The True Crime Weblog Message Board

I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't paid a damn thing since I've been here and nobody has asked me for anything (which is a damn good thing since I was born ravishing instead of loaded) There is a way to turn off all the adverts anyone may be seeing on here (can't remember who told me how to do it but I think it was Michael). Nobody ever asked me for any money here or over on Haloscan either.

I don't know what the hell has happened here or why it matters if Fast Pete wanted to make a board as long as he asks people before using anything they might have worked on or contributed. If wanting justice for Meredith Kercher and her family has come down to some kind of contest, that is nearly as disgusting as pro-suspect sites being the first thing anyone comes across when they google Meredith's name.

Divide and conquer; that technique has a strange way of working almost every damn time.


~~~I edit this to say that I have no damn idea how this got made into a new topic instead of added to the *Main Discussion* where I meant to post it.~~~~

Hi Corinna,
It was Michael who explained how to turn off the ads. On my screen, there have been ads from the start, usually at the top and bottom of the page. Now they seem to be more obtrusive. I haven't paid or made a dime either and find the whole idea pretty repugnant.
You could copy and paste your post onto the main thread if you want. Or just leave it here, since the main thread is struggling to stay focused on the story. Your call.

Thanks, Skep. I'll stay here in the doghouse and scratch some fleas! I had to get rid of the adverts as they were causing the old dial-up to take even longer than usual to load.

Sorry I got snippy but I can't see any reason for the gang-up on the moderators/administrators, particularly when I can't see what either you or Michael get out of these *titles* except a whole lot of headaches.

Hell, I can't even be played like a pitbull in a basement now that vile Alaskan insulted the already tainted name of pit bulls everywhere...

[font=Comic Sans MS]Hi Corrina,

Thank you for being so supportive, it's very much appreciated. To be quite honest with you, I'm as bemused as you are. It's actually nice you have this little thread here, as it means I can post without detracting from the main thread any more then it has been already and that's a shame, as no few of our core members have been working so hard round the clock to try and keep the discussion case orientated...what it 'should' be about, about Meredith.

For anyone interested in Freeforums revenue aspects: -

I'll try and explain a little about the adverts and money thing. I know Fast Pete's already covered some of it. Our forum here, although 'owned' by Steve Huff, is 'free', that includes both the software and the hosting. Freeforums.org (the company that hosts us) make money in two ways. The first is by the advertising you see around you, both by carrying it and from user clicks on them (they are nothing to do with 'us').

The second is by encouraging owners of free boards to upgrade to paid for ones...which in exchange for what you pay you get to be able to have 'personal email contact' with someone in the technical department at freeforums in case things go wrong, your own domain name, a certain amount of online GB storage space on your forum (for files and whatknot), extra bandwidth, plus the choice of not having adverts on the site, or, keeping the ads but getting a 'share' of the revenue they bring in in return. Admins also get FTP access to their forums. There's a few other little incentives too. It's called 'The Advanced Hosting Package'. You can read all about it here:

http://www.freeforums.org/advanced.php

We are a free board, so we have no say whether we have adverts or not, what kind of adverts they are, nor does Steve Huff, the Mods or the group receive so much as a penny in revenue from them.

The other thing to do with money concerning the forums, something you may have noticed, is the 'Community Chest'. This is right at the bottom of the forums page. Free Forums have a choice in that they don't have to go all out and buy the whole upgrade package, rather, they can buy little individual mods from it. For example, we could pay $15 or $20 (I forget exactly what it is now) a year to to get rid of the 'freeforums.org' from our group name/addy, whereby instead we'd be truecrimeweblog.org rather then truecrimeweblog.freeforums.org. Another $5 will get the 'PHPBB2' logo removed off the top of your group each year. There are other little things like that.

Really, those kind of things, whilst nice to have, are more important for forums with a commercial focus. The community chest is a place where members of a forum, via methods such as Paypal can donate $1 each or something like that if they wish and the site owner/Admin can then use what is in the community chest to buy little mods like I mentioned, for the group. It's basically a little group piggy bank. Money paid into it cannot be taken out by the owner and spent on something else unrelated to the group, it can only be used for paid for mods/upgrades. Some forums will even use it to 'save up' to purchase the big package, 'The Advanced Hosting Package'. On some groups, owners/Admins will make appeals to the membership for donations, we don't. Ours is empty and as far as I'm aware, nobody has ever put a cent into it. Neither have we ever even suggested anyone should or might and I only mention it now so as to explain the various Freeforums.org revenue aspects.

That's the sum total, more or less, in regard to money and freeforums. But, none of that applies to us as we are free and have not upgraded to a paid for forum and neither have we bought any Mods. We are awaiting a forum upgrade from PHPBB2 to PHPBB3, but that's a software upgrade and that's free, simply because, with the release of PHPBB3, PHPBB2 is no longer supported by the company who wrote the software and all forums, free or paid for get that.

I can confirm that neither Skep nor I have received a penny for either moderating or posting here, nor have we asked for one from anyone either for ourselves, or for the forum. The same can be said for Steve Huff

That's probably T.M.I for most people, but I wanted to ensure I was thorough and clear for anyone who was interested in the ins and outs of the freeforums revenue aspects.

Further information can be found here:

http://www.freeforums.org/about.php

here:

http://www.freeforums.org/

and here:

http://www.freeforums.org/features.php

Here is our (free) upgrade history:

http://forum.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=2567

Incidentally, the non-active emergency back-up forum I created for the TC board is also freeforums, also PHPBB2 (in queue for 'free' upgrade to PHPBB3), also is a 'free' forum (meaning I don't take a penny from it and have never done so, although I put a lot of 'love' into making it) and just to reasure readers nothing is being hidden, it can be viewed here:

http://perugiamurderfile.freeforums.org/index.php

It's purpose and the reasons for its creation can be read here (scroll down within the post):

http://truecrimeweblog.freeforums.org/p ... .html#6777[/font]