Site Complaints and Future of HM

[SourceGuy]

It seems to me like some people on this website are hell-bent on complaining about everything they can, just for the sake of it. New forums, the cafepress shop, ads in between posts, inline ads: a few examples of things that caused a bunch of spam and unconstructive complaints. First of all, you are NOT allowed to complain about changes to this website in any place other than the complaints board. Your complaints are not welcome elsewhere. And even on the complaints board, it must be CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Example: "Inline ads suck!" is NOT constructive criticism to those of you not familiar with the term. Look it up.

More importantly, to those few with a, what I will call, 'complaining attitude': Face it. This site is slowly getting less and less visitors. While I am trying to do my utmost best keeping things going financially and keeping up the amount of visitors (together with some other people that are enthousiastic and have a good attitude) all you're doing is spoiling the fun here by placing your spam. Rather than to just say "this sucks" and "that's stupid", come up with an alternative or a good reason to do something differently. If you don't have anything constructive to say, DON'T POST. This is hereby your final warning, I don't really have any more patience left.


As for the inline ads - I've been trying to find some way to keep things in the green financially. I won't be disclosing all financial data of HaloMods here, but I can tell you this: So far I've paid a lot more than what I've gained via ad revenue. If there is no way to turn this around, this site won't hold out. My motivation seems to get a little less every day as a result of people continuously challenging me. If you have an idea to keep things going, let's hear it: There is a topic for this in the complaints and suggestions board.

If you have any ideas to improve this website, let's hear them.

[shadowkhas]

If it has to be spammed with advertisements, and made to look like just any other website (which it does now), then go ahead and let it die.
I'd rather have it go down now than let it be drawn out and undignified.
I'm sorry that my opinion about the site is "challenging you," but I'm not forcing you to keep it up...

On the other hand, the store is an alright idea...we've given you valid opinions on it that would make us more prone to buying things from it.

[Eaton]

If users find that adds annoying, then they can get Adblock. (A Firefox extension) I didn't even know there were any ads until I turned it off.

[Tural]

Ads simply aren't going to generate the desired revenue. That's most of the reason Gren had to give up the site, the ads don't work. Adding more of them isn't going to work either, it's just going to discourage members and if they aren't clicking on the current ads, what incentive do they have to click on inline ads? I'm just not able to see it as a viable solution to revenue. Ads haven't worked, a new approach needs to be taken. The ads don't facilitate income, and they do cause annoyance for members. It's a lose-lose situation.

The site is in a position such that most people here don't have an interest in helping to pay for the site, be it by a store or by clicking ads. There's just not much that can be done to generate funds for the site anymore. Gren gave it up for this reason, and I don't think he did it because he thought someone else could figure out how to make it profitable, I think he did it because he thought someone else would be willing to pay for it themselves. He knew that the ads weren't going to work, and the store hadn't worked for him either. He came to a point where he knew he could not generate the money from the site, so he turned it over for someone else to pay for it on their own, as he was paying for it on his own. The site simply isn't self-sustaining anymore, it is either going to need to be shut down, or turned over to someone else who will pay for it out-of-pocket, as Gren had to do for a while.

[JacksonCougAr]

I would be willing to sponsor the website, but not under current management. I only make a limited fund every month but if the right administrator took over and things were improved I could sponsor for $10 every month. If there were enough people willing to sponsor the website each month for small amounts of money then the site could go on.

[SourceGuy]

Ads simply aren't going to generate the desired revenue. That's most of the reason Gren had to give up the site, the ads don't work. Adding more of them isn't going to work either, it's just going to discourage members and if they aren't clicking on the current ads, what incentive do they have to click on inline ads? I'm just not able to see it as a viable solution to revenue. Ads haven't worked, a new approach needs to be taken. The ads don't facilitate income, and they do cause annoyance for members. It's a lose-lose situation.

