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Leftovers from the Second Skin drama...
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<blockquote data-quote="Anthony Collova" data-source="post: 6499479" data-attributes="member: 558844"><p>Part 1 of 2</p><p></p><p>The reason I try to stay out of these conversations is that without fail, they will turn in to an emotional mud slinging fest. In a previous ca.c (locked or deleted) thread, I opened my self up to criticism, and welcomed questions for some of the members that have issue with me, and my history. All I asked is that the conversation remained respectful on each side. I answered questions, one after another. Many of which were answered several times by myself. Eventually, emotions got involved, name calling, and more disrespect and verbal abuse followed. Posting of my military history, of the sale of my business and other immature antics lead me to realize that some were just not interested in knowing the answers to my questions, but were more set on exposing me in whatever light they would do me the most harm.</p><p></p><p>Some in this very thread already said they do not care what my side of the story is.</p><p></p><p>These members already have their mind made up, and while I do understand some of their frustrations, I do not understand the perpetual personal attacks and stalking of me on the forum. This behavior not only hurts me, but also makes them look immature as well.</p><p></p><p>The grain of truth comment I made was over the top, but mostly I was concerned with the way informatin was presented. In many posts people are lead to beleive that I still use the misery ban on fans of SDS, and delete SDS threads and build logs. Neither are true.</p><p></p><p>Anyone reading this, and other threads are lead only to believe what the loudest voice has to say. Since I tend to get drowned out with personal attacks, I find it best not to engage anyone when it comes to questions of my history. My lack of response is often touted as an acknowledgment of guilt rather than a defensive maneuver to cut the bleeding off before it gets worse. So in this reply I hope to make a few things very clear.</p><p></p><p>I have made mistakes, and don’t deny that, nor do I deny the following:</p><p></p><p>-That I put a misery ban on some of the more vocal and interrupting members of DIYMA (about 2 years ago) More info on the misery ban can be found here: <a href="http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=121886" target="_blank">http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=121886</a></p><p></p><p>By accident I also put an entire user group on misery ban for a few days. So many people were affected. Not just the people that I considered trouble makers. Looking back, I should have just passed out infractions once I realized that working out our differences through communications would not work, but I chose to go the route of the misery ban. Poor choice on my part for several reasons.</p><p></p><p>- That I used the Read PM hack to extract URL’s from the private message logs in an attempt to get more data on where our members were going and being referred to. The plan was to find this info out, and potentially advertise on the site that they were most interested in. Again, poor choice on my part. The data mining project stopped shortly after one of the DIYMA seniors called me out on it. It seemed harmless at the time until I listened to the reasoning of the members. To me it was a business move, to them it was an invasion of privacy and an act of mistrust. I got the point and stopped with the campaign. I now use Google Analytics to track as much info as we can, without interfering with the privacy of our members.</p><p></p><p>-Turning DIYMA in to a Second Skin site. This one is loaded, but I will do my best here to answer to this concern. When I bought the site from NPDang, my intention was to own my very own forum. I really had not clearly defined, or figured out what I was going to do with it, I was just excited to own a popular forum that I could improve. I really enjoy making things better no matter what it is. Products, forums, audio, baking (yes, I bake, in the kitchen and make killer homemade bread). No matter what it is, I always like to mess with things and try to improve upon the existing designs. Like Spectrum, Sludge and our bed liner. I am always changing things, researching, learning trying to improve. Owning a forum kind of seems like a fun venture. I had seen many members complain about slow load times, and lack of updates on the forum. Seemed like an easy fix. I also got tons of suggestions on how to improve the site from many members. I believe all the suggestions for mods and hacks were added, but many complained about these changes. Some offered other suggestions, some just complained. I did my best to accommodate everyone but eventually, the complaining got old, I got emotional and complaints turned in to personal attacks. I over reacted (misery ban) and caught hell for it. Eventually I apologized to the guys in the forum and it seemed to blow over, but not without the consequences of me losing trust from members.</p><p></p><p>At this point I had about $15k of my own money sunk in to the site, and would eventually spend another $12k or so to get things to the level they are at now. This included the mods, the hacks, skins and the failed home page that never really lived up to what I had hoped, and soon took down. Some other expenses include the KDA unit along with the initial purchase price of the forum from NPDang.</p><p></p><p>As a business owner I needed to recoup that money and it seemed like the easiest way was to charge for ad space. Then while I was on another forum I saw and method that they used to bring in some revenue. They charged members to upgrade their account permission. No permissions were taken away, but members that paid to upgrade got extra bonus permissions. I added this feature and caught hell for it but continued anyway.