why cant we discuss EF "problems"?

[DepressiveJuice]

without them getting deleted or locked. we cant even talk about AAS prices without it being considered a source and yet, we have links to online stores that supposedly sell AAS. the excuse about google putting them there doesnt fly with me. i find it hard to believe that it always puts links on AAS no matter what topic we are speaking about. im sure that little area at the bottom can be controlled. i dont see any problem about warning non-plat bros to log in every three weeks so we can keep our accounts active. i remember george made a comment once that he wants EF to be the best, fastest, FREE bb board out there. he must be changing his mind i guess...

 

[drrman]

you are banned and this will be locked!!!

i have made numerous posts like this, the fact of the matter is, this is elite world controlled by elite powers. a few of the mods are like us and just dont' care about all the politics, but a few of the others lock down every fucking post because they feel powerful and just because george tells them not to let his site look "bad". This board has went from one of the most informative and best boards on the net to basically just a fucking

MUSCLEMAG on the net. thats all this fucking board is now, musclemag on the net. no one else can advertise, but if a few mods make a certain products, they can advertise all day about what they make or sell, you can't discuss GHB, but George will tell you how to make it, along with telling you how to get ass, what a crock of shit

 

[Zyglamail]

For one, this isnt the chat board. FOr 2, discussing them here doesnt help anyone because mods cant really help with these issues we often move them to the mod forum for someone who can help to see them.

You call it discussing EF issues but in essence it is nothing but a bunch of pissing moaning and whining.

Pricing threads get locked deleted because they always turn into sourcing threads...."hey e-mail me", PM me etc. I dont see why that is so hard to understand.

i remember george made a comment once that he wants EF to be the best, fastest, FREE bb board out there. he must be changing his mind i guess...

I am always amazed at just how niave people are when it comes to just how expensive a site of this magnitute is to keep running. Im sure GS does want this to be the best, fastest free board on the net and it is but it also costs the most to run and hiring lawyers to defend your privacy and keep all your posting details here private costs money as well.

i have made numerous posts like this, the fact of the matter is, this is elite world controlled by elite powers. a few of the mods are like us and just dont' care about all the politics, but a few of the others lock down every fucking post because they feel powerful and just because george tells them not to let his site look "bad".

It has nothing to do with a power trip it has to do with doing our jobs and if we dont do them GS will find someone who will.

GS has been out of town so all your pissing and moaning is falling on deaf ears. Another reason why they get locked/deleted because they are not doing anyone any good and simply wasting space and bandwidth. Lets put this all in perspective, why dont all you people who are sitting here complaining, publish a magazine and let everyone who doesnt like your magazine submit an article complaining about it and then you guys pay to publish these complaints in your magazine. Sound like something your willing to do? Yep, I didnt think so, so why do you expect GS to do the same??

 

[drrman]

well zyg, since i have given over 200 bucks to this site, i feel as if i should be able to voice my oppinion anywhere i want.

second, if these threads are moved to the mod forums, no ONE has ever explained this to me, most i have seen one mod in particular(manny) just locks it and puts the link to become platinum. sort of shitty in my book

Third, i feel as if i have a leg to stand on due to my donations this board in general. I know its not all the mods, and you know i have always had the greatest respect for you and was always a supporter of your previous site you had running. I just feel as if this board is getting too commercialized. You can't tell me george is not getting banked off of this fucking site, all the advertising, all the platinum memberships, its just getting all to bullshit.

Ask people even as big andy, they can't take much more of this shit either. People like him who are smarter than % of the people on here aren't platinum, and you think he will pay? no, we'll just lose him and many others. Some problems need to be brought out, and they have to be.

You mention publishing a magazine, well even in those they have call in numbers and letters to the editor, suggestion pages etc? what do we have, just the ability to make a quick post to watch manny and some other power tripping mods lock it down? I have seen magazines publish complaints about their mags numerous times, and i've seen them criticize the complaints and i've seen them fix the problems.

You know yourself their are some problems on here that need to be fixed, and just moving it all to the mod forums isnt' the answer, the largest population hangs out here so why can't we all read it? thats like saying all complaints for men's fitness will published only in a corporate journal that no reader can read? every published magazine, bulletin board or whatever is open to criticism and this board is no different. The problem here is the owners are too goddamn busy trying to get rich and don't care about the problems!

 

[Zyglamail]

Third, i feel as if i have a leg to stand on due to my donations this board in general. I know its not all the mods, and you know i have always had the greatest respect for you and was always a supporter of your previous site you had running. I just feel as if this board is getting too commercialized. You can't tell me george is getting banked off of this fucking site, all the advertising, all the platinum memberships, its just getting all to bullshit.

Ask people even as big andy, they can't take much more of this shit either. People like him who are smarter than % of the people on here aren't platinum, and you think he will pay? no, we'll just lose him and many others. Some problems need to be brought out, and they have to be.

I totally understand and sympathize. members are what make this place what it is, but non-paying members also cost the site and in turn plat members money. I honestly do not have the details into the specifics of what this site costs to run but being in the computer industry I can imagine the expense is rather large. Combine that with legal expenditures to protect our privacy and things can add up very fast. The whole thing really is a balancing act that I honestly dont feel anyone here has enough insite on to make an educated decision as to what affect making changes will bring.

You mention publishing a magazine, well even in those they have call in numbers and letters to the editor, suggestion pages etc? what do we have, just the ability to make a quick post to watch manny and some other power tripping mods lock it down? I have seen magazines publish complaints about their mags numerous times, and i've seen them criticize the complaints and i've seen them fix the problems.

While that may outwardly appear to be the case, i can bet that a very large majority of the complaints aimed to magazines never get a response or published but the small paragraph or 2 you do see on a monthly basis is just to lull the reader into a feeling that their concerns are addressed. The ability to write or call a magazine is just a ploy to give you the warm fuzzies. You can always e-mail George or EF same etc about your concerns. As I mentioned above the forum itself is the medium that this forum uses as its platform of communication, its no different than the printed words in a magazine really and I can guarantee that you will not find a magazine out there that will print every complaint aimed at it yet somehow because this forum is electronic people seem to think this shouldnt be any different.

You know yourself their are some problems on here that need to be fixed, and just moving it all to the mod forums isnt' the answer, the largest population hangs out here so why can't we all read it? thats like saying all complaints for men's fitness will published only in a corporate journal that no reader can read? every published magazine, bulletin board or whatever is open to criticism and this board is no different. The problem here is the owners are too goddamn busy trying to get rich and don't care about the problems!

Every family, every institution, every place of employment and every government has problems in someones eyes, this isnt a perfect world and if GS sat down and did everything you said it would just piss someone else off or run this place off the net due to lack of funds. Its a balancing act and we are in america so I dont really see a problem with GS wanting to make some money off the site. Is he being greedy? I have no idea and neither do you but you speculate he is with no facts to back anything up.

Since you(and many others) feel GS shouldnt have any problems running this site with a couple popup ads, why dont we try an experiment. We will list out all the smaller fitness boards on the net and each month we will pick one and EVERYONE here will register at the board selected for the month and post there instead. Then, as the months go by we can watch the boards all go deep into debt when they get their bill for the traffic that hit the site and watch and see how all these other boards deal with the issues of needing money to support them. Most would likely immediatly close......hehe, assuming they could even handle a fraction of the traffic EF does to begin with.

There is no cut and dry fix and your posts that you so vehemently stand by offer nothing. They are simply you venting, they bring no constructive criticism and offer no ideas. If you care about this place so much and feel issues need to be fixed then why not spend some of your energy in a more constructive fashion and offer up some ideas instead of constant ridicule?

 

[Counterstrike]

hey DRR i guess Zyglamail is one of the ones you are reffering too?