The site is in a position such that most people here don't have an interest in helping to pay for the site, be it by a store or by clicking ads. There's just not much that can be done to generate funds for the site anymore. Gren gave it up for this reason, and I don't think he did it because he thought someone else could figure out how to make it profitable, I think he did it because he thought someone else would be willing to pay for it themselves. He knew that the ads weren't going to work, and the store hadn't worked for him either. He came to a point where he knew he could not generate the money from the site, so he turned it over for someone else to pay for it on their own, as he was paying for it on his own. The site simply isn't self-sustaining anymore, it is either going to need to be shut down, or turned over to someone else who will pay for it out-of-pocket, as Gren had to do for a while.

You don't know the agreements or expectations Grenadiac and I had of when Grenadiac handed the site over to me. You are insinuating that he expects me to pay for this website personally. Grenadiac gave this site to me because he trusts me. He handed the site over because he lacked the time to keep pursuing his hobby and to administrate this website.

If we can't figure out some new direction or give the site some new twist, it doesn't really have a future. Why don't you focus on that rather than telling me to pay for the site out of my own pocket? That or send me a bag of cash, I'll be happy to keep the site up for a few more years.

[SourceGuy]

I would be willing to sponsor the website, but not under current management. I only make a limited fund every month but if the right administrator took over and things were improved I could sponsor for $10 every month. If there were enough people willing to sponsor the website each month for small amounts of money then the site could go on.

You will sponser, but not under 'current management'? What good does that do. This is my website, like it or not. If you want to help out, help out. If you don't like the way some things are handled, make some suggestions. But don't tell me that you will only help out if I transfer the site.

[JacksonCougAr]

Alright, if you want a suggestion, how about you get rid on the in-text ads, forcing ads into people's topics is asinine.

[Tural]

You don't know the agreements or expectations Grenadiac and I had of when Grenadiac handed the site over to me. You are insinuating that he expects me to pay for this website personally. Grenadiac gave this site to me because he trusts me. He handed the site over because he lacked the time to keep pursuing his hobby and to administrate this website.

He told everyone else that he didn't have the money to pay for it, because the ads didn't cover the costs anymore. That's what he told everyone on the site, and I believe that topic is still up in Announcements. Forgive me for not knowing something he said to you, and only knowing what he said to everyone.

Why don't you focus on that rather than telling me to pay for the site out of my own pocket?

I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you that that's what it sounded like Gren needed. Again, he told everyone that he couldn't pay for it anymore because the ads didn't cover it. He didn't say he was looking for a way to get that money back, he said he was looking for someone who could handle the finances of it, because he couldn't. That's what he said.

One of the reasons HaloMods has lasted so long is that the ads have, for the most part, covered the server expenses. It costs $240 per month to rent the server we currently use, and ads normally cover most of that. At the end of the year I usually break even, but recently something has changed with google's advertising program. The result is that the pay per click has been reduced to about 25% of what it was. You can read about it here:

http://www.websitepublisher.net/blog/20 ... ecpm-drop/

The end result is that I have to come up with about $150 out of pocket every month, which I simply cannot afford. I have to do something, and do it within the next couple of weeks. My choices...

-Shut down the site altogether
-Hand over HaloMods to somebody that can afford the extra expense

That is exactly what he said to the community, that is what I'm going off of. That's a direct quote from him, that he needed someone to pay for it out-of-pocket. He said it, right there. Don't take it out on me, I'm just telling you what he said before he left. I'm not insinuating he said anything like that to you, but since we can't see what he said to you, and he said this to us, this is what we know.

[GametagAeonFlux]

Hostility will get you nowhere, SourceGuy...

Tural was going by what he's read/knows. And judging by Gren's post, I can't blame him for not knowing whatever mystical secrets you know.

One of the reasons HaloMods has lasted so long is that the ads have, for the most part, covered the server expenses. It costs $240 per month to rent the server we currently use, and ads normally cover most of that. At the end of the year I usually break even, but recently something has changed with google's advertising program. The result is that the pay per click has been reduced to about 25% of what it was.

[...]

The end result is that I have to come up with about $150 out of pocket every month, which I simply cannot afford.

-Hand over HaloMods to somebody that can afford the extra expense

I dunno, that personally makes me think it's more related to finances than it is a lack of time. He had been absent for long periods of time beforehand, and trusted the site to the staff members running it...and Iron_Forge too. Also, putting additional ads on the site will not improve revenue.

