PC World Chat will close this Friday

[Poppa John]

The wheels are in motion PJ, a board has been deceided on and requires a tweak (we have a pro working on that), hosting has been sorted, domain name is being sorted.

To me & many othrs that is good to hear. Thanks.

[Dannz]

If this kicks off (and overwhelms the hosting I'm providing) $120-140/month would sort a server that would handle pretty much anything we can throw at it.

[Erayd]

So I haven't posted here since the start of Feb - I suspect the reason why is pretty obvious - but noting that the forums have just been completely torpedoed, I would like to contribute a few thoughts now.

Fairfax:
I personally feel that Fairfax has caused huge damage to the PC World / Press F1 brand and community. It's been going steadily downhill ever since they bought IDG, and they have never invested the resources or attention to make it succeed, nor have they ever seemed to care. In my eyes, this is largely a problem of Fairfax's own making, and it seems they would rather wash their hands of the whole thing than care enough to make it work.

Please note that I'm talking about Fairfax as a whole here, not the specific staff who have liased with us (Bruce / Jan / Siobhan / Zara).

Reasons for Closing:
The "forum not making enough / too expensive" argument is quite frankly bullshit. The advertising on this forum should be bringing in considerably more than what the site costs to run, and if my estimates are right will probably be enough to pay for a fulltime staff member as well.

To put this in perspective, I run a site that sees reasonably high traffic volumes, but still significantly less than PressF1. That site runs just two Google ad slots (one of which cannot be seen without scrolling to the bottom of the page), and it still makes low five digits (USD) in advertising revenue per year.

Either someone is very blatantly lying about the revenue that this forum makes, or Fairfax is running directly booked ad spaces and charging far, far below what they are worth, or Fairfax has very badly misconfigured their advertising platform. As a media company, I find those last two reasons frankly very unlikely - it seems far more probable that we are being lied to as a pretext for closing the forums.

As far as legal reasons go - if they genuinely wanted to keep the forum going, but were worried about this, the logical response would be to delegate the forum in its entirety to an offshore business unit, or subcontract it to a third party. While there may be genuine legal concerns, slamming the door on their community is not a logical reaction, especially noting they aren't (as far as I'm aware) doing the same thing to TradeMe.

Forum Management:
I've always been pretty happy with the way individual Fairfax staff have interacted with and managed this forum, ditto for the mods. There was a bit of a rough patch when Zara first turned up, but I think she got the message pretty quickly - after which she made a genuine effort to integrate and work well with the rest of the forum members. Huge thumbs-up to everybody involved here, and thanks for helping to keep this place ticking over smoothly.

Content:
It's no secret that I'm utterly and completely sick of the political whinging threads - this is why I left. With that said, it seems that there are many members who are happy with the status quo, and I have plenty of other things to do with my time (most of the time I previously spent on PressF1 is now occupied by more dancing). For the sake of those who are happy with the current balance of content (or at least don't speak out against it, which in my mind amounts to pretty much the same thing), I would very much like to see the forums continue in some form.

Closing the Chat Forum
Many members are mainly here for the chat, and help out in the tech section on the side. I know this was certainly the case for me - I was here mainly because I enjoyed the interaction with others in the chat forum; we had some great debates over the years! While I was on the forums, I would also keep an eye on the help threads, and chip in on things which caught my interest, or where people brought things to my attention (this was often Linux-related stuff, although the LED torch thread was also a memorable topic, and not one I had expected to see here).

Pre-Moderation:
PressF1 won't last a month. Pre-moderating posts, especially noting they only intend (or only have the resources) to spend "a few minutes a day" on this will render the forums essentially unusable, especially in the evenings and weekends when nobody is at the office. Combined with the closing of the chat forum, this is far too many nails in a very solid coffin.

Alternative Venues
I'm more than happy to pop in from time to time on whatever venue ends up replacing this one, as long as that venue isn't Facebook and isn't run by Goodiesguy.

No offense intended to you personally Goodiesguy, but given your history here I simply don't trust you to be either consistent or reliable, and would prefer to be in an environment which is both.

Conclusion
Overall I'm very sad to see the demise of a once-great forum, and place the blame for this squarely at Fairfax's corporate feet. I am hopeful that the community can continue in some form, and look forward to keeping in touch with the various members I have come to know over the years, via whatever medium.

Over & Out,
Erayd

[Erayd]

If this kicks off (and overwhelms the hosting I'm providing) $120-140/month would sort a server that would handle pretty much anything we can throw at it.

If it kicks off that well, then ad revenue should more than cover the cost.

[goodiesguy]

Alternative Venues
I'm more than happy to pop in from time to time on whatever venue ends up replacing this one, as long as that venue isn't Facebook and isn't run by Goodiesguy.

No offense intended to you personally Goodiesguy, but given your history here I simply don't trust you to be either consistent or reliable, and would prefer to be in an environment which is both.

Fair enough. Just trying to help out.

[Erayd]

Fair enough. Just trying to help out.

Yup - I appreciate the effort you're making, it's a noble gesture.

[Poppa John]

Iantech & The Board.

I have some thoughts that I am sure that Fairfax has covered.

Is the Board & the Forum protected/insured against legal attack should a members comment be apparent slander/libel?

Is something like Public Liability Insurance neccesary?

Someone will need to be resonsible for the running of the site, the servers & repairing & adjusting it. Are thse people willing & have the time?

I am sure that discreet adverts, to help pay running costs, are ok? No complaint from me.

Is a buisness entity required? Tax & GST?

Will the Forum have a dedicated Bank Account?

Will we be allowed to keep our old User Names & Signatures?

These are things that came to mind & are NOT criticisms in any way. We have a Lawyer in Nelson orBlenhiem don't we? PJ

[icow]

Conclusion
Overall I'm very sad to see the demise of a once-great forum, and place the blame for this squarely at Fairfax's corporate feet. I am hopeful that the community can continue in some form, and look forward to keeping in touch with the various members I have come to know over the years, via whatever medium.

I agree with pretty much everything you said up until this point. Personally I think the community is what made PF1 great and as long as the community stays together I couldn't give a **** less (beyond not wanting to use a social networking site and given the site isn't run by a moron) where or what site we end up on. If everyone here was a bunch of dicks the I probably wouldn't have bothered coming back after X number of posts. As long as there is a site which houses us all and a few more (always keen to see new members) I'm cool with that.

[Dannz]

This is Iantech's baby but I've been lending a hand, so here are my thoughts.

Iantech & The Board.

I have some thoughts that I am sure that Fairfax has covered.

Is the Board & the Forum protected/insured against legal attack should a members comment be apparent slander/libel?


Is something like Public Liability Insurance neccesary?

Does this apply to an offshore entity (hosting)? which this most definately is

Someone will need to be resonsible for the running of the site, the servers & repairing & adjusting it. Are thse people willing & have the time?

I am sure that discreet adverts, to help pay running costs, are ok? No complaint from me.

That would be me

Is a buisness entity required? Tax & GST?
Will the Forum have a dedicated Bank Account?

If ad payments can go into paypal somehow, then the server payments could come straight out. Or someone could receive / directly deposit

Will we be allowed to keep our old User Names & Signatures?

Don't see why not.

These are things that came to mind & are NOT criticisms in any way. We have a Lawyer in Nelson orBlenhiem don't we? PJ

Might be helpful!

[Trev]

I have just noticed this.

I have zero interested in G+ so I will not be using it.

Nor will I use anything run by Goodiesguy (I think you are a bigoted idiot and will not be associated with you)

So is Iantech's forum a starter?

+1