 

[benevolent anarchist]

I have a degree in business and am partner in a high-tech firm so I understand both ends well—which is why I didn’t object when my original user name was locked for not paying my platinum bill. Sure it bothered me a little given my personal situation (brother’s death) but hey, it’s none of my business, so I just joined under a new name. To me—having a large post count or cyber-reputation is not a big deal. I’m just here to learn, not to make cyber-friends or to gain cyber-respect. I have that covered in the real world. Hell if that were the case I would have picked a pretentious name like… AAS Specialist.

(Disclaimer: No offense intended to AAS Specialist, if there is one.)

 

[Zyglamail]

hey DRR i guess Zyglamail is one of the ones you are reffering too?

Since some users are bringing up issues with posts dissapearing etc, I am trying to bridge the gap between forum members and board ownership. I am trying to help members understand whats going on behind the scenes as best I can. I am not trying to insult anyone here and if it came accross that way I appologize, but the fact remains that constant redicule does nothing toward solving the issues we face.

You guys can call me out and criticise me all you like but if I wasnt here chances are you wouldnt have even gotten the explanations you have and your threads would still be locked/closed/deleted.

 

[halfaclue]

I can add a little value to this because I use to work for AT&T as a data rep. The bandwidth charges that a site like this produce is easily over $15,000 a month. You don't believe me log on to AT&T's site and create a bogus business name like you are interested...that is a T3 price. You go up in bandwidth from there which i assume this place has to with the number of daily posts and then add router costs for that bandwidth and load balancing for the data traffic and I wouldn't be surprised if the cost wasn't over $50K a month. That isn't counting anything excpet the data traffic. then you need a mainframe for the memory we are using and about 50 mail servers for the platinum members. GS is proabbly spending $750,000 a year just on Data trafficing and management of e-mails. There is a little site that AT&T handled 3 years ago associated with body building...it no longer existrs and some may remeber but Iwas the rep and so I can not say the name. There site wasn't close to this magnitude and the plan I had them on cost them $25K a month. This site has taken a turn for the worse but I think the only thing that can fix it is more mods locking threads that have nothing to do with anabolics. I defintiely think they should have a forum to voice opinions, specially for platinum members who are paying for this site. But think about threads like this, that have no value to body building or anabolics that are taking up bandwidth and memory...thaink about posts that turn into talks about recreational drug use or a couple of guys who hate each other going at it back and forth for 20 posts. I mean do you want this to be an Anabolic discussion board or an AOL chat room?

 

[DeepZenPill]

I don't think anyone disagrees that the site should make money. It's just how they go about it. I've helped administer sites that started off free. But they needed to go to a pay model, and they were successful with their model because they didn't take away benefits of free users. Instead they added a ton more functionality and perks for being a paying member.

If EF offered some really great benefits for being Platinum that are only found here, that would be a huge boon to the site. I think all the unrest stems from the 5 post search limit and the sources advertising through google. Luckily for me I've been reading this site for a while and made plenty of bookmarks so I don't need to search too often, but I feel bad for those that are just joining.

I know how Google "ad words" advertisements work, and EF doesn't directly control the advertisers. Yes if you search for steroids on Google you're going to see these same international pharms advertising on the right of the page. I really doubt EF is going to allow this to happen very long on their site though.

 

[MuSuLPhReAk]

$750,000 to run a bodybuilding board? You're joking right?

 

[mrpg13]

I think thatb DRRman Has some good points, he pays platinum, and supports the site, but just because we are platinum, doesnt mean we should be able to do whatever we want.

As far as Depressive Juice, I think you should stop bitching, your not platinum, and dont support the site. If you dont like it leave. Its cheap asses like you that bitch and moan about everything, taking up board space that your not even paying for.

 

[drrman]

first off to counterstrike, i have absolutely NO problem with zyglamail, he has always been on of the mods i respect the VERY most and i always was a very huge supporter of something else he had going on. Everyone is right to a certain degree, i know i vent and i know others vent, but some things that have been vented about over and over and over could be changed.

You got to remember a bunch of juiced up roid heads are posting here, so venting will be part of it. I agree that platinum members should get a bit more advantages than regular members, but it seems as if they are running off the people who aren't paying? what about sites like bluelight, dancesafe, and other HUGE discussion boards, no one is paying to be a part of those? I've been posting on bluelight which is probably the most massive drug discussion board on the net for years without anyone asking me for a cent.

And yes, zyg you are right, we should be thinking of ways to make it better than bitching. Maybe we should open a forum just to talk about problems people see in a CIVIL manner. I think most of the problems on this board in my eyes are hypocratic problems. Mods lock posts about sources, prices, GHB, etc, but if you pay to be platinum goerge will send you a book on where to get these drugs and even how to make them? I think its funny that a newbie asks a question in which he has every right to ask and everyone flames and yells at him? he's NEW thats why, and now he doesn't even have a search engine to use because he didn't pay?

And yes zyg, i agree george has every right no make a profit off of this board, thats what life is about, making a profit through a business of some kind, but i think he's trying to up his profit margins a little too high right now. You can't make but so much money off a discussion board and thats what i think he needs to realize

 

[Ttokkyo Jack]

$750,000 to run a bodybuilding board? Thats the best joke I've heard all day.

 

[Riker29]

I don't think anyone disagrees that the site should make money. It's just how they go about it. I've helped administer sites that started off free. But they needed to go to a pay model, and they were successful with their model because they didn't take away benefits of free users. Instead they added a ton more functionality and perks for being a paying member.

If EF offered some really great benefits for being Platinum that are only found here, that would be a huge boon to the site. I think all the unrest stems from the 5 post search limit and the sources advertising through google. Luckily for me I've been reading this site for a while and made plenty of bookmarks so I don't need to search too often, but I feel bad for those that are just joining.

I know how Google "ad words" advertisements work, and EF doesn't directly control the advertisers. Yes if you search for steroids on Google you're going to see these same international pharms advertising on the right of the page. I really doubt EF is going to allow this to happen very long on their site though.

This guy is like 100% correct. Karma for him.

I belive that EF has every right to revenue, but they ways they are going about doing it, are wrong IMO.

The search issue is ridiculous. SHORT TERM it will bring them a FEW more dollars. LONG TERM its going to KILL the quality of this board, as the number of "what is clambutteroil" and "can I drink winny" posts will multiply.

Of course I am not TOO surprised .. there has been some other stuff going on at this site, behind the scenes, and frankly the search is the least of the problems.

Anyway .. this thread will probably be killed in like 5 minutes LOL

 

[khemix]

alright, I'm gonna back up Zyglamail on the cost. I've ran my own large-span webpage and they are VERY expensive! You must buy bandwidth for the millions of users that log onto the site each day. You must buy webspace for all the info/forums/posts/threads/articles/pictures/files to be stored. You have to buy the space for the email accounts. Sometimes you have to buy the server(s) for the website to run off of because it is so large. You have to have ATLEAST multiple T1 connections to support a website of this magnitude and it be of any good speed. On top of all that you have to pay people to fix any server problems that may arise. These are all MONTHLY payments that must be made, and yes, it does add up to a very large sum of money. Not trying to suck ass, just saying that he's right, its harder than you think so stop giving them shit.

Chris

 

[Milhouse]

Well why not stop fucking around and start deleting all the old shit that is useless and so yesterday?

 

[DepressiveJuice]

As far as Depressive Juice, I think you should stop bitching, your not platinum, and dont support the site. If you dont like it leave. Its cheap asses like you that bitch and moan about everything, taking up board space that your not even paying for.

i was plat in the first months that EF had this option. i honestly see no reason to be plat again. whats your excuse

 

[Machiavellian Muscle]

bandwidth for this site is not 3/4 of a million. Up until recently it crawled and now the posts are all mixed up in different orders.

 

[jubei]

mrpg13, I'm wondering the same thing as depressive juice. I considered going platinum but why? You don't get anything for your money. Just because people don't throw their money away doesn't make them cheap bro.

