As of today, we have posted our first commercial ads within Chat. This is another step in our long road to improve the services for club members. We want to thank The Filling Station for being the first to begin advertising with the VCCA.

We welcome other ads from businesses or individuals who have products or services that are of interest to owners of Vintage Chevrolets. See the terms HERE .

You can see the first ads in the following forums:
1912-28, 1929-32 and 1937-42.

Hey Bill,

Fine with me, but I'm thinking it was good this was a unilateral decision. I'd bet there'd be a lot (a really high percentage) of chat users that would have voted 'no' to this idea.

I am pleased that The Filling Station is the first advertiser. That's a great firm and the owner is a great supporter of all things VCCA. He should get a pat on the back for supporting this site with his ad dollars!!

I just checked out the FS hinges ad in the 37-42 forum. The art work or the computer image or something leaves a LOT to be desired. I can hardly read the ad 'copy' on my screen. Seems to me Mr. Steve Kassis should be getting an-easier-to-read ad for the money.

All above is just my 2 cents....

Bill.

Progressive improvement, not postponed perfection.

With all due respect and a hearty thank you to Bill for all you do, I don't see the advertisement as a plus. I found it refreshing to not have to wade through spam to view the site as opposed to others I spend time on. If it's necessary to help pay the bills I suppose I can tolerate it but it's not a plus. In fact I view it as a step down. Another down side is for those in Europe who pay by the kilobyte instead of a flat rate who will be literally paying to view spam. My understanding is not all on that side of the pond have to pay that way but for those who do it's not doing them a favor. I was hoping my annual dues entitled me to a spam free site. My 2 cents.

The advertising on Chat definitely not a plus. Very distracting from an excellent program. If this catches on and
we have a lot of ads our site will be like TV. 5 minutes of program and 15 minutes of comercial. Not a good decision.
JIM

The ads are okay with me. I hope the revenue goes to help grow the site, or at least make it a break-even operation. I maintain a couple of car club web sites and know all too well the cost and effort required to keep them going.

Have you considered hiding the ads for registered users that are also verified VCCA members?

The idea is to hide the ads when the dues-paying member logs into the site. The ads are present for casual web site visitors, search engines, etc.

That is how it is done on another forum where I'm a member.

Thanks,

Jeff

Well we've been spoiled for a long time on this site not having 'commercials' as other sites do, but times do change and costs are there to deal with.......so why not? I would imagine that without commercial advertisements paying at least part of the costs, our VCCA dues would probably be increased to maintain this fine site. It would certainly be nice to continue without the ads, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to stay in business. I just perused the current ads and I agree with 42Bill about the quality of the graphics.....they could stand some improvement. I also agree that we couldn't have a better first sponsor than the Filling Station. A first rate business in my book.

Thanks everybody. Good comments. Some more things to think about... probably more NON-members, than members use this site. So "the public" gets a pretty good free ride on our dime (ie. Dues-paying members). And when we respond to non-members, it is without any promise or guarantee that they might eventually join.

Now, I posted this thread in the PUBLIC space of our site so all of these comments are viewable by non-members. I thought that it would be good if we got some opinions from some of the non-members that use the site.

Other options are:

• 1. Increase dues for members by $5
• 2. Have ads display only to non-members.
• 3. Also begin to host ads on the web site too (vcca.org)
• 4. Restrict the Chat site to members only.

Bottom line is that we always need to seek ways of new revenue. Having ads from companies who support the vintage Chevrolet hobby seems to be a reasonable solution. Personally, I think that having them as the second posting in each thread is fairly tolerable.

Anyways, now you know.

Not having seen this thread earlier, I started one in the Member's Only Forum re the new ads. I also put a note in the Spark Gap. To see my comments, please go to my posting in the Member's Only Forum which basically says I don't like the ads one bit. If we are going to see ads throughout the forums in Chevy Chatter II, color me gone. Beamer

Seems a poor choice blocking non-members from this site. I for one would never have joined, if not for this site. A test drive which demonstrated the helpfulness of the people on this site on matters of originality is what made me join.

As for adds, I block all of them on all sites I frequent, which is so easy to do its not worth worrying about.

Yep, we've resisted blocking non-members. But there are OTHER variations of that too... for example:

• Allow non-members to SEE all forums but not POST to any
• Allow non-members to post only 5 times
• Show ads ONLY to non-members
• and my favorite - have a Members Only area (as today)

I totally agree with you that the best way to get our message out to potential members is to let them participate with us in a limited basis. And the real challenge is for us to continue to give greater value to dues-paying members.

With our Forum now 8 years and 3 months old, we've done pretty good running it on a shoe-string.

Keep up the good work Bill, if we need a few commercial ads to keep this site afloat I am all for it. I look at them as progress not a step backwards.

DD

If I'm understanding what I see here, there is only one ad per thread. Don't understand all the fuss, if that is the case.

