Jugstah (and everyone else), right now there is a few issues. Bear with my rambling here but this stuff is just pouring out. This site is not a huge money making adventure. I'm afraid to add it up but I probably make somewhere around 25 cents an hour for what I do and Saltheart makes a big fat goosegg. I started this site because I wanted an open and friendly, unpretentious site for people to talk fishing, not to become a millionaire. Sure, I could sign up every single person that wants to be an advertiser here (I get several requests per month), I could load the board with add links, click ads, redirecting content, selling personal information for marketing lists, or wow - a Tackle Shop. I could probably do a lot of things to throw coin in my pocket but believe me, the popups and ads would suck and those kind of methods to make $$ would detract from what this site it supposed to be. Saltheart has been helping out as a moderator, in his spare time, for the past 4 years or so. It's an awful lot of work for no financial reward (to think I can improve my "2nd job" income by 200% by just asking "Bubba, you want fries with that?"), the reward was we always thought we were doing something good and fun. These days it isn't as good as it used to be and it's not as much fun. Other guys have come aboard and act in moderating roles and a few others have offered help too.
This kind of community is always a work in progress. It changes in the ebb in flow of members, the nature of the site, how freindly, how knowledgable, how rediculous, how funny, this nature is always in flux. But as of late it's been a lot less fun and a lot more like Romper Room. We're going to try to change that, not by being board nazis (reference to the "Soup Nazis before anyone gets offended), but by trying to make this site more fun and a little more responsible at the same time. We're gonna tweak the how and why we do things around here to try to make this a better place again. What many people at one time considered the best bassin site around.
Believe me, there is no reason why I would want to be miserable doing this because people are fighting or strutting around a lot of attitude, have no patience for some people. My wife, who puts up with an AWFUL lot because of this site, sees me getting more stressed doing this. Believe me when I say she wouldn't mind me selling this site. So we are going to be bringing a few changes on board here, including a few new people to help out and moderate on these boards, and probably also some board ettiquette. So there will be changes and we will try to steer this site back to being what it once was, a REALLY fun site. Some of you say you couldn't live without it and you check it several times a day, well, you should have seen it at its prime, we really had a lot of fun. We're going to try to get back there, and if you all help out a little and have some more fun here (not really at other's expense), we'll again be what we once were, the best friendly and knowledgeable site in the northeast....
Thanks
!
John