 

[Zyglamail]

bandwidth for this site is not 3/4 of a million. Up until recently it crawled and now the posts are all mixed up in different orders.

Well, the speed of the boards is not the only indication of the amount of traffic nor the cost of the traffic. They slowness up until now was due to the system running the site couldnt handle the load, but the load was similar then as it is now except George had to kick out 10's of thousands of dollars to upgrade hardware to handle the traffic.

No offense to anyone, but these petty arguements are the exact reasons these threads get done away with. Someone who works/or worked for At&t states what they saw another site pay for bandwidth and he is called a liar by people who have no concept of what the data transmissions even cost. Is 750k a year more than what GS pays? I cant say for sure but I know its a hell of a lot more money than most of you think.

As for what you get by going platinum, you get an enhanced search feature as well as the monthly cost of plat membership off of suppliment purchased through the EF store, Platinum Chat etc. Now for some that may not be worth signing up, and thats fine, no one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to pay up, but at the same time stop whining about something you dont pay anything for. If some people would put as much effort into lifting as they do complaining about something thats free, they would get their pro card in 6 months.

 

[halfaclue]

$750,000 to run a bodybuilding board? You're joking right?

No...go to CDW and see how much a 100Mg server is...just 1 of them....then go to www.att.com and enter a business name and a bogus e-mial and you can see quotes for bandwidth. I'm not saying the bandwidth costs $750,000...I'm saying the bandwidth, the routers, load balancers, servers, mail servers, gig cabable cards. I'm not pulling numbers out of the air. Go look on technology sites. A 100Mg Sun server which is small, is 44K...that is what we recommend for a company with 100 users. You are talking about top technology that it costs to run these sites at the speed they are. You think it is slow at times...remember ever character you type is stored. Every space, period, coma...and that smiley faces that move and laugh and cry all take up a ton. Look at a post with 100 replies and all those icons. Copy and past that into a word document and tell me what your computer says it is for memory. that is one post still going with 100 replies. I don't want this to look like my guess as to what it could cost...my guess is how big the site is...but from what I KNOW, if it is this big 3/4 of a milliion a year is not as much as you think compared to sites like GM who spend 20 Million a year for theirs and that is just bandwidth...NO EQUIPMENT AT ALL.

 

[Machiavellian Muscle]

I give up...

 

[Zyglamail]

Hey Zyg I didn't start the thread just responding to what I think is bs. I can voice my opinion, no? By the way, I also work in the industry so I am well versed in the cost running a site like this and I doubt the bandwidth is anything close to 3/4 million a year. How many active users to we have a t time, not entirely that many right? We are not pushing out incredible amounts of data in the forms of mpeg, jpegs etc. You seem like an intellegent guy and you too know this. Who cares anyway, just funny how someone says they work for AT&T and they know the price we have to agree. By the way did I mention I am not complaining...

He posted a little clarification likely while you were responding. I never said you couldnt disagree but as I also said, none of us really know how much data or the cost to move the data is and likely we never will. With that in mind argueing about it is silly and simply causes more contention and gets us nowhere.

Now, what I would like to suggest is that if anyone has constructive critisim then please add it. Let me start by asking this simple question.

What would it take for you to go platinum? Would you go platinum if the fee was cut in half? What additional features or benefits would make you more likely to go platinum?

Since this thread is here, Lets turn it into something constructive that can be presented to GS.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

its pretty ignorant to say that you dont get anything for your money by going platinum.

 

[Zyglamail]

its pretty ignorant to say that you dont get anything for your money by going platinum.

Lets not go down that road please, comments like this dont do anyone any good. I wouldnt say its ignorant, but please remember we all place a different value on things and what I value may have none to you and vice versa. Please lets keep this constructive, what can EF do to increase or give VALUE to the platinum membership?

 

[drrman]

oh well, hell with it, i still think people should be allowed to voice their oppinions about things, and if we are irrational and out of line we should be called out on it. If every mod handled situations like zyg has done this one i personally would be much happier, but some are too apt to just lock and or delete and be done with it. Props to zyg for at least opening up our eyes a bit and letting us think about both ends of the argument

 

[Dougly]

How about a 3 day 'sneak peek' at Plat? I've heard how tough it is to cancel Plat., I'm not about to sign up only to find the same info as every other board on the net.

 

[Machiavellian Muscle]

[
What would it take for you to go platinum

Most people pay for these types of services on credit cards etc. I personally don't like have my real name address etc associated w/my user name. Not that I am being shady, just cautious. Also for me to cut a money order each month is obsurd, nonetheless pay a full year upfront. I enjoy what I get for free and I am content for now.

I support EF indirectly by shopping through their sponsors who directly pay EF for advertising space. So I am not platnum, but I help out in other ways I guess...

 

[drrman]

well DTOX in their defense no other board is nearly this big, but a small program from www.downloads.com called pop up blocker works nicely to stop all the bullshit

 

[DTOX]

I think it's pretty interesting that GS has to flood me with pop-up ads, click-banners and constantly intice me with "platinum memberships" because running EF is "sooooo expensive"...

...yet none of the other dozen anaoblic discussion sites I'm on pull this bullshit. And they seem to be doing just fine...

 

[halfaclue]

I think it's pretty interesting that GS has to flood me with pop-up ads, click-banners and constantly intice me with "platinum memberships" because running EF is "sooooo expensive"...

...yet none of the other dozen anaoblic discussion sites I'm on pull this bullshit. And they seem to be doing just fine...

And 5 minutes of your time to compare member lists, number of threads, number of posts, would probably tell you that they are much much smaller. I belong to a few..some only have 40 users on at any given time. I'm not saying all sites, but EF is the biggest one I use. That and AR and they do have banners all over and there user/thread/post count is a third of EF's

 

[Rio 2001]

What would lead me to be a paying member?
Exclusive features.
I´d like to be able to acess full texts scientific studies like the ones in "Steroids" journal, but others as well, as jama, nejm, jap, ijsn, etc...Medline, mdconsult and so many others have institutional access , and each platinum member would have a password.
I´d like to read exclusive interviews with famous bbuilding related authors and pros, as well as chat with them on specific dates ..You can allow 20 or 30 members on each chat, and others could watch...
I´d like to have special discounts on supplements.
And why is it platinum or nothing? Why not silver, gold and platinum, and rank the prices according to the benefits?
Simply it is not clear, now, that you´ll be able to get REALLY EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS by becoming platinum.

Kudos to Zyglamail for being democratic and listen to people.

 

[psychedout]

$750,000 to run a bodybuilding board? Thats the best joke I've heard all day.

I agree, i'm not saying it isn't costly, BUT it's not that expensive.

 

[Zyglamail]

What would lead me to be a paying member?
Exclusive features.
I´d like to be able to acess full texts scientific studies like the ones in "Steroids" journal, but others as well, as jama, nejm, jap, ijsn, etc...Medline, mdconsult and so many others have institutional access , and each platinum member would have a password.
I´d like to read exclusive interviews with famous bbuilding related authors and pros, as well as chat with them on specific dates ..You can allow 20 or 30 members on each chat, and others could watch...
I´d like to have special discounts on supplements.
And why is it platinum or nothing? Why not silver, gold and platinum, and rank the prices according to the benefits?
Simply it is not clear, now, that you´ll be able to get REALLY EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS by becoming platinum.

Kudos to Zyglamail for being democratic and listen to people.

Great idea Rio, keep em coming gang.

 

[hardrock]

Most people pay for these types of services on credit cards etc. I personally don't like have my real name address etc associated w/my user name. Not that I am being shady, just cautious. Also for me to cut a money order each month is obsurd, nonetheless pay a full year upfront. I enjoy what I get for free and I am content for now.

That right there is the EXACT reason I've never become platinum.

