Official Luthiers Forum!

I think folks may be tired of responding to Lance's posts above. Bring it into mainstream. I have no idea what the problem is. I ordered stuff off marketplace and never received items. I am about to file a complaint with PayPal. Hate to do that. But Lance does not respond to message requests. We can ich all day long about this, but its probably time to discuss other options. I like the community. Hate to see it go away.

Does anybody know what it costs to host this site?

Mike

Mike,

I have no idea what it costs to host a site like this today but from 1999 through 2015 I ran my own forum dealing with 3D modeling and racing simulators. I was fortunate to have a single sponsor so I didn't have to worry about cost but I did all the Admin and Moderator duties.

I actually don't really care how much it costs Lance to host this forum, he should make money since he provides us with a valuable service. I would like to see some sort of "Goal Post" that would show us in a graph form where the forum is in reaching its financial goals. That would be much better than keep posting messages to bring in more money.


Changes I would like to see are:

1. We need an Admin/Moderator that can handle the day to day stuff that a forum requires. Someone we can actually get help from (such as the Classified Access or PM issues ect.).

2. Open classified section that we all can get in. Instead of the user paying for one month access, why not have the sellers give the forum a percentage of what they make when their sale goes through? My guess is that would generate more money than just ignoring anyone that wants to pay to get in (that seems to generate $0.00)


I don't think it would take too much to make it happen, and it would give us a clear idea of who we need to talk to about issues here.


Thats just my 2 cents...


Cheers,
Bob

I'm going to say the following things in the least judgmental way possible, and I say these things as someone who appreciates the OLF and financially supports it through Patreon:

Lance is not good at responding to any sort of communication that most of us on the OLF have access to. Does somebody somewhere have different ways of reaching him when they really need to reach him? Probably. But those of us who merely participate in the OLF do not have access to that.

Lance does not post on the OLF regarding suggestions that people make about how he should run the OLF.

The only operational change that has happened in recent times is that Lance recently moved the OLF to a different server platform. Before that, we had a massive blackout from late August until mid-September.

The only messages I see from Lance are when he wants money to help fund the operation of the OLF.

So, there are probably very good and reasonable suggestions that you, and others, can make, but I would not expect to get any sort of response from Lance. Historically, that has simply not happened.

William Faulkner said: “You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” I appreciate, and help pay for, the OLF, despite what I outline above.

I like the way sawmillcreek does things. Good moderators, cheap access to classifieds. Very little turmoil. They do have a musical instruments forum... and folks from here contribute. But the diversification is not there. Lets see if Lance chimes in soon.

Don't hold your breath. Lance has ripped off multiple forum members and doesn't give a poop. No response to emails over the years and crappy customer service. He's almost as bad as Stewmac. The sooner someone starts a new forum the better. This forum has been dead for years anyways. FB has taken over some of the forum traffic. FB is not nearly as good as what this forum used to be.

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The very first forum I was ever on for guitar building, over 20 years ago.
I put a post up to thank the admin for all the work, time and expense he'd put into the forum.
After a couple days, he took the post down.
I put it back up. "tell XXXXX what a great guy he is, give him a thanks"
He took it back down. Then sent a PM.
He took it down because no one said a word. Zero thanks.
He was embarrassed and hurt. But he kept the forum going anyway. Just asked that I stop asking people to help.

This post gets to the heart of that.

Lots of people come here for help and information.
But how many of them show gratitude to the people who organize this thing?

If I was Lance, I'd probably ignore emails too.

It's a wonder he keeps this place alive.

But it would be a shame if the 26,000 current posts, and countless archived ones, just vanished.

I'd be sad for sure.

I am able to host two phpbb for about $40 a month. That includes the server and sitelock security.

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