Obviously, things have become stagnant at TrailVoy, and the company that owns it will not allow us to do anything to improve, or even repair the community's features. Things have gone downhill rather quickly over there and our requests for support have gone unanswered for way too long. The site has great members and a large amount of helpful information, but navigating the site with the disgusting amount of advertisements is more of a challenge with each passing day, and the relevance of the advertisements proves that they don't care about the community. They just want to make their money from all of the page impressions and ad clicks... otherwise they could care less.
The staff and some very familiar faces have teamed up to provide a community that is owned and run by enthusiasts, and the few minimal advertisements that you will see at the top and bottom of the site are only to help offset the expensive costs of running and maintaining a community and offering premium features. We are not trying to make a profit.
One of the things we are most excited about are some of the policies that will set us apart from TrailVoy. Vendors will no longer be required to pay fees that allow them to conduct business with members of the community. We have some big plans that could greatly benefit both members and vendors/retailers. We are also expanding our platform coverage.
We will not be blocking links to other sites, even if they block us, that is counter-productive in our opinion. The only exception would be for the security of our users. If we find links to illegal or malicious content, they will be removed and blocked. This policy will not affect the quality of content this site will offer the community.
Also, when it comes to other sites like GMTruckClub or ChevroletForum, we shouldn't look at them as competitors or enemies. They are sites that were started by enthusiasts, in most cases, with a vision like the one we had when we supported TrailVoy or when we started this site. They undoubtedly offer resources and variety to the community. Without the community, these sites would be useless. I believe we will have more features and options to set us apart from some other sites.
The one site we do want to be set apart from is TrailVoy. We are not looking for profit and will only display enough advertisements to help the site self-sustain, or at least offset as much of the cost as we can. We will not collect profits from vendors, we will not plaster ads in every possible crevice of the site, and we will not over-moderate due to outdated or counter-productive rules.
Last, but not least... the staff. We've all worked very hard to get TrailVoy where it is... or was. I dropped off the radar when VS refused to let me continue to do what I did... maintenance and feature additions. The straw that broke the camel's back is when they turned that site into a billboard after explicitly promising us that no such thing would happen. Myself and all of the staff were forced to enforce rules that were petty and were only created to ensure the site generated revenue. It caused a lot of friction between the staff and the members, all the while we were privately against the rules that we had to enforce. It completely ruined our experience as enthusiasts and made us out to be the bad guys.
While we will still have to enforce rules and policies here, they will be for the benefit of the community. There will always be someone that doesn't like to follow any rules, no matter what they are, but we have a goal... a reason for starting this site, and we would be negligent to just let our hard work and start-up cash go to waste.
We need you, the community, to get this site going. All we ask is that you stay on-topic and keep it as clean as possible. A slipped up curse word here and there won't be a huge deal, but you have to keep in mind that we have a lot of search engines picking up our content, and excessive profanity will be placed in search results. At some point, it will start to hurt us more than it would to allow over-use of profanity. We've all heard it, we've all said it... we are not trying to hide if from anyone... but we would like to do our best to keep the site family friendly and professional.
Thank you, and we look forward to building a community bigger and better than what we've grown used to.
If you're interested in how VerticalScope is screwing it's members and advertisers, read this thread.
The staff and some very familiar faces have teamed up to provide a community that is owned and run by enthusiasts, and the few minimal advertisements that you will see at the top and bottom of the site are only to help offset the expensive costs of running and maintaining a community and offering premium features. We are not trying to make a profit.
One of the things we are most excited about are some of the policies that will set us apart from TrailVoy. Vendors will no longer be required to pay fees that allow them to conduct business with members of the community. We have some big plans that could greatly benefit both members and vendors/retailers. We are also expanding our platform coverage.
We will not be blocking links to other sites, even if they block us, that is counter-productive in our opinion. The only exception would be for the security of our users. If we find links to illegal or malicious content, they will be removed and blocked. This policy will not affect the quality of content this site will offer the community.
Also, when it comes to other sites like GMTruckClub or ChevroletForum, we shouldn't look at them as competitors or enemies. They are sites that were started by enthusiasts, in most cases, with a vision like the one we had when we supported TrailVoy or when we started this site. They undoubtedly offer resources and variety to the community. Without the community, these sites would be useless. I believe we will have more features and options to set us apart from some other sites.
The one site we do want to be set apart from is TrailVoy. We are not looking for profit and will only display enough advertisements to help the site self-sustain, or at least offset as much of the cost as we can. We will not collect profits from vendors, we will not plaster ads in every possible crevice of the site, and we will not over-moderate due to outdated or counter-productive rules.
Last, but not least... the staff. We've all worked very hard to get TrailVoy where it is... or was. I dropped off the radar when VS refused to let me continue to do what I did... maintenance and feature additions. The straw that broke the camel's back is when they turned that site into a billboard after explicitly promising us that no such thing would happen. Myself and all of the staff were forced to enforce rules that were petty and were only created to ensure the site generated revenue. It caused a lot of friction between the staff and the members, all the while we were privately against the rules that we had to enforce. It completely ruined our experience as enthusiasts and made us out to be the bad guys.
While we will still have to enforce rules and policies here, they will be for the benefit of the community. There will always be someone that doesn't like to follow any rules, no matter what they are, but we have a goal... a reason for starting this site, and we would be negligent to just let our hard work and start-up cash go to waste.
We need you, the community, to get this site going. All we ask is that you stay on-topic and keep it as clean as possible. A slipped up curse word here and there won't be a huge deal, but you have to keep in mind that we have a lot of search engines picking up our content, and excessive profanity will be placed in search results. At some point, it will start to hurt us more than it would to allow over-use of profanity. We've all heard it, we've all said it... we are not trying to hide if from anyone... but we would like to do our best to keep the site family friendly and professional.
Thank you, and we look forward to building a community bigger and better than what we've grown used to.
If you're interested in how VerticalScope is screwing it's members and advertisers, read this thread.
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Time to invite people over here :wootwoot:
Just signed up today. Used to go by Ralph_T handle on TV. Hows my new name? I like it.