 

[Juice Authority]

There are obvious benefits to going Plat that justify the cost IMO. It costs like $11 a month. I'm not sure. They just charge my credit card. Not a major investment by any stretch of the imagination especially if you spend a good deal of time here each month. Some of the more obvious advantages of going Plat from my perspective are the following:

Reliable source checks
Search function
More bandwidth for your EF email account
Access to steroid pics
Good porn
Access to Best of EF threads - very useful info
Better visibility for questions
More one to one with the Mods and Vets
Plat Chat

One thing that I believe should be available to all members whether they're Plat or not is the ability to search the site. Limiting this to Plat members only causes a great deal of redundancy in questions and sucks up a lot of unnecessary board space. Being able to search the site has helped me a great deal and eliminated the need to post a question that has already been discussed at lenght several times.

 

[mrpg13]

Depressive Juice

Hey bro, I did not mean to offend you with my post(if I did). All i was trying to say is that there are a lot of people on here that dont pay shit to support the site, and they still bitch. Since you were Platinum, at one time, I apologize. As for me being Platinum. I was on this board for a long time before i went platinum. I finally decided that it was only fair to help support the site that I have learned so much from, and will continue to learn from. I just think some people think that they deserve all the thingss that this site offers. Some people dont know the difference between a "right" and a "privelage." If you want the privelage of all this site offers, then you should pay to be Platinum.

 

[Riker29]

I think that LOT of people, paid or not, are actually quite supportive of the site, and its efforts to generate revenue.

And lets face it - there are a LOT of non-platinum people that contribute a LOT by sharing their knowledge and experience.

I think thats for the most part, most of the "complaints" tend to fall into 2 catagories:

The Search Feature - The handicapped search is ridiculous. It wil be the long-term nail in the coffin for this board, and will drive its quality down. Way way down.

The "Bait and Switch" - This bit of someone becoming platinum, and then they MUST stay platinum FOREVER or else they sacrifice their name, is just wrong. Very wrong. If someone becomes Platinum for like 6 months, and then for some reason they choose to give that up, fine. Sure - go ahead and take away the Platinum priavledges and all - but don't lock their account! Thats just wrong. We have lost a LOT of very good knowledgeable people because of this issue.

Frankly if those 2 issues wree solved, 90% of the gripes would go away. Most of the rest of the bitching is due to unreasonable stuff, like people wanting to ask for prices and sources, and everyone who is responsible would pretty much agree on those issues.

But the 2 items above are what is causing most of the problems, and frankly, preventing many people from recommending this site, and causing many people to leave.

And as for the ads, and the pop-ups, get over it. Anyone dumb enough to believe they can buy DBol from their online Phamacy is clueless, or anyone who bitches about pop-ups when surfing and informative site for free, needs to wake up.

 

[KINGKONG69]

i became plat because i was sick of pop-ups, and wanted to be able to use the search.

hey zyg, i wish since im platinum, i could have my old email addres of "KINGKONG69@ELITE" back. i lost it due to inactivity.

also, why since im platinum do i still have to sign into my new elitefitness email every 3 weeks or loose it.
the 11 bucks a month should cover email, and secure it for you whether you check it or not.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

Lets not go down that road please, comments like this dont do anyone any good. I wouldnt say its ignorant, but please remember we all place a different value on things and what I value may have none to you and vice versa. Please lets keep this constructive, what can EF do to increase or give VALUE to the platinum membership?

my apologies....
i bought a three month platinum membership last week, and i think its worth it. The chat feature is convenient, and its nice to get to look at all the pictures that are posted full size.

people that buy gear, supplements, or fitness magazines in general spend a chunk of change on them. It seems the wealth of information on this site would be worth the money.

 

[Juice Authority]

I think that LOT of people, paid or not, are actually quite supportive of the site, and its efforts to generate revenue.

And lets face it - there are a LOT of non-platinum people that contribute a LOT by sharing their knowledge and experience.

I think thats for the most part, most of the "complaints" tend to fall into 2 catagories:

The Search Feature - The handicapped search is ridiculous. It wil be the long-term nail in the coffin for this board, and will drive its quality down. Way way down.

The "Bait and Switch" - This bit of someone becoming platinum, and then they MUST stay platinum FOREVER or else they sacrifice their name, is just wrong. Very wrong. If someone becomes Platinum for like 6 months, and then for some reason they choose to give that up, fine. Sure - go ahead and take away the Platinum priavledges and all - but don't lock their account! Thats just wrong. We have lost a LOT of very good knowledgeable people because of this issue.

Frankly if those 2 issues wree solved, 90% of the gripes would go away. Most of the rest of the bitching is due to unreasonable stuff, like people wanting to ask for prices and sources, and everyone who is responsible would pretty much agree on those issues.

But the 2 items above are what is causing most of the problems, and frankly, preventing many people from recommending this site, and causing many people to leave.

And as for the ads, and the pop-ups, get over it. Anyone dumb enough to believe they can buy DBol from their online Phamacy is clueless, or anyone who bitches about pop-ups when surfing and informative site for free, needs to wake up.

You must work in the finance arena. I'm in finance and bait and switch is a term near and dear to my heart. I agree with you on your first point. The search function should be available to anyone plat or not. The other issue with respect to locking up their account has been resolved I believe. It happened to Drrman, needsize, mvmaxx and some others that decided to cancel their plat membership but I believe EF Sam fixed the problem. I don't think it was malicious. It was just a technical oversight that has been rectified.

 

[chanmanfoo]

there needs to be a way to sign up without a credit card. i just dont feel comfortable with the site having all my personal info on file. lawyer or no lawyer. also regarding non plats complaining, that is not a valid argument, take away all the non plats and this board would be history.
foo

 

[DeepZenPill]

I agree with Riker, I think the main two complaints are the Search restriction and that problem with ex-platinum accounts getting locked.

My only gripe was with the search limit because I don't like to feel like I'm being forced to join as platinum. I mean the best posts are already moved to the Best of Elite in the platinum section, so there's already a limit on what people would search for. Why even further restrictions?

Maybe for plat members expand on current features offered to the board. Like the free web sites for example. Normal users get 3mb of space, what about increasing that size for platinum members? This really shouldn't be too big of a hit on disk space since not nearly all members will actually make a web site, but for those that do it could be beneficial.

Ok maybe that last suggestion is a little weak, but I'm sure someone else more creative than me will think of something good.

 

[Zyglamail]

I can understand that due to the nature of the board people would like to keep their identity on the down low and using a CC may not be ideal. On the other hand making one lump sum payment doesnt always work for many either and I know for me sending in the payment monthly would be a big pain in the butt. Not to mention the manpower it takes to babysit the flow of payments from administration point of view. Can you guys think of any other payment methods that would be aceptable to you?

 

[halfaclue]

IS paypal discrete? I've never used it???

 

[IronLion]

god these threads are getting old

 

[Wrongun]

there needs to be a way to sign up without a credit card. i just dont feel comfortable with the site having all my personal info on file. lawyer or no lawyer. also regarding non plats complaining, that is not a valid argument, take away all the non plats and this board would be history.
foo

I sent my payment for premium elitefitness mail in cash.

Obviously for a monthly subscription this may be time consuming for both sender and reciever unless you pay annually. I have to say when i contacted GS he was fione and issued the addy for me to send funds

Wrongun!

 

[DepressiveJuice]

IS paypal discrete? I've never used it???

no. i've gotten my CC account stolen three times. one of those time was when i used paypal. there is NO such thing as "secure" on the net.

 

[Fukkenshredded]

I have more bandwidth than I know what to do with. Zyg...if GS needs bandwitdh cheap, or anyone else for that matter, email me and lets discuss it.

I have access to 5 T1s as well (they are not mine personally, they are all co-owned).

You guys are way overestimating the price of this site, believe me.