As others have already stated, the quality of the ad, in appearance, leave much to be desired. FS is paying the tab, he needs to get his moneys' worth.

Bob

A couple things I'd like to add...

1) Do other people see these adds different from the way I do...or do they pay for their internet one Charactor at a time? It is a mere roll of the finger on the mouse to the next post, people!!! Having the adds as the second post in each topic is not excesive. The only sites that really irk me are the ones that do it with the pop-up!

2) It scares me when we talk about throwing non-members off the site. Sometimes we forget that the goal of the VCCA is to promote the restoration of Vintage Chevs... not to turn a profit, or boast a big membership number.If we stop allowing non members on the site, it means less restoring of old Chevs, less people keeping them, and less people learning the facts about them. Our dues buy us the G&D, the tours, and the good times, and it is up to each of us to promote that the best we can... and what better tool than the forum. If you go to a local car show, and someone asks you a question about your old car, is the answer going to be "That's classified, join the VCCA and I can tell you!!"?? It should be the same free helpful information that this site provides. It all helps our hobby in the long run, which is what the VCCA set out to do in the first place.
Blocking people out means less traffic on our site, more on competing sites...and less useful information than we have.

I say, keep up the great work Bill, and get paid where you can!

Showing the ads to non members only and/or allowing members to opt out of viewing them would satisfy my concerns.

Tiny, Putting your suggestion into effect would satisfy me also. I certainly do not cast any aspersions on BB for doing what he can to keep the site solvent. He knows, as do you, that I have a deep appreciation for what he does. It is just that ads/commercials are so ubiquitous these days that it makes one want to scream. Yes, we are starting with only one ad but there are thousands of vendors out there who would soon want to be included on the site. I have seen it time and again in my 71 years that as soon as you open the door to something, someone is standing behind it to push it wide open. I am just saying we need to squelch the practice right away before it becomes a multi-headed monster and the site becomes just another place where there are more ads than anything else. Your suggestion to make them invisible to members or let members opt out of seeing them would be a good solution. I think everyone on this site is well aware of the Filling Station anyway so why preach to the choir when it is so aggravating. Beamer

Really I am as easy to get aggravated as most folks, and I really don't see anything aggravating about the ads, ther than the image quality. What do you think about advertisers in sports?... nameing stadiums,..... sports centers, and fences for advertisers?

I think it would be a good practice to have them for all that view the threads, only one per page is fine, just remember as the thread gets longer and longer that often we don't start at the first posting but go directly to the new stuff. One idea is to run a good special discount item in the ad every month for VCCA Members only forums, to keep our attention!

Another idea is to put one add every 8 or 10 entries in the ACTIVE TOPICS list, to break up the monotony! It probably will not be as painful or as permanent as a tattoo!

When someone says..."It ain't about the money". Look around, it probably IS ABOUT THE MONEY!

I understand what you are saying Beamer, and, for what it is worth, I agree, for the most part.

However, from the advertisers point of view who is paying cash to BB and VCCA for the ad ....if I was the advertiser and was told the ad could be "bleeped out" ....well, I think that would make the advertiser reconsider spending his bucks with VCCA.

Bob

...and having to live with ads that we don't want to see could make us think twice about being members. I don't want to be melodramatic BUT I have a huge distaste for ads on a site I pay to belong to. Will that alone cause me to drop my membership? No but it's another straw on the pile. Having the option to NOT view them removes the problem.

How many times have you seen a query answered by "you can get it at The Filling Station !...Now all we need to say is check with one of the vendor-sponsers of this site!

I like it and let's understand that we are a part of the internet, and check out other forums, heck, they all have sponsers that compliment the site.

It looks like a win ....win situation for us and our favorite vendors, I agree that we should be responsible and screen out sponsering vendors, useing only those that are benefitiual and faithful to VCCA and it's members. We don't need any KIA, Honda or panty hose sponsers. (JMHO)

Make it an honor to be able to be a sponser on our site.

They are free sites that don't require the payment of dues for full access are they not?

I couldn't agree with Boss Man Bill any more than that. The only possible "change" would be to say "I've done....

But he's too dang modest to say that.

GREAT job, Bill!!!!!

Bill.

Looks very simple to me.
1. Put the advertising in the vendors & suppliers-parts form.
2.Create a new form. Sponsors vcca.org
3. Problem solved !

I have not been told this, but it appears sponsors would not be accepted within the forums ..... if VCCA and BB did not feel the need to supplement the VCCA piggy bank.

Bob

With all due respect and appreciation that Mr. Barker has earned on this site, I will agree with Tiny in his first post.

Kinda looks like the start of FM stations that ended up tons of advertising and am seeing the same thing happening on satellite radio now even if we pay to not listen to advertising.

If I had my druthers, would druther pay extra on my dues than see the ads on this site.

Thank you.

Jim.