posted by
someone claiming to be brickboard owner
on
Tue Mar 19 15:09 CST 2019 [ RELATED]
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You'll just have to trust that this is Jarrod for now. (I can't log in since I am traveling and don't have a key that I use for logging into my account.)
I just crunched the numbers and found that I have an $8,000 loss running the site this year. Last year, it was barely in the black.
I think this is probably a mix of factors including:
* Lack of attention including improvements and maintenance.
* Increase in consolidation of social media platforms (too bad, really).
* Big drop in ad revenue due to the above and fewer users.
* Fewer donations (not appealing to guilt, but it's way down).
* Use of a higher cost model to host than is necessary with modern platform options (would require more attention from me than I could give to address).
As it is, I will be forced to shut down the site or limit it to read only (likely and not too difficult to do while dropping the price of hosting significantly).
The means to move to use platforms is something I know how to design and build. However, again, I can't afford the time between a leadership job and my family. I might find time to re-enable posting over a longer period of time.
More to come on this subject.
-Jarrod
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I found this site in 1999 and got a huge amount of help then in keeping my brick running. I wandered off long enough to have lost my original login, but I still currently have the brick.
Thanks for all you've done.
I've donated before and will donate again, as I've found this site to be an invaluable resource.
Gotta keep the bricks rolling.
Beth M.
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I would be more than happy to help ... I would gladly ante up to the pot.
Todd
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I have just returned to the site after many years. It was an invaluable resource and helped me keep the various 240's I had running - usually on a shoestring budget. I never donated then because I didn't have the means.
Now that I do, I was unable to donate - when I clicked the DONATE button got an error.
I will try again later. Thanks for all the help through the years!
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Hi, been using the site for 5+ years now, thanks Jarrod.
One observation, I had never gone to the “All” link before a couple days ago. Just bored and looking for some reading material. So I would never have seen the link to your message. Possibly there’s a away to get your message to everyone as they login, or re-visit the site.
Not sure what the answer is but I was a member on a forum for a different car, that cost $14.95 to join, and a 9.95 per year renewal. Without a membership you couldn’t post, only read.
Probably other solutions too, as pointed out, have the “donate” button pop up every time you login or view the forum. Not sure how many regular users there are, but something like Wikipedia, if everyone donated $xx, you could run the site for a year. Also, I’ve got an ad blocker running , so no ads, maybe a pop up every time someone goes to the forum asking the user to disable the blocker to allow ads, to support the site.
Hope you can make this keep going.
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Thanks for creating the best Volvo forum on the internet. Without Brickboard, my Volvos would not be running. I am going to donate, and I would be happy to pay a yearly subscription to keep the forum going.
Best Regards,
Mike
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Well since I am one of the few who was here in the days of Volvophalia and loaned you the $ to register the name Brickboard...
No longer driving a Volvo but still help neighbors repair theirs...
Retiring to a place on the Beach in St Augustine at the end of the year.
You will work it out as you always have.
Best to you and Family!
Stoney
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That is a shame. I first stumbled across this board in early 2000. At that time my 740 was already 15+ yrs old. It has helped me tremendously. Anyway you could make the FAQs downloadable? Hate to see all that knowledge disappear into cyberspace.
--
Post Back. That's whats makes this forum work.
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Why not an annual membership fee? We could exclude some of the Elder Statesmen...
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Thanks Jarrod for keeping this ship afloat. We do appreciate you, your work on this site, and the software that supports it.
Thank you for the update and thank you for the explanation, though please, none is necessary. Those of us who have been around long enough already understand each of the bullet points you mention.
FWIW I've always enjoyed the platform you've built. Brickboard's threaded format makes it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff within threads (The high quality advice from the knowledgeable and interesting folks using your site helps too). I prefer it over the cookie cutter platform used by all the others.
You'll steer this ship in the right direction for sure.
I wish you and your family all the best!
-Will
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The decision is Jarrod's. He owns this site and the content is his or the legal entity that is brickboard.com owns the content.
I've worked in IT as primarily a technical writer / analyst on and off for decades. When off it is in manufacturing.
The effort on Jarrod's is at least exhausting when he has to update the JavaScript, maintain the operation schema to allow all or most of the services to continue. I imagine the content size is in the couple of terrabytes size at least.
The effort, time, and costs to migrate the entire site content from his servers to the cloud service was no small project I'll bet.
Since 2010 to today, I'd been exhorting, persuading, cajoling primarily facebook users of the three or four large RWD Volvo forums. Large as in some 10k to 20k members.
These facebook forums are far more active and the facebook publication platforms may it easy. Yet easier ain't better.
The question / original posts and responses there on many posts threads there are an echo chamber promoting and expanding the mythos of RWD Volvo care. User here respond with general guidance to remove the mythos. Though there exists many user asking useful questions with useful responses. Though I drive them here suggesting Spook and others will respond to your 700-900 questions. Or see this 700-900 series FAQ page to begin your diagnosis to find the root cause of your check engine light or poor tune / emissions test or info on the AW7x auto transmission.