If GS is paying that much, we can negotiate a deal for me to support this entire site right now for much, much less than the kind of money people are talking.

 

[DeepZenPill]

IS paypal discrete? I've never used it???

There are ways to fund your paypal account without providing real personal information, but you have to send money to third parties which ends up costing you much more.

Then there's all the shit that PayPal has been accused of: stealing money from peoples' accounts, closing accounts while money is still in them, etc.

 

[Zyglamail]

no. i've gotten my CC account stolen three times. one of those time was when i used paypal. there is NO such thing as "secure" on the net.

This is going a bit off topic, but no CC details are are sent to the receiver of your funds via paypal. Paypal itself processes the card and moves funds into your paypal account and from there they get sent to recipeint. Did you ever log into paypal when directed to by an e-mail? There are many scams going on where e-mails direct you to log into paypal but the link in the e-mail doesnt actually take you to paypal but a different, identicle looking site, and once you log in, they have your password and can log into your real paypal account and rob you blind.

 

[halfaclue]

I have more bandwidth than I know what to do with. Zyg...if GS needs bandwitdh cheap, or anyone else for that matter, email me and lets discuss it.

I have access to 5 T1s as well (they are not mine personally, they are all co-owned).

You guys are way overestimating the price of this site, believe me.

If GS is paying that much, we can negotiate a deal for me to support this entire site right now for much, much less than the kind of money people are talking.

I agree...if the site was small enough to use 5 T1.5's it would be much cheaper....that is only 7.5MGs of bandwidth...I get 1.1MGs to my house through road runner.....7.5 is nothing.

 

[Riker29]

I sent my payment for premium elitefitness mail in cash.

Obviously for a monthly subscription this may be time consuming for both sender and reciever unless you pay annually. I have to say when i contacted GS he was fione and issued the addy for me to send funds

Wrongun!

You know what?

I think if THAT option was advertised (but maybe required a 6 month minimum payment or something, so that EF staff does not have to deal with too many administrative headaches),

and if the Search was fixed (let non-Plat peopl serach for god's sake ...),

and if the issue of people losing their accounts when downgrading from Platinum was fixed,


I think you would see a LOT of revenue generated AND the quality of the board stay up.

You would ALSO fix 80-90% of the "problems" and bitching, and actually have people PROMOTING this board everywhere (instead of putting it down and trash talking it all over the place).

 

[kronk]

$750,000 to run a bodybuilding board? You're joking right?

Actually, it costs us over $4,000 a month to our ISP for everything we operate. x 12, thats $48,000 a year. Now thats just operation to RUN the website at the ISP. That doesnt include hardware costs and such. Elite just upgraded hardware by over $17,000.

 

[kronk]

It happened to Drrman, needsize, mvmaxx and some others that decided to cancel their plat membership but I believe EF Sam fixed the problem.

Yep

 

[Lestat]

At least those are reasonable figures.. that 750,000 was just insame.. i don't care how much bogus triple threat you sell.. you're not going to make enough to cover that.

 

[Zyglamail]

Bump for more CONSTRUCTIVE input. I see more threads popping up with complaints. If you dislike the way things are currently setup, now is your chance to offer us an alternative. Please no rants, we know some people dont like things as they sit so no sense stating as much, however if you have ideas, suggestions etc on what can be done to imporve EF or what kind of services could be added to make going platinum "worthwhile" for you, please chime in.

 

[drrman]

I tell you what would help zyg, is more mods like you who will actually listen instead of just locking the thread and putting the link for platinum!

 

[Riker29]

Bump for more CONSTRUCTIVE input.

I very much understand that this board is a business, or at least part of one – and its purpose is to generate revenue, NOT provide a charitable service. I sincerely believe that the suggestions below will INCREASE revenue by providing a better user experience, and encourage directly or indirectly, more persons to convert to paid membership.

• Stop the bait and switch - allow someone who was platinum to downgrade back to a regular account (and keep their EF screen name). Maybe EF Sam fixed this with several guys’ accounts, but it still seems that the "standard" method is to not allow people to downgrade. That’s just wrong.
  
• Search - Limiting the search for non-Platinum is very very very short-sighted and will be the end of the board's quality.
  
• Payment - Make it easy for anyone concerned with privacy to pay through alternative means, allow for cash payments, Paypal, etc. If the administrative issues (too much paperwork and manual bookkeeping tasks) are prohibitive, then maybe require a minimum of 3 or 6 months membership with these payment options. And again, allow people to downgrade if they wish to stop being Platinum.
  
• Board Policing - Tell, and authorize the Mods, to be more strict in terms of watching the boards. Anyone who shows themselves to be under 18 - kick and BAN them. Any thread on the AS board which is NOT about AS or training - move it immediately.
  
• Avatars and Signatures – The size of some of these are outright ridiculous. (I may be wrong, because admittedly I turned off viewing of all of this crap long ago, so I don’t know if size restrictions have been placed on these files.) One female Mod use to have this garish, awful, animated GIF that was like 200—300k in size. That was in her signature! That's ridiculous! The file size of avatars and signatures should be limited. They should be VERY limited for non-Plat members (if allowed at all) and even for Platinum members, they should be lowered to a smaller, more reasonable size. This will lessen the burden on the servers and increase the perceived “speed” as experienced by the user.
  
• Blatant Advertising of Other Boards – How many times have you seen this “Hey bros, check out my new board?” This is insane and I cant believe that bros do this, and that it is allowed. And frankly the number of people who advertise other boards in their signatures is out of hand. I am sure this opinion of mine will be unpopular, but I see far too many people that are simply using Elite as a way to advertise for their own boards. Every once in a while, if an alternative board is mentioned in the body of a post, fine. But these dudes who have “hey check out these other 2 boards” in their sig is a bit blatant. (Again – sorry guys, nothing personal, these recommendations are about business.)
  
• Board Rules Sticky Permanently Anchored to the top of the page – Create it, review it, keep it updated, highlight it, make it obvious. Make full disclosure of what is allowed and not allowed and make it VERY VERY obvious, so that when someone breaks the rules, their will be little argument and drama.

 

[drrman]

everyone who posted on this thread is BANNED....LOL

 

[Riker29]

By the way, one more thing,

The "Resources" at the bottom of the page .... something should be done.

I know that the board wants to sell ad space, and have affiliations. That makes sense. But to tell guys that they cannot discuss sources, and to ban people that do, and to be SO concerned with security, and then to blatantly have ads that say "Buy Dianabol" is confusing (to say the least) for new guys, and just wrong.

And hey, lets gets real here - we know that most of those places selling stuff in the "resources" area are rip-offs. To say "well, see ... uh .... those ads are fed from Google so we take no responsibility for them .." is sticking your head in the sand. We KNOW they are BS, we KNOW that they are misleading, we KNOW that they confuse people, we KNOW that they violate the very policies of the board with respect to advertising gear ... its wrong.

This is about customer service. The people that run this board probably laugh at those ads themselves, but continue to let them stay up, knowing that they are deceiving and confusing to customers.

For the board to allow such ads brings into question ALL of the info presented here. I mean, if the board will allow a BS ad, where we know that the product is BS or that people will be ripped off - then to what degree are customers to believe the "Reports" that they can buy from George? How about the "Steroid Truth" ebook?

I mean - there is a BS ad that we KNOW is BS, on a page, where you can also buy a book which is telling you "The Truth"? How is the new customer to believe that “The Truth" is not as “Truthful” as the ad to "Buy Dianabol"?

Having those ads up will increase short-term revenue, but at the expense of customer loyalty, and the level of “respect” that people have for the board and its owners (and the info they provide, like in The Reports). As the customer loyalty drops, as the Brand Name of “Elite” erodes, and as more and more people leave (especially the experienced guys) then slowly but surely, the revenue, long-term, will drop.

