31st Dec. 2019 - XT660.COM will close down for good
 

Dear members, as much as it hurts me to say this we have come to a difficult time for me to keep this forum / website going at a loss. As I said somewhere else I am approaching retirement and will need to manage my finances more carefully than I have ever did.

XT660.com it is now a loss making venture, it has been for the last 7 years, despite me asking everyone to support by clicking on the advert banners, to make just enough money to pay the monthly Internet provider fees, the vBulletin costs etc.

Early this year I spent a chunk of my own money to pay a web designer to redesign our website and that was a blow to the head.

We implemented a donation system and no donations are coming it AT all except for one good samaritan that has set a monthly payment of �5.00 minus paypal fees a net of �4.63

Our google adverts revenue are way below profit (see attached screenshot)

So from Jan 1st 2018 we will not accept anymore XT Supporter's memberships so that the one taken in 2017 will have the time to expire in 2018 and then after 31st Jan 2018 we will put XT660.com for offer at a very reasonable price to allow me to recover at least my expenditures for the website, and to come out even with the other costs.

If you all really don't want this forum and website to close down on 31/12/2019 then I shouldn't even remind you what you can do to help, the answer is all in this thread https://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=20688

But in the meantime I'd like to thank all you faithful members that have helped us keeping this place sane, clean and exciting. I took over this in 2006, and now 11 years later I am completely beat, I've run it at a loss for over 7 years while I was earning a decent wage but now with the prospect of retirement, I won't be able to continue to do so.

Thank you very much to all of you.

Fran

Blimey Cap'n I didn't realise that things were so bad for you.

I am truly sorry thast you feel like this but then again you have made a rod for your own back by keeping the forum going, (which is great I mght add ) and not getting the forum members to stump up more money.
I do not doubt that most of the members have an XT as a toy, not for work, just for pleasure and if they value the work that you do then they need to stump up some dosh and keep this valued facility running.
I know form the last meeting Darn Sarf that you still have an interest in the forum and the expertise to keep it going.
Can you outline an ultimatum to what we need to keep this going?
I really value the work that you do and I might add if you do retire it might give you just a little something to keep you interested in bikes.
Can you please work out a figure that we need to come up with to keep this forum going. Whatever it is I for one will promote this and try and get other forum members to donate as the �10 membership per year is quite palty for working persons.
If at the end of the day members aren't bothered then it's tough on them and they will lose all the information that has been accrued over the years about these bikes.
If they do not respond to this thread then tough on them. I know all I need to know about this bike, but newer members might feel now prompted to keep the forum going to help them with future problems.

Keep us informed big fella. I'm gonna push this and try and take some of the pressure off you.

Cheers Steve

Hi Steve and thanks for your concern, at the moment the calculated loss so far, including what I had to spend to have the new website redesigned and what it costs me every month to even out the running costs to keepxt660.com on line every month is of around �1200. Once that is cleared, if people continued to randlmly click on the advert banners and that means that as many people as possible could spend at least 10 min a day just clicking and the shutting down those advert banners, this would keep the monthly running costs at bay.

But what happens is that a few people do it for a day or two maybe just one day and then they get bored and forget to do it again. And when that effort is inconsistent, Google Ads consider it a "spike" and does not carry the profit over to the end of the month, so we get f/all :( :073:

I myself have got tired of asking people to use the advert banner as I hate to beg the members for money, even though it doesn't actually cost nothing to them if not just wasting 5 to 10 min of their time a day.

My biggest embarrassment, was the donation scheme, oh yes, massive red face, that fell into a deep hole never to be found.

So I realized my loss is only going to get bigger every month, and with my future in mind, that loss cannot longer be entertained.

So are there one hundred and twenty XT660.COM members out there who value this fine forum enough to donate a tenner each to clear the forum's loss.....or two hundred and forty members give a fiver each! Within the next week. ....so its sorted ........? Steve

You can count me in, just need to find another 119 users that don't want to see this valuable forum close.

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

Me 2

Hell man thats just not good enough! I'm fairly new here and the info i have found for the things i want to do to my recently acquired Tenere is for me invaluable, and i also like the XT family side if thats what it is, as i hope to get to meets and trips organised by fellow members?
So please lets hope we can find a collective solution and make it worthwhile for you Capt and hopefully repay you for all the hard work you've already done over the years to keep this great XT model reference site open. So you've got my tenner and another one for my lapsed membership.

Steve

ps: I have also put a sticky on my laptop screen for when i'm using it, to open the site and click on the adverts.

I can come up with a few dollars......



..

What about a crowdfunding campaign?

Why not simply make it subscription only?

Name a monthly fee, and the required number of subscribers - and if that doesn't do it, let it die.

A shame to offer your hours and concern at a loss.

