[65 falcon]

P.S. I cannot be held responsible for grammatical errors, I can simply apologize them. I took 12 years of a foreign language in high school... English

[Zephyrman]

I'm not goin anywhere Jesse, they are gonna have to throw my ass out! LOL I hope the mods and admins realize that if anyone decides to be an ass on here I'm going to make it my mission to straighten them out, and it ain't gonna be pretty. They don't like it, they can ban me, it won't be the first site I got kicked out of, and likely won't be the last. I'm tired of keyboard commando's muckin up one of my favorite places to hang.

[65 falcon]

As long as there is one person to help than the site is worth staying on. This's it's is the first place I come to with car problems. And everyone is always friendly and willing to share the knowledge they have which has saved my but a couloir times and that's why I keep coming back

[Poppy]

Originally Posted by 65 falcon

Whoa whoa whoa man everyone's leaving?!? Wtf man. <snip> - Jesse Ailshire

Jessie,
Relax, there is no major exodus of members.

MissInformation rants now and then, and BogHog left at least twice before. Either they will be back, or they won't, but in either case the site will go on - with or without them, just as it had when they stopped posting. Bog's biggest threat is that when he leaves, that Canuck623 will follow his lead. Canuck623 is a leader... NOT a follower!

If MissInformation decides to stay away this time, that would be unfortunate.

The site currently has between 75-150 members checking in each day, and 3,000-4,000 visitors.

[mark v]

I will still be here!

[65 falcon]

Well I guess that's true I never really knew how many members were on this site before. And you are right with or without them the site will go on. Thanks to every one who helps us all out.

[mark v]

There will be more experts that come and go, it is common on forums.

[pthomson87]

Hello All,

I'm Paul, the new 'owner' of the site. I took it over from RobDog a few months back. I understand there have been some issues over the past few months mainly down to certain changes I have made on the site, some intentionally others not. I would like to take a few moments to clarify a few issues with you all.

First off, I would like to apologise for awarding myself 3000 unearned reputation points when I first took on this site, this was not an intentional change I made, neither was I aware what these 'reputation points' were or the fact that they were even made public to the forum members. The reason I increased my reputation points was because I was having difficulties configuring options within the admin area itself and thought it could be because of these rep points, I updated increased mine to see if it allowed me to do the changes I needed to do and forgot to revert them back. For this I apologise, it was a simple mistake on my behalf and I was at no point trying to deceive the forum members and put myself above others, the knowledge that people have on this forum far surpasses any that I could ever hope to gain.

As a few of you are already aware, I run and manage many other websites (in excess of 20) and often work as a web-developer when required. I originally decided to take over running this site from RobDog as work was quiet and I could invest some of my time in managing (and hopefully improving) this forum, a few weeks after acquisition of the site floods of work came in that was time critical; as a result I had to prioritise my work load, resulting in areas of this forum taking a bit of a nose-dive as I simply did not have time to familiarise myself with how it was run, this was a big error in judgement on my behalf and a huge regret to date. If it wasn't for the fact that we've got a good group of moderators and super-moderators managing this forum the situation could be much worse, they do an excellent job which I'm thankful for.

I have since come to the end of the projects I was working on and can hopefully start redeeming my reputation within these forums. I understand that this will not happen overnight and that many of you have taken a disliking to me from my absence within the forums (amongst other things), I don't blame you, I would too.

To answer another question that did arise, I did not buy this website for financial gain, the revenue generated from advertisements cover the hosting costs and make a small profit; I took over this site to gain experience of how to effectively run a forum (as is completely new to me) and to grow the site from strength to strength. I have already spoken to a number of members to discuss the best way to re-invest profits back into the site or use them for rewards to members, I will continue to do brainstorming and get your feedback before making anything final.

MissInformation: I hope the above information clarifies my intentions for the site, and hope you no longer see me as a BMOC (Big Man On Campus). You are seen by many of the members here as of great value to the site, I'm sad to see that you have decided to leave us, though accept full responsibility. You're contributions to this forum were highly cherished, if you do see fit it in your eye to return, you would be very much welcome at any time. This same message goes out to the other longstanding members of this site who many go to in time of need, the names of who have been clearly discussed in this thread alone.

I'm not sure where I stand on these 'reputation points' as a whole, I'm still not 100% sure on how they are awarded/earned and whether they increase by quality of posts or quantity of posts. They seem to have been the cause for much upset within the forum both recently and in the past. In my inexperienced opinion, I don't see that they contribute much to the site other than giving a numerical value against the reputation of the member, surely other members would 'know' who the most experienced members were and where their speciality lies? I have no immediate plans to remove this feature as RobDog implemented it for a reason, but would welcome everyone's thoughts and feelings on this feature.