 

[Riker29]

everyone who posted on this thread is BANNED....LOL

You bastard, I had a mouthful of coffee when I read that, and its now all over my desk from laughing.

LOL, Thanks. That was great.

 

[manny78]

What would lead me to be a paying member?
Exclusive features.
I´d like to be able to acess full texts scientific studies like the ones in "Steroids" journal, but others as well, as jama, nejm, jap, ijsn, etc...Medline, mdconsult and so many others have institutional access , and each platinum member would have a password.
I´d like to read exclusive interviews with famous bbuilding related authors and pros, as well as chat with them on specific dates ..You can allow 20 or 30 members on each chat, and others could watch...
I´d like to have special discounts on supplements.
And why is it platinum or nothing? Why not silver, gold and platinum, and rank the prices according to the benefits?
Simply it is not clear, now, that you´ll be able to get REALLY EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS by becoming platinum.

Kudos to Zyglamail for being democratic and listen to people.

good ideas but Plat members already have a discount on orders of 100$ and + at www.elitefitnessnutrition.com

 

[manny78]

For those who have no access to a credit card or just wish to remain anonymous, you can pay through Money Order.

 

[George Spellwin]

well zyg, since i have given over 200 bucks to this site, i feel as if i should be able to voice my oppinion anywhere i want.

second, if these threads are moved to the mod forums, no ONE has ever explained this to me, most i have seen one mod in particular(manny) just locks it and puts the link to become platinum. sort of shitty in my book

Third, i feel as if i have a leg to stand on due to my donations this board in general. I know its not all the mods, and you know i have always had the greatest respect for you and was always a supporter of your previous site you had running. I just feel as if this board is getting too commercialized. You can't tell me george is not getting banked off of this fucking site, all the advertising, all the platinum memberships, its just getting all to bullshit.

Ask people even as big andy, they can't take much more of this shit either. People like him who are smarter than % of the people on here aren't platinum, and you think he will pay? no, we'll just lose him and many others. Some problems need to be brought out, and they have to be.

You mention publishing a magazine, well even in those they have call in numbers and letters to the editor, suggestion pages etc? what do we have, just the ability to make a quick post to watch manny and some other power tripping mods lock it down? I have seen magazines publish complaints about their mags numerous times, and i've seen them criticize the complaints and i've seen them fix the problems.

You know yourself their are some problems on here that need to be fixed, and just moving it all to the mod forums isnt' the answer, the largest population hangs out here so why can't we all read it? thats like saying all complaints for men's fitness will published only in a corporate journal that no reader can read? every published magazine, bulletin board or whatever is open to criticism and this board is no different. The problem here is the owners are too goddamn busy trying to get rich and don't care about the problems!

DDR,

You make some good points and I appreciate them -- I also appreciate your support of the site as a Platinum Member.

Would you and everyone do the following -- send me the URL of posts that were locked wrongly in your opinion, and I will look at them personally. But, I need the URL, not the topic of the thread.

I mostly read and participate on the Platinum Hardcore board -- I like the slower pace. So that's a good place to post your comments and concerns. One last thing to remember, I cannot read every post on the boards -- no one can -- there are just too many. Some people think that I am able to read everything, but I cannot. So send me an email, tell a mod, or best, post on Platinum Hardcore.

 

[George Spellwin]

mrpg13, I'm wondering the same thing as depressive juice. I considered going platinum but why? You don't get anything for your money. Just because people don't throw their money away doesn't make them cheap bro.

That's not exactly correct. You get

Platinum Search! The largest archive in the world!
Real Time, Uncensored, Platinum Chat!
Full size Pics!
Access the Private Platinum Discussion Boards!
Private Messaging with 2500 messages.
Special Stars + 150 free Karma dots !
A free monthly $11.97 Discount Coupon for EliteFitnessNutrition.com.
Seven Free Hardcore Steroid Bonus Reports valued at $273.
NO banner ads and NO pop-up ads!
And you save the $40 initiation fee!

And more. We hope you will join.

 

[George Spellwin]

bandwidth for this site is not 3/4 of a million. Up until recently it crawled and now the posts are all mixed up in different orders.

Quite right. And the former problem cost us lots of money to fix and the later will too. Bottom line -- this site costs money to run -- lots of it.

 

[George Spellwin]

What would lead me to be a paying member?
Exclusive features.
1. I´d like to be able to acess full texts scientific studies like the ones in "Steroids" journal, but others as well, as jama, nejm, jap, ijsn, etc...Medline, mdconsult and so many others have institutional access , and each platinum member would have a password.
2. I´d like to read exclusive interviews with famous bbuilding related authors and pros, as well as chat with them on specific dates ..You can allow 20 or 30 members on each chat, and others could watch...
3. I´d like to have special discounts on supplements.
4. And why is it platinum or nothing? Why not silver, gold and platinum, and rank the prices according to the benefits?
Simply it is not clear, now, that you´ll be able to get REALLY EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS by becoming platinum.

Kudos to Zyglamail for being democratic and listen to people.

Great post Rio 2001,

This is what we need -- ways we can make the site better. Comments.

1. Great idea -- any ideas on how we could do this?

2. We have a great chat room and we could schedule chats here -- I have wanted to do this for a long time. Who would you like to chat with in particular?

3. We do this now -- Each month you get an $11.97 Platinum Discount Coupon for EliteFitnessNutrition.com discount brand-name supplements! Order once a month and your membership's free -- if you order more than that, it's like were paying you to be Platinum.

4. I'm not sure we could have cheaper memberships. It's only $8.98 a month when you join for 3 months and get one month free. That's the cost of a movie and most folks spend much more than 2 hours here each month.

 

[George Spellwin]

That right there is the EXACT reason I've never become platinum.

Send in a Money Order with just your boards name.

elitefitness.com
P.O. Box 1264
New York, NY 10113-1264

For example, Platinum Membership 6 months + 3 months Free!

 

[George Spellwin]

i became plat because i was sick of pop-ups, and wanted to be able to use the search.

hey zyg, i wish since im platinum, i could have my old email addres of "KINGKONG69@ELITE" back. i lost it due to inactivity.

also, why since im platinum do i still have to sign into my new elitefitness email every 3 weeks or loose it.
the 11 bucks a month should cover email, and secure it for you whether you check it or not.

The email is run by Hush if you upgrade, they will resurrect your old account. I will personally help you if there is trouble dealing with them. FYI, we are working to get the guys at Hush to participate here more often. And thanks for your support of the boards.

 

[George Spellwin]

I agree with Riker, I think the main two complaints are the Search restriction and that problem with ex-platinum accounts getting locked.

My only gripe was with the search limit because I don't like to feel like I'm being forced to join as platinum. I mean the best posts are already moved to the Best of Elite in the platinum section, so there's already a limit on what people would search for. Why even further restrictions?

Maybe for plat members expand on current features offered to the board. Like the free web sites for example. Normal users get 3mb of space, what about increasing that size for platinum members? This really shouldn't be too big of a hit on disk space since not nearly all members will actually make a web site, but for those that do it could be beneficial.

Ok maybe that last suggestion is a little weak, but I'm sure someone else more creative than me will think of something good.

We will give anyone more space that needs it at no charge -- it just needs to be for a non-comercial fitness site.

 

[jubei]

1. I think having various levels of paying memberships is good ie silver, gold, and platinum. Increase the benifits of each level to entice people to join.

2. Allow people to go platinum and then if for some reason they are unable to stay platinum let that person keep their handle. This is 1 reason I refuse to go plat.

3. Platinum access to scientific studies/literature on AAS. This is easy to find on the net, but can be a pain to go all over the net to find it. This not only attracts new members, but will improve the quality of posts made on the boards.

4. EF is still the best fitness site on the Net, no question.

 

[Rio 2001]

Quantities

Great post Rio 2001,

This is what we need -- ways we can make the site better. Comments.

