Has everyone moved over to Facebook?

I think I know what caribou means... was it Angelique East? I think she started it but then TTH got on the bandwagon at some point.

Yeah, not sure of chronology (who started what) but I found this:

http://able2know.org/topic/104785-2#post-2895382

Anyway, I too find that Facebook and A2K serve different purposes. I'm on both, but the sum of the time I spend on both is still less than I used to spend on just A2K. Just on the computer less in general these days.

AE's definitely the one I think of in this context - esp. based on some p.m.'s I got from her a few years ago.

mmm yeah A2k v FB

different functions for me. FB's more about real-life events/scheduling + games; A2k's more for reading and word games.

I've never said it's charity at all. It's more like my favorite hobby, that I derive enough enjoyment out of that I don't care that it makes little business sense. So I've said it's not a very profitable venture, and this is true. Forums are hard to monetize, they get huge amounts of activity from people who are used to the site, and who ignore the ads. This adds a larger infrastructure cost because of all the write activity (as in posting new content, if it were just serving static content it would be much cheaper).

For example, this kind of site requires powerful dedicated servers, with lots of RAM. The kind of servers that run over $500/month. I can serve the same amount of traffic for $5/month if the site isn't dynamic.

Then there's the fact that this site isn't about a profitable niche. Topics like politics and philosophy aren't going to make you any money. So this site gets under a $1 c.p.m (that's one dollar per 1000 visits) in advertising. Right now, with the ad market in a slump it's under .50 cents. So we are clearing less than $100/month after infrastructure costs. At that kind of rate supporting ourselves on this site just isn't in the cards.

We have other sites that do not represent much cost at all, that get over $30 c.p.m. So with a fraction of the traffic that a2k gets (and none of the headaches since they aren't interactive) they make much much more money.

And that's just counting the ads, those other sites primarily make their money through a B2B (business to business) model. That's why those are our meal tickets while this is our entertainment.

The bottom line is that a site like this isn't a great way to make money, but it's what we want to do. It's not charity, it's just that the other stuff is boring to us in comparison.

So we have our business include the other stuff so that it can pay for letting us work on the stuff we want to work on. It certainly isn't charity, it's my dream job. I do this in my spare time because I enjoy it, and founded a company to find a way to make it something I could do for a living.



I am being honest. You don't know anything about what I do, but are willing to make stuff up and claim it's right and what I say is wrong.

the way I read your promotion was that you were using a2k programing in part to demonstrate your superior search engine optimization skills, amongst other things, in the attempt to sell your for profit business. It seems to be a promotional expense, covering the small out of pocket expense with the small add rev is largely besides the point. The cost is primarily in time, and the projected rev from it is generated outside of a2k.org.

are you TTH's husband?

cuz that would explain a hella lot...

I've said very clearly that there were other problems. I've spoken to this at length with the community starting years before you ever joined.

It goes like this: I grew up being made to ask for donations as a kid. I am a proud person and don't like donations. I've made my way without a single bit of help from any government, parent or individual and I would have it no other way. It's the old pride about taking charity thing.

A2k almost went under once, I lost my job at a time when I was living on a couch making minimum wage, and the site's revenue stream was also cut. I couldn't pay the server bills and the site was going to go offline within a week if I didn't accept donations. So I did, and the community helped save the site.

However this came at a cost for me, and my pride. When people had disputes with me they'd sometimes throw it back in my face. If they didn't like the site anymore they might complain about the $10 they donated. Some thought it would entitle them to special treatment.

That's why this site doesn't do the donations route that supports so many forums. I don't want people pulling that kind of stuff on me in exchange for $10 bucks. It's easier for me to just work harder on other stuff and make more money to not have to deal with it.

When the old software was falling apart, and needed more RAM to run its inefficient code I was not willing to spend the money on more RAM. The site was costing me a negative $500/month and I was working on code that would eliminate the inefficient software. Plus I was in an a2k slump and not really using the site much myself, I just wasn't willing to fork over more per month to keep the site running more smoothly (I had over $20,000 on my credit card debt that was mostly from a2k bills at the time).

The members complained enough about RAM that I put it to them in a simple question: do you want to pay for it? They said yes and I put up the donation link again, against my better judgment.

TTH started asking if people trusted me not to be running off with their money, and began making wild accusations about another project I run (xfamily.org) that survives on donations. At around the same time someone complained to paypal about that site's content and the donations, and we were no longer able to collect donations to support the other site.

I reaccessed the situation, realized that all that headache came without even being able to pay one month of the new RAM that I ordered and I quietly took down the link. Nobody noticed, and that was fine with me.

