of interest by way of comparison?

Cheers,
Martin

[BIG_MVS]

[Cough]

I would love to go to Dieppe for example if Steve can pull some strings for the club to visit the factory to see the new Alpine being built.

http://www.rtoc.org/files/?path=Club%20 ... 20reports/

Not had my nose in there for a few years now .Recently there was a load of politic ,breakaway bullocks .One advantage of the Dictatorship approach is that we dont get any of that .
We do have the Southern mafia though which more than makes up for it Good luck with the Dieppe trip .........might get to see some pictures after the event