State of AFN 2021

[HighnDry]

Also, I know I've said before but the OES region blocking winds me up. Worlds best...... This is a prime example of a vendor who wouldn't be getting the most out of a banner ad.

 

[HighnDry]

Thanks @Mossy My main concern is that the same few members will end up keeping AFN afloat

 

[Mossy]

Banner ads have no impact on our ability to provide an honest and accurate review. Does the current OES/Fastbuds banner cause anyone to favour either in terms of reviewing seeds, etc? I doubt it tbh, we're for the most part a pretty level headed group. We shouldn't be allowing 50 bucks a month to sway us and I doubt we would

Well Said @HighnDry .........All of the Test Teams give Honest Feedback...it doesn't matter Who pays the bills.

The Vendors put their balls to the wall when they put their product on AFN.
If it is Good we will tell you...if it is Bad we will tell you.
The Test Grows are Live....you See the Results with your own Eyes.

I don't mind making a donation I havnt got much but willing to help set a go fund me page up

Bless your Heart @Towlie ....

A Bit of Perspective...we have 500 Active Users per day.....

If all those active users contributed 4$'s a YEAR.............4$'s A year...we would cover site costs.......price of a cup of coffee....

 

[HighnDry]

Well Said @HighnDry .........All of the Test Teams give Honest Feedback...it doesn't matter Who pays the bills.

The Vendors put their balls to the wall when they put their product on AFN.
If it is Good we will tell you...if it is Bad we will tell you.
The Test Grows are Live....you See the Results with your own Eyes.



Bless your Heart @Towlie ....

A Bit of Perspective...we have 500 Active Users per day.....

If all those active users contributed 4$'s a YEAR.............4$'s A year...we would cover site costs.......price of a cup of coffee....

The Amazon affiliate shop is a great idea @AFNG has had. I buy loads there as I know we all do for the most part. 2% of that would go a long way

 

[HighnDry]

What is the Amazon Associates program?
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Provide consumers the convenience of referring them to a trusted site where they can immediately purchase products you advertise. And when they do, you can earn up to 12% in advertising fees.

Take advantage of various Amazon retail promotions and leverage our newly created advertising features to drive traffic and earn referrals.

 

[Feenix]

The Question:

So the question I have for the community is, do you want to go with what we did last year and push the GoFundMe campaign? Or do we sell out a few banner spots and not put that burden on the community? Last year we were 100% funded by the AFN community (the members!) In prior years, AFN had been paid primarily out of personal pocket (and we had a few years where banners/vendors paid for the site too.)

Personally, I love the idea of a forum that's funded by it's members, not it's vendors. We can't be accused of being put in anyone's pocket. But it's a financial burden burden too, and honestly I could sell a couple ads and we'd be on easy street too.

So you all let us know how we should spin this, and we'll do this the way the community wants us to. This is for you, me, all of us!

go fund me, gets my vote.

A good example of the pitfall of reviewers taking ad payments has been seen in the SCUBA industry. Several times over the past decades, periodicals started with the same plan of independently rating gear and dive resorts. Always with good intentions of being the equivalent of what the Underwriters Laboratory is to electric devices. The UL you see on just about every device. Before long they had to make the same decision. Once they started taking paid ads, they devolved into mere travel logs favoring the same gear and resorts that were advertisers.

 

[Daipot]

Why not do both?

 

[Dank Nuggets]

I don't mind chucking some in every 3 months, like @St. Tom said for the seeds we get its the least i can do

 

[MR magoo]

Looks like there is plenty of space along both side margins for adds. use them. i am sure most can ignore the bullshit.
and it pays for all of it. not to mention all the freebies people get from vendors. if a vendor has to much BS say goodbye, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Hey everyone, love the feedback and thank you all for your support!

We do have a GoFundMe that was up from last year (and we hit our goal, raised about $2400, which covered site fees, got us our technical work done (man that sucked soooooo bad,) got us a plethora of add-on's, even a custom developed add-on (our photo gallery poll is a custom developed add-on.)

So I'll get you guys the link to it here, not sure if I need to reset it somehow or just keep it going, etc, but it's still live and active.

As far as the banners go, is that something we should put to a vote in a poll? Do both?

Does it matter which vendor? You all prefer a seed bank or breeder up there? Doesn't matter?

And for the record, we've never once shaded or slanted any reviews or testing we've ever done on the site. I won't name names (but in the backroom I will talk some shiiiiiiit,) but a certain lighting company (that is no longer on AFN) asked us to stage all the testing, to allow them access to all the posts and content to "revise" anything that was ill written, asked us to sign a legal agreement giving them that access/power, etc. We told them to eat a ****. And that will always be my answer to these companies that want to do that.

I want this to be transparent, I want our integrity to show through here with what we do here. We don't have to exist, we exist because we WANT to exist. And every effort to make this something other than our home has failed, so let's keep our home "our home."