Okay before this gets out of hand, the site was not hacked and the ads are a function of the business, which is Sniper's Hide LLC.
This site started in 2000 and since that time has been completely free to its members, but has continually cost me time and money to operate. Recently thanks to the financial meltdown of the markets a large part of the business that helped sustain Sniper's Hide was lost almost completely. It happens, I get it, and thankfully I have other opportunities to role into personally. But that means the site has to be paid for.
For the most part, the site only charged commercial vendors that wanted to post. That charge was way undervalued, in fact it barely paid for 1/4 of the year to operate this site, which to date runs on 3 servers and uses a large amount of bandwidth. Even as undervalued as the service fee was, it was like pulling teeth to get businesses to step up to commitment.
Another option and venue that was open was the classified ad section, however the majority of users, especially those who used it regularly did not want to pay and frankly would not be able to cover the cost of the servers per year, let alone anything else.
Well recently we started the Online Training Forum which was a subscription based service. This service did really well, but still only scratched a small portion of this site's membership and value.
So, I decided that targeted ads were the answer and spent the last 3 months in meetings regarding this point. I understand the vocal minority that is only happy complaining, will throw a fit across the room. I get it, you hate change the fact the ads have not been 100% focused yet pisses you but, hey, you don't pay the bills and never had once stepped up to make any effort.
So the ads are here, soon they will be more targeted towards this audience so there will be a transition period. it's all understood, but also understand this is a business and need to support itself.
For those posting work the stuff to block the ads, I would appreciate you not posting them in the forum. All you're doing is taking money away from this site to operate.
Thanks,
This site started in 2000 and since that time has been completely free to its members, but has continually cost me time and money to operate. Recently thanks to the financial meltdown of the markets a large part of the business that helped sustain Sniper's Hide was lost almost completely. It happens, I get it, and thankfully I have other opportunities to role into personally. But that means the site has to be paid for.
For the most part, the site only charged commercial vendors that wanted to post. That charge was way undervalued, in fact it barely paid for 1/4 of the year to operate this site, which to date runs on 3 servers and uses a large amount of bandwidth. Even as undervalued as the service fee was, it was like pulling teeth to get businesses to step up to commitment.
Another option and venue that was open was the classified ad section, however the majority of users, especially those who used it regularly did not want to pay and frankly would not be able to cover the cost of the servers per year, let alone anything else.
Well recently we started the Online Training Forum which was a subscription based service. This service did really well, but still only scratched a small portion of this site's membership and value.
So, I decided that targeted ads were the answer and spent the last 3 months in meetings regarding this point. I understand the vocal minority that is only happy complaining, will throw a fit across the room. I get it, you hate change the fact the ads have not been 100% focused yet pisses you but, hey, you don't pay the bills and never had once stepped up to make any effort.
So the ads are here, soon they will be more targeted towards this audience so there will be a transition period. it's all understood, but also understand this is a business and need to support itself.
For those posting work the stuff to block the ads, I would appreciate you not posting them in the forum. All you're doing is taking money away from this site to operate.
Thanks,