I may get shot down for this, firstly those prices to keep this forum alive seem crazy surely it can be done cheaper than this ?
Some one did tell you of another company they use for far much less in your post about advert clicking, but you must have missed it as you never replied to their post.
Or how about opening the forum to other bikes ? Maybe stay with Yamaha WR,MT etc
It's is going to be increasingly hard to keep it open when we cater for two bikes essentially (I'm looking at the R and X being similar)

I run a few bike related forums so know what you are going through. Some have almost been completely killd off as a result of Facebook which is not the right platform if you want to be able to actually find any usefull information.

Over the years, I amanaged the costs by using a webhost like one.com (�30-ish/yr) and then using an open source forum engine which is free.

It seems to me like a big chunk of the problem is the v-bulletin forum and costs. The more they have a grip of you the harder it is to get away. There are convertion tool available to allow you to convert the v-bulletin forum configuration to an open source forum engine like Simple Machines forum ( http://www.simplemachines.org). The V-Strom.co.uk did exactly that a few years ago for the same reasons. ( http://www.v-strom.co.uk/smf/index.php)

The only thing about that is that you make have to accept loosing some of the cusomisation of the forum and probably the likes of the user gallery integration but the value of the forum is in the posts themselves and the information they contain not in the bells and whistles.

Al.

P.S. I use phpBB3 for all my forums and try and keep them fairly vanilla for maintainability (see VTR1000.org ) for example. I've done a bit of searching around and there are 3rd part companies that offer a conversion service for a reasonable one off cost - http://gconverters.com/start/

Al.

I also think that is the right way to go.
And it will also really reduce the costs of the site because v-bulletin is expensive.
phpBB is a good and free alternative.

If you need any help with this just ask.

I have no issue paying a bit more of a subscription,where are we at with regards to what we need to raise at the min?

Plus 1. I have donated before and i will do so again. If all forum members together worldwide would donate equally, then this GBP 1200 cannot be a dealbreaker, can it?
And with an annual contribution it should be possible to keep this great forum alive. That is my opinion at least. Make it an international XT club perhaps and start with some annual contribution. Nothing wrong with the Captain getting some payment in return for all of your efforts here on this forum.

I never think about donating as I never see the key for it..
i come into the forum hit the new posts tab...
I very rearly go anywhere ealse in the forum...
Maybe it needs to be moved so it's in yer face...


...

Agree! I think you should make it big on the forum's home-page, a not-to-miss-message.

Well that�s no good is it?...
Surely everyone would pay towards it,it�s got far too much info help to just die like that?!
Keep us informed as to what we could do to keep it ok?

As I've said several times, without putting your hand in your pockets and donating your hard earned cash you can provide A LOT of help if you were all to spend at least 10 min of your day, every day or every other day clicking randomly on our advert banners as explained in this link

https://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=20688

If you do that regularly this generates an average of �100 per month which covers the running costs but not the money I have invested in the website by hiring a tight arsed website developer that charged me for every letter, comma and dot written on that page.

What happens next is people see this request to click on the banner they do it for a day or two then they get bored and we dip right back into the red.

Look there's a lot of members in this forum which are active, a large numbers are dormant or have moved on to greener pastures, sold their bikes or other and are not bothering to log in? Soon enough we will carry a purge, deleting all members that have not visited nor logged in the forum for the last 4 years. That's a long enough period of time and means they are no longer interested after all if they want to come back they can always re-join.

But I can't stress enough if these banners are not used and the revenues are not received than I have to implement my closure plan as I cannot keep on running this at a loss.

Francis, it is a human habit to forget about things we don't really like to do, like clicking banners. Indeed that will work for 2 days max, then fades away.

I would like to suggest to first make sure with ALL active XT660.com members that you get back the money you have lost in running this show. If we all join in, that should not be an issue, it will only be a small amount per person. Have one less beer in the pub and donate that amount i would say.
You are running a wonderful forum for the whole XT660-community and it makes no sense that you should lose money doing all this.
I am in to cover for the expenses made so far. Who else is in?

Second: i would agree with a small annual contribution for every user of this forum, to take this problem out of the world in the future.
Again, i am in... Would be a shame to see this site going down forever.

I agree it is a shame, take it from me, emotionally I have put heart and soul into this forum and you guys know very well other forums like Visordow or the KTM one or even the Adventure forums there is a lot of antagonism among members, there are groups of "clans" that hate the other "clans" and it's childish and annoying. In here there is nothing like that and I take pride in the fact that I have worked hard to lay the good seeds of peace and harmony between members and I have begged people to come here with a mature approach rather than a keyboard hero for the benefit of all.

It's 11 years, 6 months and 5 days that I have managed to maintain that peace. Of course we have had the odd bad apple along the way, even a moderator and an admin had to be terminated when they turned mad and attempting to rock the boat but I have always given people enough chance to stay with the plan and when I couldn't correct them, I invited them to leave or be removed. It's not dictatorship, no one here is telling anyone what to do, but removing bad apples is simple and healthy for everyone.

I am blessed that 99% of the members of this forum have appreciated this effort and have been outstanding gentlemen and ladies, but at the end of the day this "model" of forum was my creation and my pride and joy, seeing it close down will upset me as well as some of you.