1. Great idea -- any ideas on how we could do this?

I'm not sure, but universities often use el sevier...Medical societys usually offer to their affiliates a Med line link through their web sites .
http://www.sciencedirect.com/
http://www.medline.com

2. We have a great chat room and we could schedule chats here -- I have wanted to do this for a long time. Who would you like to chat with in particular?

J. Antonio, Yessalis ( and other MDs with AAS experience), Lee Priest, Flex Wheeler, basically any pro you can get your hands on lol...And some of your own moderators like Huck and macro.

3. We do this now -- Each month you get an $11.97 Platinum Discount Coupon for EliteFitnessNutrition.com discount brand-name supplements! Order once a month and your membership's free -- if you order more than that, it's like were paying you to be Platinum.


4. I'm not sure we could have cheaper memberships. It's only $8.98 a month when you join for 3 months and get one month free. That's the cost of a movie and most folks spend much more than 2 hours here each month.

P.S. Mr. Spellwin, if you really liked my post then...
GIVE ME SOME KARMA!!!!!

 

[George Spellwin]

Re: Quantities

P.S. Mr. Spellwin, if you really liked my post then...
GIVE ME SOME KARMA!!!!!

Sure!

 

[Juice Authority]

1. I think having various levels of paying memberships is good ie silver, gold, and platinum. Increase the benifits of each level to entice people to join.

2. Allow people to go platinum and then if for some reason they are unable to stay platinum let that person keep their handle. This is 1 reason I refuse to go plat.

3. Platinum access to scientific studies/literature on AAS. This is easy to find on the net, but can be a pain to go all over the net to find it. This not only attracts new members, but will improve the quality of posts made on the boards.

4. EF is still the best fitness site on the Net, no question.

Great ideas. I agree wholeheartedly with all the above. The only one thing I would add is that the highest paying level of membership should have access to lab reports on new products that EF would provide through the proceeds. That would be invaluable information for making the right decision on which brand and lab to go with.

 

[jubei]

Excellent idea. If EF gets lab reports then its all over, nobody else can compete with that. Also I'm sure if they do a certain amount of volume they can get special discounted rates, especially if they stick the labs name somewhere on the boards.

 

[mvmaxx]

You guys can call me out and criticise me all you like but if I wasnt here chances are you wouldnt have even gotten the explanations you have and your threads would still be locked/closed/deleted.

Bingo! I don't agree with a lot of the shit that's been going on with Elite either but let's not start getting on mods like Zyg about it. He's been nothing but helpful to this site.

My biggest complaint is former platinum members that have paid into this site losing their usernames after their membership expired. genarr3 and Golfer18 are two that come to mind but I know there's more.

Also, users shouldn't lose their username because of inactivity. People often leave for extended periods of time but come back. It's nice to see vets from the past. They shouldn't have to reregister after everything they've contributed to this site.

Many of these guys helped build this site and have supported it over the years with cash. To lock their usernames is just plain wrong and will eventually push all the knowledgeable vets to other sites and all you'll be left with is the kids on summer vacation.

Also, I know I've heard many EF mods ask this but you want to know why people are so obsessed with Elite and you see constant bitching on other boards about it? It's because we see this site going downhill and we don't want that to happen (minus the few that were banned and just like to plain bitch). Most of us got our start on this site and hate to see it turn that way.

my 2cents

 

[George Spellwin]

Bingo! I don't agree with a lot of the shit that's been going on with Elite either but let's not start getting on mods like Zyg about it. He's been nothing but helpful to this site.

My biggest complaint is former platinum members that have paid into this site losing their usernames after their membership expired. genarr3 and Golfer18 are two that come to mind but I know there's more.

Also, users shouldn't lose their username because of inactivity. People often leave for extended periods of time but come back. It's nice to see vets from the past. They shouldn't have to reregister after everything they've contributed to this site.

Many of these guys helped build this site and have supported it over the years with cash. To lock their usernames is just plain wrong and will eventually push all the knowledgeable vets to other sites and all you'll be left with is the kids on summer vacation.

Also, I know I've heard many EF mods ask this but you want to know why people are so obsessed with Elite and you see constant bitching on other boards about it? It's because we see this site going downhill and we don't want that to happen (minus the few that were banned and just like to plain bitch). Most of us got our start on this site and hate to see it turn that way.

my 2cents

The real danger is not in Elite going downhill but in Elite not being able to afford to remain online -- and I will never let that happen.

So we were forced to try to compel the non-Platinum members to upgrade -- by making some of everyone's favorite features Platinum. When a Platinum Membership used to consist of only "extras" we had a hard time getting members to upgrade. And because of this, we had to make parts of our content Platinum only. And it's working, because we now have people talking about Platinum Memberships that never considered one before because too much was free.

We have worked hard to get our revenues in line with our costs and our Platinum Members are making it possible for us to keep the largest bodybuilding archive that has ever existed in history online and available.

If there is a perception that we are losing members, it is just that, a perception. In fact, we have never had as many daily visitors as we do at this present time -- and we watch our traffic stats very closely. The generosity of our paying members support make all of this possible.

 

[mvmaxx]

The real danger is not in Elite going downhill but in Elite not being able to afford to remain online -- and I will never let that happen.

So we were forced to try to compel the non-Platinum members to upgrade -- by making some of everyone's favorite features Platinum. When a Platinum Membership used to consist of only "extras" we had a hard time getting members to upgrade. And because of this, we had to make parts of our content Platinum only. And it's working, because we now have people talking about Platinum Memberships that never considered one before because too much was free.

We have worked hard to get our revenues in line with our costs and our Platinum Members are making it possible for us to keep the largest bodybuilding archive that has ever existed in history online and available.

If there is a perception that we are losing members, it is just that, a perception. In fact, we have never had as many daily visitors as we do at this present time -- and we watch our traffic stats very closely. The generosity of our paying members support make all of this possible.

I appreciate your response but I think you missed my point entirely.


I wholeheartedly agree with you trying to make money off of this as #1 - it's a business and #2 - it cost a shitload of money to run a site like this. I'm in the business so I know.

Now my point wasn't that you're losing members as I am sure that you are getting new members by the truckload now that school is out. My point is that you're losing the knowledeable and contributing members. The kind that draw other people to this site and had made Elite #1.

Now I think this can be rectified fairly simply.

Just stop locking ex-Platinum users username's after they decide to cancel or their cc expires as was my case. And #2 don't lock out usernames after inactivity for 3 weeks. There will almost always be times where some of the biggest contributors to this site have to be off for more than 21 straight days. It will be a shame to eventually lose all that helped build this site.

 

[SCOTTY-TWO-HOTTY]

Just stop locking ex-Platinum users username's after they decide to cancel or their cc expires as was my case. And #2 don't lock out usernames after inactivity for 3 weeks. There will almost always be times where some of the biggest contributors to this site have to be off for more than 21 straight days. It will be a shame to eventually lose all that helped build this site.

Well said Bro.

 

[tri~zilla]

so how does my girlfriend's son run a wrestling board, it's just as in depth as elite......so are you telling me he's got some huge inheritence he's blowing on his board?

 

[Zyglamail]

so how does my girlfriend's son run a wrestling board, it's just as in depth as elite......so are you telling me he's got some huge inheritence he's blowing on his board?

So what your saying is he has a board with over 44,000 members and almost 2.5 milllion posts to store?

P.S. As I mentioned in your other post, if all you are going to do is complain, then we dont need to hear it but if you have something constructive to add then by all means chime in.

 

[The Terminator]

Now I think this can be rectified fairly simply.

Just stop locking ex-Platinum users username's after they decide to cancel or their cc expires as was my case. And #2 don't lock out usernames after inactivity for 3 weeks. There will almost always be times where some of the biggest contributors to this site have to be off for more than 21 straight days. It will be a shame to eventually lose all that helped build this site.