I am not doing it again unless the site will go offline without doing so. TTH was just the last straw, but the fundamental reason is that it isn't worth the headache to me. I could afford the cost at the time, so I did, and then I founded a business that combines other more profitable ventures that can better pay the bills for a2k infrastructure and development.

Thank you, Soz, that was exactly what I was thinking of.

A match made in hell....

The fact that you even feel the need to acknowledge this **** is unfortunate, but I understand why it's so.

"Don't hit the door on your way out" is the easy comeback but that will only bring on more bs from those like hawk who have no idea of the history with TTH. Next it would be some other goofball who had no idea of the history with either of them.

Keep your chin up. The Hawks and TTHs of the world are simply reinforcing the 80-20 (or 99-1) rule.

You must mean either able2know.net or horiztontalverticals.com. In the entire history of a2k I've made less than $1000 on either. And it wasn't because of showing off a2k, that is just there to fill the content on those sites because portfolios are expected if you claim you can do anything.

The clients I got were members on a2k, Squinney, and a few others (a couple of people came from the free phpbb code I published here, and asked for installation of the code for $50). Most of them came because I answered their questions well enough that they thought I was competent or because I distributed free code on a2k that millions have downloaded. But I realized I was working for less than a dollar an hour because I was maintaining a host for very few clients. I lacked the scale to make it profitable and when I started getting 5 a.m. calls from guys in Germany I realized that a handful of clients at $10/month of hosting isn't worth it. I helped each onto separate hosts and don't do that kind of work anymore (ask BPB, he asked me recently for this kind of thing).

I did put up the information on horiztontalverticals, because in the last year I've lost over 70% of my revenue and needed to keep the doors open but I've never been even contacted there, and the jobs would have to be significant to be worth working on. It's one of the business names we operate under, and I needed something talking about what we do. The clients we currently have do not come from there. We pay for advertisements (Google Adwords) in the verticals we specialize in, and route them to sites specifically about the B2B services we provide. HV is just our generic name, and needed generic information about our abilities.

It's very misleading to portray it as making me money. I even put observationalism up on the site because I made it in a day and had nothing else to say, and can't list some of my other projects there for various reasons (business stealth etc). Putting a2k there also has a bit to do with promoting a2k, as my promotional efforts are the only advertising we have.



Why are you willing to make this stuff up hawkeye? If you go to able2know.net, which used to be my consulting front you'll note the contact form is disabled. It has been for years. I lost tons of sleep and made no money worth speaking of off of that.

Doing one-off sites for others isn't fun for me, I get paid once and don't get to grow the sites and cultivate them. I'd much rather work on our own sites than be paid poorly to work on someone else's.

On horiztontalverticals we have had not a single client come through. That just isn't our business model. It's there and ready if we need to rely on it, but that's pretty much it. We are still living off stuff that predates that site and that came from other projects I work on (I am active in the health care employment fields).

Oh, I forgot, we have had one recent client from a2k (a long time a2k member), but it is on hold and we haven't started there yet. It's also something we will take because we need the money right now, but isn't something we'll be willing to do once our own projects are doing well enough.

So in short, in the entire history of a2k I've made less from side consulting gigs that came from a2k that a2k costs in two months.

Any other things you want to make up about me hawkeye? The truth really is that I get a lot of technical satisfaction out of working on a2k, it's the most special hobby I've had. It's not something noble or charitable, it's a geeky hobby thing. I don't get why you insist on reading financial motivation into it when geeky is just as plausible.

is it true you shot a man in reno, just to watch him die?

This, is actually true. But it was because I thought he was a bear.

You are right, as sozobe notes, about someone else starting the cult thing. But TTH also started questioning whether I was trustworthy enough to provide donations to. She explained that it was because she wanted to donate, and I quickly made sure that couldn't happen.

I've got enough problems without accepting donations from people who attack me in strange ways, and I don't want them being able to buy another way to do so.

Yes, but it was in Alaska that you killed the bear, I seem to remember..

it is true that facebook takes away much of my online time now and i come back here sporadically, mostly to check on people. but that has more to do with the growth of fb rather than with some decline of a2k. i've never been anonymous, neither here nor on fb, luckily i have no need to be. so i like the real life connections there on fb. but if i want or need to talk about something at any length, i come here. and always see most of the old faces lurking around here. don't know about the state of newbie recruitment, but i don't have any sense of a weakening community here.

That's great news. I'm glad to hear it.

well, I don't know but I've been told Craven is a honcho with the Puerto Rican drug cartel and uses a2k to operate his drug network using code words and operatives such as Letty and DLowan . Word has it he has made millions $$$ and he shot a man in Reno just to see him die. That's what I heard.

Um, it was a bear, in Alaska is what I heard.

you herd sheep.