[JacksonCougAr]

Probably make revenue worse because everyone will just adblock them because they are so obnoxious.

[Aumaan Anubis]

It seems to me like some people on this website are hell-bent on complaining about everything they can, just for the sake of it. New forums, the cafepress shop, ads in between posts, inline ads: a few examples of things that caused a bunch of spam and unconstructive complaints.

Just because we don't agree with you, doesn't mean that they're "unconstructive." Maybe you should start listening to people, and putting their suggestions to action.

And even on the complaints board, it must be CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Example: "Inline ads suck!" is NOT constructive criticism to those of you not familiar with the term. Look it up.

Let's see..
constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement (opposed to destructive ): constructive criticism.
"Inline ads suck!"
- Obviously, members are displeased with the inline ads.
- And, therefore, an obvious improvement would be to get rid of the ads.

Hence. Criticism, and constructive. It's your job to figure out how to keep the site going, not ours. Read the comments and take what you can from them.

This is hereby your final warning, I don't really have any more patience left.

Take a vacation and calm down.
You're not the only one losing something.

You will sponser, but not under 'current management'? What good does that do. This is my website, like it or not. If you want to help out, help out. If you don't like the way some things are handled, make some suggestions. But don't tell me that you will only help out if I transfer the site.

I see someone more concerned with power than they are about keeping the site alive. No trace of any hint at cooperating, finding a middle ground or anything seemed to be sought out.
You're complaing about financial problems and how you can't pay for everything yourself, but when an offer comes along, you appear too prideful to take advantage of it.

This is my website, like it or not.

Could you have made that sound more, "It's MY site and I'll do what I WANT!" ish?
You've said it yourself. This site is dying, and lack of finances will hasten its fall. You'll have to make sacrifices to keep it alive.

Alright, if you want a suggestion, how about you get rid on the in-text ads, forcing ads into people's topics is asinine.

Ditto.

Probably make revenue worse because everyone will just adblock them because they are so obnoxious.

Can't adblock them all without the specific addon. Tried.
:\

[xbox7887]

Like JacksonCougar, I would also be willing to partially sponsor the site if things were a little different. Not that I hate the site or anything, but things have obviously made an unneeded change for the worse and I am beginning to despise most of what happens here in these forums.

My major qualms deal with the new site layout being administered prior to it being fully tested and in a somewhat working condition. The older forums may not have been as high tech, but nothing was wrong with them and forcing numerous broken/half-assed "features" on users will not help this site out either.

Although ads can somewhat help with revenue, they shouldn't be thrown in between posts so carelessly as to make people resort to permanently blocking them. If this site is no longer self-sustaining, you can either downsize, get more external support, or watch it crash and burn. Personally, I think we are much smarter than to let this site go under and hope for much better alternatives.

Like others above have stated, what makes you think your finances would be any different than Grenadiac's a few months back? If you can't afford to pay out of pocket then this may have not been such a good idea for you to take over the site in the first place. This is a community, use it to your advantage and muster up some support to continue keeping this site alive. Simply putting it on life support with temporary fix ups does nothing for our morale and people will just lose faith and find another home.

Banning people from expressing themselves and demanding only "constructive" criticism is a joke. If what's being said isn't slander then why would you even care enough to let it bother you. Fact is, the maturity level at these forums has always been low will continue to be so and no amount of moderation will ever change this so let people believe whatever the hell they want. If you can put up with Detchro's antics, then a little bitching here and there should be nothing in comparison, and if it still really bothers you, then perhaps it's time to listen to them. After all...the customer is always right

[SourceGuy]

Guys - you're suggesting I remove ads and start accepting donations, transfer the site, pay for it myself or simply shut the site down. These are all really second rate solutions to keep a small community going for a limited amount of time.
My Ideals when I took the site over were these: I wanted to draw more visitors to this website. I tried to accomplish this by making the site more attractive for outsiders by revamping it and trying to change the atmosphere on these forums - to have the users be more welcoming to newbies. Some other changes, like the addition of more subforums and so forth were part of that plan.
I know from experience that there are many people that quickly leave after registering or refuse to even register because they feel some HaloMods users are giving them the wrong vibe. I personally believe that the atmosphere here is the most important thing. The thing is, those new people are what we need and we should treat them with a little leniency. I know what you're saying about the "maturity level" as you call it, xbox7887. I've been trying to fight that, and it seems that's what's started some users to go against me.

