what's going on here ??

[knight0334]

Originally Posted by danp

A few times we've had to disable guest access to the forum temporarily to reduce server load. We also found a chunk of code that was causing excess load and disabled it. We are looking in to alternate hosting but if we go that route it will probably cost us thousands of dollars in initial setup and hundreds of dollars a month.

I sure you're hesitant about having advertising... But with as much traffic as this site gets - a strategically placed ad spot/banner is a good idea. ...so long as its themed accordingly to the site(defensive gear, pro-gun sites, gun/ammo makers/sellers, pro-gun lawyers, etc).

1/2 well placed banner(s) wouldn't clutter up our page and would help pay the bills. ..maybe even build up some for agenda related things.

[Bmarshall91]

i agree with knight... or maybe put banner ads up on non members pages... kinda like what my car forum does.. if you're not logged in, you have banner ads on your page... www.srtforums.com

[pete334]

That is a good idea.

[str8shooter]

I've never been booted off, but once in a while I try to login and get a message saying the site is down because the admins are playing with themselves, or something like that.

hey, I just got booted off

[danp]

Originally Posted by knight0334

I sure you're hesitant about having advertising... But with as much traffic as this site gets - a strategically placed ad spot/banner is a good idea. ...so long as its themed accordingly to the site(defensive gear, pro-gun sites, gun/ammo makers/sellers, pro-gun lawyers, etc).

1/2 well placed banner(s) wouldn't clutter up our page and would help pay the bills. ..maybe even build up some for agenda related things.

In short, this doesn't work. We have yet to find an advertising network that will allow advertisers to buy firearm-related advertising. Google won't even allow us to run ads. AdBrite let us run ads but wouldn't let any gun shops actually buy gun-related ads.

Short of selling advertising directly (something we simply do not have the time to do as of yet) advertising just isn't an option, I wish it was.

[P-11 shooter]

Originally Posted by danp

In short, this doesn't work. We have yet to find an advertising network that will allow advertisers to buy firearm-related advertising. Google won't even allow us to run ads. AdBrite let us run ads but wouldn't let any gun shops actually buy gun-related ads.

Short of selling advertising directly (something we simply do not have the time to do as of yet) advertising just isn't an option, I wish it was.

I was wondering why the adds were taken down.

Hopefully we can find a good solution to our growing pains.

[eells]

if its run on a private server, why dont we just get some generic ads from whoever for a little while, or get everybody to chip in, and upgrade the server? like 00gt1 said, if we all chip in 5 bucks or whatever, im sure we could get a server upgrade or whatever needs to be done

also, i think non members should be denied access before blocking members, so regulars here dont get kicked out

[str8shooter]

Originally Posted by eells

if its run on a private server, why dont we just get some generic ads from whoever for a little while, or get everybody to chip in, and upgrade the server? like 00gt1 said, if we all chip in 5 bucks or whatever, im sure we could get a server upgrade or whatever needs to be done

also, i think non members should be denied access before blocking members, so regulars here dont get kicked out

Just in case you haven't noticed a lot of members have "supporting member" under their names. There's a reason for that. ...just sayin'...

[eells]

ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh... i was wondering about that.

[danp]

It's going to become easier to support PAFOA directly in the near future.

I've also found out that one major online gun/accessories retailer now has an affiliate program (if people use our links to buy stuff from them we'd get a 5% commission, etc)

We'll see what happens, I have a lot of work to do.