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Originally Posted by Rich Z
Really? Interesting....... I highlighted some of the more interesting statements in the above quotes, btw.
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There's nothing really "interesting" about those statements.
Just facts and opinions.
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OK, so now that you guys have laid out your "facts", let me add another one.
The above is a copy of a correspondence that I received from one of the sponsor/advertisers here. I removed references to his name as I do not want to drag him into the middle of this. I also made it more readable than the original PM format shows. But in my opinion I do believe that this puts a lot of this into proper perspective now.
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So if you're going to post a PM, why not post the host as well?
I already know who it is.
He was actually someone I suggested contacting if/when we decided to set something up.
Why?
Because when I spoke with him at the
HOOTERS SHOW ON GANDY, he was talking about wanting to get more involvement in the show from the local "muscle car" and "hot rodder crowd.
Since I know a lot of these folks, and am
setting this up primarily for THEM, I thought, what better place for him to place some more
free advertising?
This would be
in addition to his advertising here.
He could gain additional exposure to those who might need tuning in or near the Tampa area as well as maybe gain the attention of those he was looking to attract.
Nothing here would change!
I'm not sure why he felt the need to run to you with the information?
But that's his perogative.
I do apologize for trying to help a "brother" out.
I can assure you, it won't happen again!
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If anyone is willing and able to put 2 and 2 together, then please do so. Those who are unwilling or unable to do so, well, that sort of leaves you still in the dark I guess. Sorry about that, but the picture is here, in my opinion, if you care to look.
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I'm sorry rich, but in this case, your 2+2 = 0
(I'll get more into that in a moment.)
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Seriously guys, I don't care what you do, but I believe HOW you are doing it is really not all that "friendly" now is it? As I have mentioned, I have watched this sort of dance before
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Sure you care Rich, or you wouldn't be going to such extremes in an attempt to discredit me (or Bob).
Actually Rich,
you've DANCED this dance before
It'll be more evident when you read the final part of my post.
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and the dropped hints that were thought to be inside jokes at my expense really weren't as "inside" as you thought.
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I really have no idea what you're talking about.
You know me well enough (or maybe you don't?) to know that I'm pretty straight forward.
You claim to "call a spade a spade."
I simply call it a f**king shovel!
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I knew what was going on, just needed some confirmation. Did you really think that I was too stupid to know what you were up to and referring to with your innuendos?
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You really have no idea!
You're so far off in left field, it's not funny.
You only "know" what you think you know, and believe what your suspicions allow you to believe.
Those suspicions are running off good people
Once again, there were no "innuendos" on my part.
If I had something to say, I'd have said it!
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Yeah, I know, I was just being paranoid and too sensitive to remarks made........ 
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That's the first step toward recovery.
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Good luck with your new site, fellas. But please keep in mind that I am under no obligation to help you in any way or allow you the use of this site in that manner.
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""fellas?"
Not that you're going to believe anything anyone else tells you, but for the record:
1) As I've stated in a previous post,
NOTHING had been started" prior to your taking action against me, then accusing me of some sort of "rogue mod", terroristic acts nonsense!
At that point, the "family feeling" that was once here, vanished for me
If it were not for my friends here, and my interest in the Corvette, I'd have left then.
2) I don't control Bob!
I didn't tell him or anyone else to contact anyone, PERIOD!
I'm not sure why I'm even bothering to tell you this, but, there was a brief conversation about starting up a "
General Muscle Car" site aimed at the Florida based owner and enthusiast.
When I found out that Phil had been contacted, I told Bob that I'd talk with PPhil at the next Hooters show. Again, this was to assist him in promoting his show, as well as help us get the site off the ground, and not "steal" him from your site.
3) This was
NEVER supposed to be a commercial venture, and it was NEVER considered to be a replacement for nor competition to, this site.
4) It's a place to hang out.
A lot of my friends have Street rods, customs, other make/model muscle cars, and I thought, WTF?
Why not open up a board for them?
And with a grandaughter in the house, it's likely my next muscle car will have 4 seats.
Unless the vette changes drastically, it probably won't fit the bill.
The new (and old) Mustangs are sweet, as are the 70's model Camaros.
The new 'Stang are easy to make handle and perform (in thier own right).
The older Camaros and Mustangs, Mopars and such can go either way.