Alright, if you want a suggestion, how about you get rid on the in-text ads, forcing ads into people's topics is asinine.

Let's see..
constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement (opposed to destructive ): constructive criticism.
"Inline ads suck!"
- Obviously, members are displeased with the inline ads.
- And, therefore, an obvious improvement would be to get rid of the ads.

Hence. Criticism, and constructive. It's your job to figure out how to keep the site going, not ours. Read the comments and take what you can from them.

It seems there are plenty of people here that feel that their opinion is 'final'. You present your opinion in one line as if it were a fact and expect me to just do whatever you say? I am open to suggestions, unlike some of you may think, but I won't listen to you if all you do is post things like "I hate the inline ads". Do you think I'm stupid? Ofcourse I know they're annoying. I'm just trying to find a way to finance the site better. If you say to your government: I hate the fucking taxes, do you expect mr Obama to stop forcing you to pay your taxes? No. If you were to say: Maybe I want you to pull out of Afghanistan - for this and that reason - and use the money to cut taxes, now that is CONSTRUCTIVE. Aumaan, I hope you understand now what it means. Your post was entirely non-constructive, despite you having looked up the meaning. It was just a personal attack on me and your defending your useless attitude.


Start thinking outside the box. What can we do to draw more visitors? This whole debate isn't getting us anywhere. Get creative.

[JK-47]

Some things bother me, the advertisements aren't one of them. It's a bit ridiculous for people to suggest to him to get rid of the ads, but how many of you would actually pitch the money in to keep the website alive? I sure as hell wouldn't. You may say you would, but how long would that last? Not long. If you want to donate, just click the ads at least twice a week. Edit by SourceGuy: Please don't click the ads if you're not interested in the actual ad: Don't want google to close my account. (I wasn't suggesting they go on a click fest)
If the ads are annoying, block them. Nothing is keeping you from doing that, and as far as the inline ads go, deal with it. I know the rebuttal to my 'deal with it' attitude is "But we shouldn't have to, baawww!" but if you value this website enough to visit as long as you have, you will. Like I said, unless you're willing to make donations to the website, then you shouldn't be complaining, because you don't care enough to actually do something about it.
Another obvious rebuttal to that statement is "Well if SourceGuy can't afford it, then he shouldn't be taking over!". Well, maybe. But he's trying to keep this website up, and that's more than a lot of you can say. He didn't have to step in and start paying for the website. He doesn't have to put up with some of your attitudes (I'm not talking to the people who actually have an argument, just the people who do nothing but whine with a senseless argument behind you).
If you can't keep the website up after trying this new ad revenue, just let it die. The activity of this forum is hurting anyways, it's only a matter of time before it turns out like the User's Forum before the merge: just a couple posts a day in the Cafe, if we were lucky.
Worst case scenario, things don't work out with you, you let the forum die, and someone picks it back up (if anyone cares that much), not a big deal. Halo modding isn't exactly the most popular thing anymore anyways. This website is turning more into a discussion board.

[ScottyGEE]

If having inline ads (edit3: Holy crap I now know what they are! Oh well, I'm sticking to what I'm about to say) is a necessary evil to keep this site and community alive then I'm sure up for clicking on them every now and then. In fact, I'm going to turn off adblock for this site. Ads suck, I hate them, we all hate them, that's why I block them on 99% of the sites I visit. But these other sites I visit don't have the increasing pressure of closing down due to financial issues. However, if you (Sourceguy) are using ads which pay per sale (rather than per click or both), then it may be more difficult for us to help you here. edit: I also won't be going on any kind of click sprees and I hope noone here does... But I'm still gonna unblock them and hopefully help out.

