The New Admin's Credentials

[nachoman]

Wow. Weird conversation over there, MM.

Yes, it was. I posted the link to Sanjay's credentials because I thought it would be of interest to the group. Mu brief contact with him so far has been positive. I did ask him if he was a modeler and he replied that he was not. Some of us were curious to know if the new administrator was going to be a modeler or a business man. To avoid any discussion or dissension, I stopped posting in the General Section after that - unless there is humor involved! I do most of my visiting currently in the Logging and Mining Section, following the fantastic lumber railroad of DoctorG.

I still enjoy that forum, but it is quite clear that the majority of members present now are not the ones I knew, and there is a different "feel" to it.

The one part of that conversation that is especially weird and thought-provoking, is that our conversations are actually worth something to someone. That just feels weird. I don't think Sanjay understood that comment - but think of it this way:

Crowdgather would very much like people to remain over there, have as many members as possible, and have members who post often. Why? They make money off of the site through advertisement. If everyone left, they have no traffic, and the site becomes unprofitable. Likely, it would either be sold again or closed down entirely. In other words, our forum activity (posting and answering questions) makes them money. The tradeoff is that we get a "free" forum.

I never had a big problem with ads as a means of supporting a site. But it seemed that the ads over there became more and more bizzare and unrelated to model activites. If the ad was for an online model railroad shop, or walthers, etc, it would be tolerable, and maybe welcomed. But instead, I saw ads for things such as dating services(!) The other thing about ads, is they slow down the page loading, and bog down your connection.