Forum Boss
Administrator
Big News -- We have reached 55,000 Forum members
(55,005 to be exact as of 8:00 am PST).
This represents significant growth. In fact, the Forum is growing faster than ever. We are now seeing 30-40 new members every day. That rate of daily growth is about 30% more than just a year ago.
We had almost exactly 30,000 members five years ago, so the Forum has grown 83% in the past five years, with an accelerating rate of growth.
Marking this milestone, I especially want to thank all the Gold and Silver members.
Guys -- your support is essential and much appreciated.
I encourage basic members who visit the Forum often to consider supporting the site. A Silver membership is just $25, which works out to just $2.08 per month -- about the price of a cup of coffee.
And, if you read our Deals of the Week, posted every Monday, you an easily save enough on ONE transaction to pay for a Silver or Gold membership. Here's an example from 1/11/2021 -- Save $139 on a Long Range Target Cam System.
Background checks
To help protect our current membership, we run basic background checks on ALL new signups, to confirm location and identity (where possible). This has definitely reduced the number of scammers who are getting through. But the task is time-consuming. I am currently spending about 30-40 hours a month running these checks. That's on top of all the other duties. So please understand that the workload is ever-increasing. I worked on the site all but four days in 2020, and haven't taken a day off since early June 2020.
Forum Threads and Moderation
The time required to moderate posts and threads is increasing also. This comes from the greater Forum activity, but I think the political situation and the Pandemic has something to do with it. People are stressed, worried, and a little stir-crazy. All I can suggest is be respectful and courteous when you post. I would request that members be a little more careful when starting threads. Please don't start needless duplicate threads. One day we had five different threads complaining about reloading component prices!
I am also seeing a lot of threads that are really better left as private messages, or which should be correctly placed in the classifieds. A "How much is my gun worth" thread posted in the main Forum area is likely going to get nuked, because people were attempting to use this tactic to bypass our classifieds rules.
(55,005 to be exact as of 8:00 am PST).
This represents significant growth. In fact, the Forum is growing faster than ever. We are now seeing 30-40 new members every day. That rate of daily growth is about 30% more than just a year ago.
We had almost exactly 30,000 members five years ago, so the Forum has grown 83% in the past five years, with an accelerating rate of growth.
Marking this milestone, I especially want to thank all the Gold and Silver members.
Guys -- your support is essential and much appreciated.
I encourage basic members who visit the Forum often to consider supporting the site. A Silver membership is just $25, which works out to just $2.08 per month -- about the price of a cup of coffee.
And, if you read our Deals of the Week, posted every Monday, you an easily save enough on ONE transaction to pay for a Silver or Gold membership. Here's an example from 1/11/2021 -- Save $139 on a Long Range Target Cam System.
Background checks
To help protect our current membership, we run basic background checks on ALL new signups, to confirm location and identity (where possible). This has definitely reduced the number of scammers who are getting through. But the task is time-consuming. I am currently spending about 30-40 hours a month running these checks. That's on top of all the other duties. So please understand that the workload is ever-increasing. I worked on the site all but four days in 2020, and haven't taken a day off since early June 2020.
Forum Threads and Moderation
The time required to moderate posts and threads is increasing also. This comes from the greater Forum activity, but I think the political situation and the Pandemic has something to do with it. People are stressed, worried, and a little stir-crazy. All I can suggest is be respectful and courteous when you post. I would request that members be a little more careful when starting threads. Please don't start needless duplicate threads. One day we had five different threads complaining about reloading component prices!
I am also seeing a lot of threads that are really better left as private messages, or which should be correctly placed in the classifieds. A "How much is my gun worth" thread posted in the main Forum area is likely going to get nuked, because people were attempting to use this tactic to bypass our classifieds rules.
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