Sadly Sourceguy, I cannot really think of a way of expanding Halomods.com by itself. The only thing I can think of is having extra sites which gain revenue. Such as, we have Halomods here, we'd have another site Touchmods for iPod touch users, Sourcemods.com for Halflife and so forth and just be able to link to these other sites. i.e. like Joystiq's (as an example ;p). I doubt we'll ever see Halomods.com come in Google for when people search "iPod touch modding" (again, an example), meaning we won't really see many new users from the expansion we've just gone through. Each of these sites would start out small (and not be the monster that Halomods currently is) so it wouldn't be an incredible burden on bandwidth. It would get higher rankings in Google searches due to the domain name and content and would be able to earn more reveue since adsense would generate more relevant ads and for those who go to each site and it would have a more dedicated more focused community.

edit2: People from this site would be able to start up these sites too. We know caboosejr is a fan on source modding, iGeo, p8ntballer and myself (kibito too) enjoy iPod/iPhone modding, so we'd be able to administrate to some degree.

Though I got no idea how to promote/market this site or these potential others. Its my main weakness when I do things.


Its an idea. Probably not the best one. In fact, I'm betting it will be regarded as a stupid idea by the majority because its too big an idea which can fail and leave you in an even worse position. Plus these other sites could take too long to start up. But so far its my best thought. I just can't think of how we can expand halomods (only cut it up). Just don't call me stupid or anything Though this time I can understand if my not so helpful post is deleted.



edit500000: Just with Geo's post below:
What Geo just said is what I meant, though I was more suggesting different domains (since any kind of domain with the single word mods is taken). Just a quick check (and for consistencies sake) halomods.net, itouchmods.net, gtaivmods.net, valvemods.net, x360mods.net, vehiclemods.net are all free. Just further examples

[Geo]

Before anyone bitches or moans, this isn't anything to do with SourceGuy trying to create more revenue, or anything like that. It's not even anything to do with HaloMods, it's a personal project, that is hosted on the same server. Nothing less, nothing more.

http://gta.halomods.com

Just thought I'd mention that, seeing as Scotty brought it up. I literally have told like 3 people from here about it, and it's still got well over 100 members in a short space of time. It's because there is an active modding community in this particular game.

I'm not saying I'm not happy about the people still modding Halo here, but let's face it... there aren't many of you.

Gren's leaving didn't kill HaloMods,
SourceGuy taking over didn't kill HaloMods,
The forum being upgraded didn't kill HaloMods,
Halo 3 killed HaloMods.

[Trulife8342]

I agree with the above statement. Lets just all come out clean modding on retail is possible. It can be done, Its just that it can make xbox live vulnerable. Now I don't know about anyone here but since H2 it always has been. It sucks that people will use it to their advantage. But there are also members who are responsible enough not to screw things up for everyone else. But hey just thought I should put that out there.

As far as the site goes, start community projects. Make people feel actually involved in something, thats your number one goal. Form a community, once you have enough people working together I promise you everything else will be cake. Trust me, Dont underestimate the people on this site, People will work with others as long as their voice is heard, SG this site is owned by you, that is a fact. But if it wasn't for members. You wouldn't have a site.

[GametagAeonFlux]

I agree with the above statement. Lets just all come out clean modding on retail is possible. It can be done, Its just that it can make xbox live vulnerable. Now I don't know about anyone here but since H2 it always has been. It sucks that people will use it to their advantage. But there are also members who are responsible enough not to screw things up for everyone else. But hey just thought I should put that out there.

It's true that you can mod retail, yeah. It's also true that people can use it to fuck up Xbox Live. But what's also true is that there is little to no reason to mod your 360 as opposed to your Xbox. On the original Xbox, there was XBConnect, homebrew applications, dvd2xbox and all sorts of other things that just completely kicked the crap out of Xbox Live for the most part (which was all you lost from modding). On the 360 there's...well almost nothing really. You can play backup copies of your games on DVDs you have to burn yourself. With how integral Xbox Live is to the 360's gaming experience, there just simply is not enough desire for the majority of people to mod their consoles other than people who are very knowledgeable developers (in which case they'll just get a dev Xbox anyways most likely) or people who just want to do it to cheat online.

[Trulife8342]

GTAF, check your pm box.