I have removed the InfoLink ads that appear in posts. It was a mistake of mine to include them so rapidly, I agree with all those who feel they are annoying and add an air of 'commercialism' to the site, not to mention make the posts harder and more distracting to read. I may include them back in the future but they would not be seen by members as truth be told they do bring in revenue to the site and offer an incentive to sign up for membership.

I have read a lot of bad things being said about Poppy, he is a good moderator from what I can gather so far and hope he will stay with the forum, in my absence over the last few months Poppy and his team of moderators have managed the site completely, thank you.

I think that I will end this post here as I’ve covered quite a few areas of a concern and sure there will be questions directed my way to which I will happily answer.

I just add that although I purchased the site off RobDog, I feel the real ‘owners’ of Ford Forums Online are those members who contribute to the site, this is a community forum and I would hate to feel that I am the cause that many valued members are leaving. I am here for the long run and will seek to take a more pro-active role towards administering this site from now on.

Thank you all for hearing me out, I hope we can move onwards and upwards,

Regards,

Paul (pthomson87)

n.b. at some point last week the email functionality was not working, I spent well over an hour with my hosting company to resolve the issue a couple of days back. Things should all be working now, please let me know if you experience any further problems.

[woodhog]

I have read this thread completely and I have to say I sincerely appreciate all of you. We will all encounter people in eberything we do that are not deserving BUT there are some of us smucks who truly need your help and advice. We consider all of you as expert in your answers to our problems major or minor. I personally have gained some needed experience by reading and following your advice (even though it takes me a while to respond).
I can't thanks you enough!
I encourage pthomson87 to contact each of you and set things right, we cannot lose your valuable feedback!

[militarydave]

My Oh My.......

Looks like I did miss a lot while defending our country floating in the middle of nowhere doing helicopter operations off the coast of Diego Garcia for the past 9 or so months!! Well i'm back stateside (THANK GOD!!!)... and i'm just trying to filter through everything to see what has occured since.

kinda like waking up from a Coma.

After reading all of these posts on this thread: I also agree that Rep Points are pointless. Thumbs up, happy faces, and gold stars, and stickers were valid only in Kindergarten - in my opinion.

I truly hope that the valuable/knowledgeable posters here did not leave, due to a missunderstanding. some of us have our our area of expertise, and are weaker in other areas, but that's where the team effort comes in.

i do hope that under this "new" ownership, the site gets all of the discpreancies rectified, and minor issues settled. sadly, with the ads, banners, links, promotions, etc, this appears to be a rose/magenta colored cash cow, when really, this should be a safe haven for tips, how-to's, and FYI's.

Guess we will see how/where this goes!!

-Dave

[Canuck623]

Dave, Thank you for your service to this country. Yes this has turned into a revenue generating web site. Still here but have my hand on the door knob.

[diyfordguy]

I just rejoined myself,(used to be bluebeast on old site) After being busy elsewhere as well Dave, Kind of wish I saw this post before I did. Oh boy already posted some stuff, I guess i will see how it plays out after a couple days. It sure did seem different around here. Both in the number of threads posted and the replies. Is this site not ranking up high in the search providers anymore? Or is it because the "tone" of some posters replies? Well I hardly have time to get online and do the things I have to do. much less help out someone I don't know for free, But I will give it some more time and see how it goes.

[mark v]

This site is up and will stay up. Don't let a few who left, came back, left, and came back keep you from staying. Everyone has the choice to leave and stay.

The forum is still helpful with out these people who left and will continue to be helpful with out them.

From now on when you leave the forum for good just leave, new threads like this will be deleted and the user banned just to make sure they wont come back since that is what they said they were going to do anyway. Why would you need an active account here when you do not intend to come back?

Posts like this are purely meant to disturb the forum and that is exactly what was done.

Now I am locking this thread and if anybody has concerns just PM one of the Moderators.

[pthomson87]

Originally Posted by diyfordguy

Is this site not ranking up high in the search providers anymore? Or is it because the "tone" of some posters replies? Well I hardly have time to get online and do the things I have to do. much less help out someone I don't know for free, But I will give it some more time and see how it goes.

I'll be concentrating my efforts on bringing this forum to the top of google in the coming months just so you know. Thanks