Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General How much would you pay to keep the forums?

FWIW my connection is wireless (similar to satellite). It never goes down. Perhaps we could find something like that.

My random thoughts:

CEG is great - it'd be a shame to see it shut down.

But - in reality, in the internet era one thing remains constant: people feel that information sharing on the internet is a god given right and should be free and probably even protected by the constitution. CNN, edmunds, your local newspaper - none of them can get people to pay. Now the CEG'r group may be different, but I know it'd be a huge risk for one person to count on financial stability based on paid memberships. (Remeber the group buy fiascos).

Now, there are a few notable businesses in here already that do ALOT of there business through CEG, and are already registered LLC's and such. If one of them stood up and bought Lance out, and then went to a banner ad business model, I see a very workable business model. But hey, I never did go to business school.........

Won't continue to add another post saying "I'm in...", as the concensus is that "everyone" is willing to help.

I will, however, try to take this willingness to help one step further... I have called my contacs, to see what they would be willing to do, as far as hosting a site on their T1's, for free... The "request" will be looked into, and i will have an answer, shortly...

Outcome only looks "marginal", but I am trying, and will continue to keep my eyes open.

Here's hoping..

Ray

That actually sounds like a reasonable idea to avoid having Lance put his own financial butt on the line (banner ads or paid memberships/donation drive though an existing LLC). Assuming we cannot find a free T1 (which we were darn lucky to find in the first place).

If I could take on the responsibility (sans LLC), I would. I doubt anyone wants an unemployed guy handling your money. I wouldn't.

I second this....

I agree. And heck if i could get the donations hands down first, I would get my ass in gear to get a connection to my house and do it up. Then go take donations through the rest of the year to pay for the following year.

True Brad. What we need is a plan!

TTT

Agreed.
Agreed.
Agreed.

CEG must live on.

I've learned too much and made some good friends thru CEG.

Edit: In the time I've been using CEG, I've never seen Lance ask CEGers for money. We've used the site for a long time, and it's time to give back!

The CEG's needs are changing as it grows..and now we're at a crossroads in terms of whether or not this site will live on as we know it. Free bandwidth is cool...and free bandwidth is not easy to find. I agree..we were all very lucky to have Matt host this site from his house. How many other people can do that? Not many. Even leeching off a big companies T1, with our traffic, would take a nice chunk out of their throughput. Noticeable or not they'll want money for it. It seems the paid membership thing is becoming our only option, unless we want banner ads like all the other sites. Doesn't matter to me, the content is what counts. This unwillingness to take this step is what gets me. I know the tax situation is very scary, I went through it this year for myself, being "self employed." I was scared to death about tax season, I saved up a bunch of money to prepare for the hit. what happened? I handed my write offs to the accountant, paid him $150, and wrote a check to the IRS - a small one compared to what I earned! It's really nothing to worry about. Just keep receipts and records of costs incurred for running the site, bam you're done. I mean, what else are you going to do? Just let it die?? That's plain absurd. If Lance, understandable, can't afford the time to manage ads/membership book keeping, there's a bunch of people here who can. I think it's safe to say the average person (IE: Lance) can't do it all by themselves...fine, now lets share our ideas and try to help.