Old school, ugly, gas eatin', fire breathing 4 MPG'ers, or out in some late model running gear and suspension and go have some fun
Since it won't be a daily driver, a lot of what we look for in the Vette, won't really matter.
Hell, several people here have both a corvette and another muscle car, hot rod, truck or other American vehicle.
5)
I liked the concept of a regional forum or board, following your lead.
I guess the whole "immitation is the best form of flattery" thing was lost on you, huh?
And I like the idea that as some of us have actually done recently and in the past, we can get together on occasion, have dinner, hang out, talk about cars, work on cars or WTF ever?
The next thing I know, Bob's getting back to me with a link to a new site.
I'm like damn dude! I don't have time for this right now, I'll look at it later!
I knew I wanted something that was easy to remember, easy to say, and relatively easy to type.
I wanted it Domestic only, regional to Florida, and open to anyone that had an interest
[b]Most of all, I wanted to avoid any indication that I was out to "compete" this site!
FYI- I know crap about running a website. But if you did it, I'll bet I can learn
And the only thing that had anything to do with you or this site, is that had you not gone completely off the deep end with your suspicions and allegations, accusing me (in an offhanded fashion) of trying to destry the site
the impetus for the other board may still have been in the background.
I would like to thank Phil (Tampa Tuning) also.
Had he not mentioned that he wanted to attract more of a variety of muscle cars and rods to the show, the thought may have never entered my mind.
So, thanks to both of you for the motivation
All that other crap you were rattling off that a "rogue mod" might do, is just so much bunk and as I said before, has never crossed my mind.
Most of what you were worried about, to me seems so aggregious that I simply would never consider it. Maybe it's the "cop" left in me?
Another point:
The new site was never mentioned to you (or anyone else other than 2 people) because:
1) It's none of your business (I knew how you'd react)
2) It's NOT YET PUBLIC
When it was time, I'd release it.
Bob's involvement in the new site was not a planned event. It was mentioned in passing and the next thing I know, shazam! there it was
So there you have it. The not so short story of the new domestic muscle car site here in Florida.
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And a friendly word of advice. Do NOT give me even the slightest excuse to ban the both of you. I hope I don't need to explain that... Most other admins would have banned you LONG ago for a whole lot less.
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Why the threat?
You of all people should under stand that (refer to the PM).
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And any belittlement either actual or implied towards me or this site from either of you will get deleted along with you being escorted out the door.
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You've mentioned before how "I" needed clarification and definitions?
well, before you go getting all "glass house" on me for something I haven't done, you might want to do a little reading of your own:
Since it's now apparently ok to share
Private Messages with the rest of the world, here's a little PM
you sent me back when:
I haven't changed a thing but have taken the liberty to underline the pertinent segments
I know you told me a while back that DigitalCorvettes would likely allow me to reopen my account with them, so I sent them off an email last night.
Here's the response I got..
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----- Original Message -----
From: "sitesupport" <sitesupport@digitalcorvettes.com>
To: "Rich Z" <rich@corvetteflorida.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: I'm confused....
> If you're confused about the difference between 'soliciting' and
> 'involving others', nothing I'll say will clear your vision.
>
> Clubs can become active within DC, but it's simply not for channeling
> advertisement to their site.
>
> We take disabling an account serious; I can assure you that we won't
> change our minds on a decision you made.
>
> Rich Z wrote:
>> A long while back I was banned from your site, I assume because you
>> considered my CorvetteFlorida.com website as being a threat to yours
>> somehow. My site is focused on Florida Corvette owners and a pretty
>> narrow focus at that. Yet you have a section on DigitalCorvettes
>> where you actively solicit input and info from and about regional and
>> local clubs, many with their own websites.
>>
>> So I'm trying to reconcile the conflict here and having difficulty.>>
>> If you still insist on keeping my login of "Rich Z" banned, well
>> that's up to you. But seems rather ridiculous if you ask me.... The
>> Hotel California approach has never really worked all that well on the
>> Internet.
>>
>> Rich Zuchowski
>> rich@CorvetteFlorida.com
>> http://www.CorvetteFlorida.com
>>
>>
I still think they are pricks........... __________________
‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’
Pricks? Why?
For banning you for mining thier members?
You think it's ok to ask someone to come over here, yet it's taboo for me or anyone else to inviote someone to anther site?
Heck! We even allow links to other sites here.
And please let me point out that in the above letter, there seems to be some confusion over the term "soliciting."
