MyBB Community Forums

I am on this forum, it is laid out very nice, and professional. The admins are awesome!

(2012-03-29, 04:04 PM)weBex Wrote: [ -> ]Rather than asking for donations, how about putting up some ads?

Pokemon is a kids' niche.
You're asking for donations, from kids. That's a pretty unreliable source of revenue to cover the hosting costs.

But be aware that you should not tell people to click ads or click them yourselves, a big mistake many people do and will get you banned for it.

But even if the ads don't get clicked, you can earn cash just by having page views & impressions.

It's not yet that big that's why i'm not adding ads yet. As it can ruin the whole forum.

Also, although it's for kids, there are still teenagers members on the forum. So you can't really tell that's it's only for kids.

Kids & teens are generally broke enough, some will contribute, but majority wouldn't.

Your call. Asking for donations isn't better than ads IMO, they're a huge turn off for me.
I've only ever donated to 1 forum, just because;
- I've been a member for years.
- It had exclusive features I wanted.
- It was already big enough for me that I wouldn't leave the community.
- LIFE-TIME donation membership. 1 time donation & with no expiration. So at least I wouldn't have to do it again.

I never asked them, i've just posted a thread about it. So if there are members that is willing to donate, then go. I never forced them to donate.

The info being there, and especially the index "bar" of information, is worse than ads.
If you have that up, you might as well post some ads.

It's going to deter certain users either way.

Agreed. No need for the header display.

The background makes it hard to read quite a few things.
The gray-on-gray text for the forum is a bit of strain on the eyes, too.

Yes, kpmedia we were discussing about that, I'll be fixing it soon.

We don't want to put up advertisement because it's gets annoying for members to post because of the ad.

All the donation goes to our hosting, no money will be used for personal things.

(2012-03-30, 06:41 PM)Mr.Kewl Wrote: [ -> ]We don't want to put up advertisement because it's gets annoying for members to post because of the ad.

All the donation goes to our hosting, no money will be used for personal things.

Again, I'd find the donation bar just as annoying. It doesn't matter what the money is used for. I wouldn't want to "pay" for someone else's website hosting.

You can place 1 ad on the exact same place as the Donations bar, and there's no bothersome to anyone posting.

At least then, you guys would be taking money from the Corporations, not your users.

That's why I rather use a forum using ads over donations.

The hosting is less than 10 a month anyway.
According to Sync's profile, he's 26. He should be able to afford 10 per month.

Owners should only be monetizing their forums once they reach to a point where they use VPS or Dedicated servers, because by that point, it exceeds over 50 per month.

And a donation system, whether you believe it or not, is a form of monetizing.

(2012-03-30, 07:26 PM)weBex Wrote: [ -> ]

(2012-03-30, 06:41 PM)Mr.Kewl Wrote: [ -> ]We don't want to put up advertisement because it's gets annoying for members to post because of the ad.

All the donation goes to our hosting, no money will be used for personal things.

Again, I'd find the donation bar just as annoying. It doesn't matter what the money is used for. I wouldn't want to "pay" for someone else's website hosting.

You can place 1 ad on the exact same place as the Donations bar, and there's no bothersome to anyone posting.

At least then, you guys would be taking money from the Corporations, not your users.

That's why I rather use a forum using ads over donations.

The hosting is less than 10 a month anyway.
According to Sync's profile, he's 26. He should be able to afford 10 per month.

Owners should only be monetizing their forums once they reach to a point where they use VPS or Dedicated servers, because by that point, it exceeds over 50 per month.

And a donation system, whether you believe it or not, is a form of monetizing.

You mean text link ads? Also, I only used that age for privacy, that's not my true age. And our hosting costs $12+.