Bingo. Alot of time and effort has been put into this site by some of those cancelled members. It is a shame to see guys being forced to change usernames after 5,000 posts in the past 2 years here because other priorities may have come up that kept them off the board for 3 weeks straight...

 

[The Terminator]

Perhaps if we coud see a list of say, the top 25 posters to the anabolic board over the past two years. And how many of those guys had their accounts frozen because of not posting for a few weeks...I know offhand that genarr3 would be right up there (amongst I would assume a few other major contributors...) These kind of guys are the life blood of this site, without their knowledge we are let with a whole lot of nothing....

 

[tri~zilla]

sorry, i have been ranting to much and not coming up with positive input.......no more.......what i wanted to happen has......this discussion is all i wanted to take place, with depressive's help that has happened.......zyg, no hard feelings....you've helped me numerous times and that was free, if
anything i'm indebted to you.......

p.s thanks to everyone who put positive input, i learned a lot about why somethings are the way they are and what we can do about them.....

 

[Zyglamail]

sorry, i have been ranting to much and not coming up with positive input.......no more.......

Thank you. Believe me, all the negative posts that get locked/deleted are read so we know that some people dont like things the way they sit. What all of those posts fail to do however is help us come to a happy medium where GS can afford to keep the board running AND have happy members.

That is whay I want everyone to chime in. We all put different values on different things and what has value to me in terms of this board and paying for platinum may not have any value to you. Now, what we need to know is this. Assume that we have to have at least some paying members to keep a board of this size running. Having said that, if I could snap my fingers and make changes, addition etc to the forums, what could I do to make going platinum worthwhile for you?

Obvously GS, nor the mods can think of everything so we need your help. Consider this a brainstorming session, no idea is too menail or stupid. They may not all be feasable, but with everyones input we will have a much better idea of where the exact hangups are, what everyone values and we can then strive to bring this value to you.

Thanks for all those that have added constructive remarks, keep the ideas flowing.

 

[George Spellwin]

I appreciate your response but I think you missed my point entirely.


I wholeheartedly agree with you trying to make money off of this as #1 - it's a business and #2 - it cost a shitload of money to run a site like this. I'm in the business so I know.

Now my point wasn't that you're losing members as I am sure that you are getting new members by the truckload now that school is out. My point is that you're losing the knowledeable and contributing members. The kind that draw other people to this site and had made Elite #1.

Now I think this can be rectified fairly simply.

Just stop locking ex-Platinum users username's after they decide to cancel or their cc expires as was my case. And #2 don't lock out usernames after inactivity for 3 weeks. There will almost always be times where some of the biggest contributors to this site have to be off for more than 21 straight days. It will be a shame to eventually lose all that helped build this site.

mvmaxx,

I appreciate your comments.

I know that those policies are no fun -- that's the way they were designed -- it is not quite so comfortable as it used to be to remain a non-supporter of the site. We need members to invest $8.98 a month to keep us online. Our knowledgeable members, like yourself, who spend so much time here, need to be the first ones to support us -- putting their money where their mouth is! Encouraging our most active members to become assets instead of liabilities is the only way we will be able to grow and stay around for years to come.

We have seen no indication that we are losing members. And we are always working to make the Platinum features better and better. I sincerely hope you will support us and consider upgrading your account again. I value your contributions to Elite Fitness.

 

[Dougly]

Encouraging our most active members to become assets instead of liabilities

OUCH!!

What about a free trial? Say a "Free Plat Weekend." Let people see for themselves what their missing, instead of the EF shill squad telling us what we're missing.

 

[Rio 2001]

trial=excellent idea

 

[Riker29]

Encouraging our most active members to become assets instead of liabilities is the only way we will be able to grow and stay around for years to come.

Assets instead of liabilities? Excuse me?

Wow - thats quite a mindset to have regarding persons who may contribute their time and knowledge, patronize your vendors, recommend other people join the site, but yet have not turned platinum.

Liabilities? Wow.

I think many of the suggestions you are seeing are people making honest attempts to help. Its quite a shame that these persons, unless they are Platinum, are considered to be "liabilities".

I am among the first to realize and state to people that this board has every right to generate revenue. I tend to think that long-term revenue is being lessened for the sake of short-term gain, but thats your decision.

But to make that statement above is probably not the best thing for customer relations. After all, most people dont join up as Platinum on Day 1 anyway, and to hear they are "liabilities" until they do is probably not the best thing for Customer Relations. LOL

 

[The Terminator]

Assets instead of liabilities? Excuse me?

Wow - thats quite a mindset to have regarding persons who may contribute their time and knowledge, patronize your vendors, recommend other people join the site, but yet have not turned platinum.

Liabilities? Wow.

I think many of the suggestions you are seeing are people making honest attempts to help. Its quite a shame that these persons, unless they are Platinum, are considered to be "liabilities".

That was exactly what I was thinking. Nothing but liabilities....

 

[benevolent anarchist]

I agree; Liability is pretty harsh choice of words. In business we prefer term burden. Every employee creates a certain burden on the company—usually it’s our half of social security payments or the company’s part of the employees’ health insurance plan. Sure an employee contributes as well by showing up to work.

So I think what George is trying to convey is that everyone who frequents this site creates a financial burden to the owners. Weather or not such people invest more than they receive is another story altogether.

 

[George Spellwin]

Assets instead of liabilities? Excuse me?

Wow - thats quite a mindset to have regarding persons who may contribute their time and knowledge, patronize your vendors, recommend other people join the site, but yet have not turned platinum.

Liabilities? Wow.

I think many of the suggestions you are seeing are people making honest attempts to help. Its quite a shame that these persons, unless they are Platinum, are considered to be "liabilities".

I am among the first to realize and state to people that this board has every right to generate revenue. I tend to think that long-term revenue is being lessened for the sake of short-term gain, but thats your decision.

But to make that statement above is probably not the best thing for customer relations. After all, most people dont join up as Platinum on Day 1 anyway, and to hear they are "liabilities" until they do is probably not the best thing for Customer Relations. LOL

Dave,

I understand how you feel.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that while we are all appreciative of the "time and knowledge" that our members spend here, it is that very time spent here and all the sharing that makes the site expensive to run.

I think some bros cannot see the difference between being a "good member" of our community and being a "supporter" of the community. A good member is one who helps others, contributes thoughtful posts, abides by the terms of service, and adds to the wealth of information here. Elite wants as many good members as we can get -- because they make the boards the vibrant community that they are. However, the fact of the matter is that the more good members we have the more expensive the site is to run. Merely being a good member does nothing to ensure that the Elite community will have a viable future.

Please accept my apologies. It was certainly not my intention to hurt your feelings. Of course good members are assets to our community, but only those members that actively support this community are assets on our balance sheet.

 

[Dougly]

Would a Platinum member please re-post my idea about a free trial while I show myself to the door?

 

[George Spellwin]

I think the free trial is a good idea -- and we may have our programmers look at it. They are working on other issues at the moment like the posting issue.

But let's remember, we are only talking about $8.98 a month -- it's not a big risk if you do not like it.

 

[Johnny Cut]

well if u dont like it and get rid of it can your account be restored to normal status or do u have to create a new handle?

 

[variation]

It's true, $8.98 a month is very little, I have considered going platnium a few times, I'm interested in some of the benefits and would like to support this site, since it's good... and I've learned alot here. I must admit when I first joined I got the impression that this site was very money-oriented and noticed that almost any piece of information George Spellwin gives out also contains some way for him to make money

but what kept me here is the great members this site has (both platnium and non-platnium) there is alot of good here...

Anyway someday I may go platnium the reason I have not, is well I don't have alot of money right now, I could afford it but I have priorities, and I would still keep those priorities over almost anything at the time being... until I get a new job and am settled I will just have to go on like I am now.

Great site George Spellwin.