I guess you called it "involving?"
Isn't that exactly what we were doing with Phil?
Trying to "involve him" and his business so he can build it?
I don't know nor do I care, if he's a paid sponsor or not. He wouldn't be on the other site. Id just be another way for him to get exposure and get his name out there.
Yet you now take a dim view of the action
There also seems to be some confusion between the definition of a "club" and a "website?"
As a computer person, I'd have thought at would be exceedingly clear to you?
Of course, maybe it was the last paragraph that did you in?
Coming off like that, I can't say I blame them for thier decision.
It's as though you're "telling" them what they should do.
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Originally Posted by Rich Z
Except in very rare instances, there isn't. Gross income from this site over it's entire lifetime is probably well under $3,000. Nearly all of that in the first year I offered paid memberships. Obviously that has died WAY back, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. After expenses and if I paid myself even minimum wage for the hours put into it I might be able to squeeze a happy meal out of the profits.
If you create a new message board site competing with one or more already well established ones in the same field of interest, unless you have a unique attraction to draw members into the site, or throw a LOT of money into advertising, your chances of surviving as a money making business are very, very slim.
Some owners of brand new websites will sometimes try to take shortcuts to try to gain the momentum needed to get their site going. |
Thus the reason I'm going to just let this one go slowly.
Slow steady growth is a good thing in my book.
Since I'm not looking at it commercially, it really doesn't matter.
Hopefully we're broad based enough to generate some activity.
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Along those lines, I have had some interesting discussions with people who ran gecko message board sites (reptile stuff) and I was astonished at the things people would do to try to destroy their competition to get that leg up they need. Believe me I paid attention and learned a LOT from people who actually engage in that sort of thing. One of the primary tools is to try to make the membership disgruntled with the management of their target. Constantly nipping at the heels of the moderators and admin till they got themselves banned, and afterwards either their partners or themselves in fake registrations would try to raise a ruckus about freedom of speech and the heavy handed tactics of the management there is a very popular tactic.
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I see we're back here again?
You may recall one Pewter99 who did just that.
He was a mod here for a brief time, came over from brand X (Corvette Forum).
Started bitching right off the bat about the "lack of moderation" on the site and the laid back attitude.
I guess it wasn't his cup o' tea.
He left then came back with several screen names and tried to start dissention.
I took care of that problem for you.
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Somehow the "fact" that a new site out there has much better management will wind up in those conversations. Someone very good at this sort of tactic can be VERY effective and hard to counter. If the management simply bans all of those rabble rousers, how would it look? If they were left to continue with the sniping, then management looks like it is ineffective and lacks the will to control it's own site. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. But realistically grabbing the nettle and tugging hard is really the only solution.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of this going on. I'm sure the bigger Corvette sites have had their share of this sort of thing, as nearly every other interest field I have been into seems to suffer from it. I have been on gun sites that you could tell got beat up terrible in webwars of this nature. There was one site that completely closed down because of it when the admin got fed up and just walked away. We're talking about a site that had MILLIONS of posts and over 100K registered members.
So obviously I keep a wary eye out on all my sites with this all in mind. I am not nearly that naive to believe I am immune to this sort of thing. But I do tend to give people a lot more rope than a lot of other admins will do in cases like this.
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That's usually the way it is.
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The days of someone simply setting up a message board site and people flocking to it are simply over with. Message boards are a dime a dozen these days and anyone can set one up virtually overnight. Getting TRAFFIC is the problem, and also the key to surviving. Most will fail, simply because of the extremely tough hurdle of traffic NEEDS traffic to get established.
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Nothing ventured nothing gained
A long as I'm not spending inordinate amounts of $$ and not taking food off my friends tables, what can it hurt?
You've said it yourself. The internet is a big place.
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This is an extremely tough nut to crack. Honestly, if this site had been set up as a business, it would already be considered a failure. But that is not my goal. Some people believe they could make it so, and have wanted me to make it that way, but I declined, knowing the odds of success were too slim to make the effort and shatter the already slim margin of survival that exists. Why set a target that you know you will likely never hit?
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While it's true there are many things you could probably have done differently, they were not in the plan you had for the site.
Your site and say Corvetteforum or Digital Corvettes, are in totally different worlds.
Both of those are commercial and depend on traffic to get and keep thier sponsors.
Here, sponsorship is free and you can advertise at will.