Jarrod, maybe raise the prominence of donation requests. I see the  button on the ClassAds page in the form container. Maybe place this more prominently when site users place new posts or when responding to posts? With the dire nature of the consequence as you have announced. I wish I'd suggested it sooner to you.
You know the schema you built as well as legal consequence. Also, user may become numb to the request.
Like Click here to donate now:
Maybe rotating images or presentation like the chance image on the homepage.
I do not see Turbobricks.com asking for donations. Though I do not attend that site often at all.
Rob Bareiss, a brickboard and I guess Turbobricks site member, is the admin for the:
Volvo 240, 740 and 940 owners club
https://www.facebook.com/groups/23765538560/
Some 17K members.
Maybe we can ask these site to make mention? Maybe help drive more members here. In a raised voice versus my begging the user to so they can get help from those WAY smarter than me about 240 like the mighty, wise, and powerful Art Benstein, Phil Machine Man, Spoook, Amarin, Michael Yount, Mr. Starkie, and innumerable others of sage and wise guidance so we can keep em going.
I do mean to ask Jarrod if I could be curator of the 700-900 series FAQ to produce the next version of the 700-900 FAQ in the last some-odd years. The FAQ needs an update.
I've started several 200-series FAQs in MS Word and LibreOffice. Did not go well as both tools don't handle large doc file sizes with many embedded images though that was years ago. And then I started with a wiki server and employment issues drained away my motivation. Yet I'd been employed for 10 months out of the last 42 or so months since coming back to toilet St. Louis, the dumb town; donations are few for me now. I was not employed for nearly four years while in Spokane. Else, I'd donate more regularly. Had this joke of a career I possess been a regular engagement for the past three decades, you bet I'd donate. I have also disabled ad-block on brickboard.com in the modern browsers I use
As Klaus .sig states "Keeping it running is better than buy new".
Klaus and other may better know the large AWD/FWD facebook sites.
Enough about me.
Donate. Just donate. Wish we'd known the dire brickboard funding state was then. I'd be glad to make mention.
And you new users. Donate, please.
--
Donate NOW! Give your brickboard.com a big DONATION!!!  
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This is sad, but I have noticed less and less traffic on the site over the last couple of years.
Dan
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posted by
someone claiming to be CB
on
Wed Mar 20 06:06 CST 2019 [ RELATED]
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perhaps those New here...those who have picked up 240s with 150-250k--or more, on the clock...those West Coasters and those living in the land of No Salt/No Rust...who seem to be now posing many questions/problems...Perhaps they might want to chip in some Bucks or Solutions to keep the BB dialogue Open.
Many of us who have been here since the 90's and have owned these beasts for 20+ years before the Internet, we have the knowledge base and wecome here not so much in need of INFORMATION, but to provide information.
To keep one if the Last Owner/Maintainable vehicles running and on the road.
If this became a Read Only Site...I've bookmarked all the posts that could in the future help me out.
I'd miss the dialoge, being Wrong, being Right, being a n aHole on public forum, but it would not really find me and my 240s dead at the side of the road. Those questions were asked and answered, for my 240s, back in 1998-2004ish.
If this site went totally Off-Line, I'd spend a weekend downloading all those pertinent pages.
It's the new arrivals, like 1908xxxx, who is never at a loss for Problems, that need to figure out if they should Pony UP to keep this 2-Way site operational.
But then AOC tells us that Everything Should Be Free...until you find out what Free actually costs.
OK off my soapbox.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Don Foster (near Cape Cod, MA)
What does 10% brake pad left mean? 200 1989
posted by Don Foster on Thu Oct 31 04:00 CST 2002
"But does 10% mean NOW/URGENT?"
It would be a good idea to replace the pads this weekend providing you truly have 10% left. The Volvo tech may have estimated conservatively to motivate you, or he may have pulled that number from his ear.
"...is changing the front pads a DIY job for a DIY neophyte?"
You bet! Just don't let the car fall on you...
=======================================================================
Ya can't get there from here. LOL
https://www.brickboard.com/FIND/index.htm?forum_menu=&cx=003544480620222770647%3Aki7j2gik3xi&cof=FORID%3A11&q=Don+Foster&x=0&y=0
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posted by
someone claiming to be CB
on
Tue Mar 19 21:21 CST 2019 [ RELATED]
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Truth or Dare???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iABFZGzEjY
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posted by
someone claiming to be CB
on
Wed Mar 20 06:23 CST 2019 [ RELATED]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxJmvSpap0
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Thanks for heads up Jarrod -- and for all the support thus far. The site has been a really helpful tool for many.
AND --- things change and shit happens. Such is the way of the world.
--
82 242-6.2L; '17 Mazda3; '16 Crosstrek
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