I tried putting up a voluntary donation scheme, but that fell into a deep hole, unfortunately the XT supporters membership are getting fewer and fewer every month and hardly anyone renews their membership, I thought the advert banner would be an easy option because it doesn't take any money from people just a fraction of their time and yet when it is been used when those banners are clicked, the revenues that they create help us going through the monthly expenses. I keep saying that till I am blue in the face but even I am now getting tired of reminding people and when I cannot longer afford to maintain this forum and website, I would be short of options, and no one likes that solution, myself included.

I went looking for the donation clicky thingy...
dam it must be well hiden... I couldn't find it...



.

It's at the bottom of every one of my post there is a button that says Donate, and the same button you will find at the bottom of every moderators and admin's post

See attached screemshot

Here is what I mean about people clicking the banners for a day or so and then stopping

look at the attached results for today, this week and this month so far.

Today for example hardly anyone has clicked on anything the balance we have so far once the loss has been covered is of �32.61, despite the fact that it says this month we accrued �97.93, but we won't get paid that because that amount has to first clear the minus figures of the month before.

If those banners are not clicked the revenues dips back down into the red.

I rest my case, I regret to say come Dec 2018 we are done.

:angel8: :angel8: :angel8: :angel8:

Is one of the problem with the banners with taptalk users, I use taptalk often but there are no advertising banners to click on.

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

Yes Tapatalk does not displays them, sadly.

Have you looked into the other avenues people have been suggesting to lower your over the top price's you are being charged.
If not I'm quite happy for you to delete my profile when you have the clean out of old profiles to stop seeing you go on at everyone for not clicking the banners.

Yes my friend, unfortunately the complexity of our forum structure with the enormous layout of sub threads could not be supported by one of those free ware software alternatives, and the amount of data we require to allow such high number of membership and the data itself stored in our forum could not do without a web host or internet space provider that could freely give you so many Gb's of space for free.


Rest assured all options have been looked into.


And finally please don't get me wrong, at no point I am having a go at people for not clicking on the banners I am just saying I am aware that it is tedious for them to do so and it is highly likely that they get bored of it.


Oh and get this very straight I am not asking for money from anyone, I am saying I have put up with this since 2006 it's 11 years now we are badly in the red, I am not able to support such loss anymore.


Sorry.

True to my word i am continuing to click on the sponsor links whenever i browse the website i am hoping this will have an overall positive financial outcome for the Capt's running costs? and hope he will give feedback as to whether we are going in the right direction.

Same here - would be good to know if it's making a difference.

You are absolutely making a difference and let me show you the graphs in the attached 2 screenshots.

in the first you can see how much is estimated to be paid at the end of this month and in the second you see which country has been clicking the most, UK being the first and Australia the second

I cannot thank you enough but it's got to be kept constant because they deduct as well as add if they see a low average.

Thanks to all that are helping us.
:signthankspin: :signthankspin: :signthankspin:

Hi,

Firstly sorry to hear this news. Would be a great loss to loose XT660!

Quick question! I only ever read the forum on Tapatalk as use either phone or tablet. Does clicking the adverts in Tapatalk help? If so I will endeavour to click away when I log in.

Sorry but no, Tapatalk does not display advert banners.

Does it matter if we click on the banner and when we close it reload the same banner,or should we reload the site page and click onto the refreshed page new banner?

Not sure but to be on the safe side, hit F5 or refresh window if the same banner appears.

Thank you all my good friends your clicking is really working and making a substantial difference. I really really appreciate it.

:signthankspin: :signthankspin: :signthankspin:

I've been trying for ages to find these advert banners but to no avail, couldn't find them anywhere. I have been having a play and have discovered the banners do not appear in "Classic XT660.com" style, which is my preferred viewing option, only in "Andromeda" style. I am using firefox, I might not be the only one that didn't know this, so was unable to help.

You aren't running ad-blocker?

Ok so now you know :D

Stick with mother Andromeda, you know it makes sense.

:blow kiss:

Ok guys and girls, I am not having a go at you, but I want to show you some stats for yesterday and today which show that not a lot of people have clicked on the banners.

I put it down to the fact that is the weekend so it doean't matter much as slon as Monday we resume activities.

Have a look at the attached screen shot

Yesterday �4.34 / Today �0.43

At the moment we have an amount of �32.61 which will be paid at the end of October, whereas the other big amount of �244.39 will be paid at the end of November because they are running always a moth behind.

But that's all good.

It goes to show that you have really intervened and helped creating revenue.



Thank you and keep it up

Cheers

:clap: :clap:

I would hate to see xt660.com disappear - but i also hate adds ... I've tried to disable my add blocker and click adds, but don't think it is a viable funding solution ....

I don't know anything about running a forum like this, but can't help but think that it has to be possible to run much cheaper - in terms of hosting cost (admin hours are another thing)

I've only been paying the �10 a year but i think that it might be possible to get the cost low enough for a that amount to be enough

So maybe it is time for some with experience in this to talk together with the captain and see if they can find a road forwards instead of just shutting down.