It's a great thing you're doing, especially for a start up business, but with the limited viewer base and traffic (not a slam, just a fact), it gives no incentive to a business to pay for advertising space here.
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I guess some people are just way more ambitious than I am and believe they know a whole lot more about this sort of thing than I do. Well good luck to you in that endeavor. I hope this all proves worthwhile to you.
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Based on the tone of that comment, I'll assume (I hate assuming) that this was aimed at me?
If not, I apologize.
If so, I don't claim to know what you know.
I do however, know that I'm intelligent enough to learn.
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As for everything going on, I do apologize that this all is being aired publicly. I think it would have been difficult to do this privately without bringing up a lot more questions and confusion, all things considered. Plus my hand was really being forced, and I had really hoped my suspicions, although pretty strong, were entirely unfounded.
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And once again appears that your "suspicions" are unfounded and are no cause for concern.
And no, this didn't have to be aired in public. You chose to place it there.
Why attempt to make it appear that you had no choice?
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This site will still be here with or without certain persons.
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You nkow something Rich?
This is the kind of thing that hurts the most.
For whatever reason, you suddenly turned on those that have tried to help you?
"certain persons?"
Hell Richard, you even have my phone number.
But to refer to me as "certain persons?" Jeez!
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As has been mentioned, the internet is big enough for a lot of sites. I imagine traffic here will take a nosedive for a while, but that's OK. I'm not counting on income from this site, so that really has no effect on my bottom line nor the driving force for me to have this site here. I got rid of my secondary server and found pretty good quality hosting for a very reasonable price, so things are working out just fine in that department. Costs here are minimal, all things considered.
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Hopefully, your fears will not be substantiated.
I'd like to see the 2 sites do some things together.
There's enough "my this" and "my that" to go around
If the performance community doesn't start focuing more on unity, we're not going to have one.
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Things will get better......
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That's what everyone is banking on
Oh, and BTW-jsut to prove my point that I have tried to assist growth in this forum at my own risk.
Here's another PM you and I shared some time back:
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12-08-2008, 04:59 PM
Rich Z
Janitor
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Crawfordville, FL
Posts: 8,420
Name : Rich Zuchowski
Smokinvettes?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon,
Had some guy call me today asking if my handle is "pirate" on their site. I told him that I was not. He also mentioned "Shadow", so I assume that is you over there. Then he started ragging on me about how much they pay for advertising and didn't appreciate my sending my members over to HIS site to solicit HIS members.
WTF is it with these clowns who want to run their sites Hotel California style? They don't OWN the people who come there. I was rather preoccupied packing up an order to go out today or I would have verbally kicked him in the nuts.
Not very PC, but I don't know who that guy thinks he is.
Does everyone think they can set up a website and then become a millionaire off of it if they can only herd everyone there and then lock the exit gate shut? It's the internet, for Christ sake. People can go whereever they want by just using google and the click of a mouse button.
Anyway, I told him that was between him and whoever was coming to his site. I think I have only been there once myself, and couldn't find any reason to go back. But I guess he will try to contact you.
Just a fyi.......
Rich Z.
__________________
‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’
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Yeah, that was me "inviting" some Florida members over to check out the site.
You wern't too upset about that were you?
FWIW- I've had this sites sig on several sites I've been on with absolutely not repercussions.
Others, such as CF and DC, I know better.
As for your threat to delete and ban.....Again, I'm not at all sure why you feel the need to trheaten any of us with banning for speaking our mind professionally, supported by evidence.?
Threatening to delete anything that you disagree with (under the guise of dissention) just doesn't seem like the thing to do?
You could have picked up the telephone at any time and called me. We could have hashed out whatever we needed to has out then and there.
You've chosen to post minimal statements as "fact" that something sinister was in the works.
Unfortunately, they don't support the truth.
I can't see why we shouldn't be allowed to counter those "facts" with a few of my own, should be allowed.
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Peace, "my friends" and " my brothers"....... 
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I'm truly sorry that I had to bring that other stuff out, but you left me no choice
My only hope is now that all the cards are on the table, you'll either realize that I'm not "out to get you" and that we can put this behind us and go back to enjoying the site as it was meant to be enjoyed?
) will know the truth, and maybe, just maybe all the innuendo, supposition and cryptic commentary can cease and we can go back to being the somewhat dysfunctional family we've always been?
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