</p><p></p><p>Since I own Second Skin, it seemed like the most logical way to help recoup some of my lost investment was to advertise the shit out of Second Skin, which I did, and still do.</p><p></p><p>I can’t honestly say that it brings me much profit since the Google analytics reports show that I don’t get many conversions from the banner ads, but I am certain that it helps with the brand recognition, which in the long run will lead to more sales.</p><p></p><p>-SDS</p><p></p><p>A lot of emphasis has been made about how I restrict Don from contributing on the forum. How I won’t allow him to advertise, How I delete sds threads and prevent members from posting sds in their sigs. Most of this perception comes from a 3 day period, and was very isolated.</p><p></p><p>Before I get started on this, let me preface it by saying that I am not not trying to bash, or criticize Don in any way. I am merely laying out the facts as I remember them. If I any part of this is wrong, Don and ONLY don can correct me, as he is the only person that can verify his part &amp; perspective on the situation</p><p></p><p>When Don decided to come out with his line of sound deadening materials I was both shocked and relieved. On the one hand I had been anxiously awaiting his newest testing results, confident that we would fair pretty well. When he launched his site, I was infact hurt, and emotional about it. Going from a state of hoping, and almost expecting to see Second Skin at the top of his updated list, to a point of seeing him open up shop was truly a 180 degree switch.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand I new that his site was generating a good deal of traffic for us, and Prior to this, I had worried about what would happen if he had decided to take the site down, or if we did not fair as well as we had hoped. I knew this would effect business to some degree, but I had no idea how much. Google Analytics could only tell me so much. The rest was pure speculation on my part. Fear mostly.</p><p></p><p>So when he did open up shop, it gave me a better understanding of that fear. I got to see exactly how much traffic was generated from his site, and what kind of traffic loss I would see. IT was some what of a relief to know exactly where I stood on my own accord, not relying on anyone else for my income or profitability. Now that his site was no longer sending me referrals and potential customers, I was 100% on my own. This was scary and exciting all at the same time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Anthony Collova, post: 6499479, member: 558844"] Part 1 of 2 The reason I try to stay out of these conversations is that without fail, they will turn in to an emotional mud slinging fest. In a previous ca.c (locked or deleted) thread, I opened my self up to criticism, and welcomed questions for some of the members that have issue with me, and my history. All I asked is that the conversation remained respectful on each side. I answered questions, one after another. Many of which were answered several times by myself. Eventually, emotions got involved, name calling, and more disrespect and verbal abuse followed. Posting of my military history, of the sale of my business and other immature antics lead me to realize that some were just not interested in knowing the answers to my questions, but were more set on exposing me in whatever light they would do me the most harm. Some in this very thread already said they do not care what my side of the story is. These members already have their mind made up, and while I do understand some of their frustrations, I do not understand the perpetual personal attacks and stalking of me on the forum. This behavior not only hurts me, but also makes them look immature as well. The grain of truth comment I made was over the top, but mostly I was concerned with the way informatin was presented. In many posts people are lead to beleive that I still use the misery ban on fans of SDS, and delete SDS threads and build logs. Neither are true. Anyone reading this, and other threads are lead only to believe what the loudest voice has to say. Since I tend to get drowned out with personal attacks, I find it best not to engage anyone when it comes to questions of my history. My lack of response is often touted as an acknowledgment of guilt rather than a defensive maneuver to cut the bleeding off before it gets worse. So in this reply I hope to make a few things very clear. I have made mistakes, and don’t deny that, nor do I deny the following: -That I put a misery ban on some of the more vocal and interrupting members of DIYMA (about 2 years ago) More info on the misery ban can be found here: [URL="http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=121886"]http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=121886[/URL] By accident I also put an entire user group on misery ban for a few days. So many people were affected. Not just the people that I considered trouble makers. Looking back, I should have just passed out infractions once I realized that working out our differences through communications would not work, but I chose to go the route of the misery ban. Poor choice on my part for several reasons. - That I used the Read PM hack to extract URL’s from the private message logs in an attempt to get more data on where our members were going and being referred to. The plan was to find this info out, and potentially advertise on the site that they were most interested in. Again, poor choice on my part. The data mining project stopped shortly after one of the DIYMA seniors called me out on it. It seemed harmless at the time until I listened to the reasoning of the members. To me it was a business move, to them it was an invasion of privacy and an act of mistrust. I got the point and stopped with the campaign. I now use Google Analytics to track as much info as we can, without interfering with the privacy of our members. -Turning DIYMA in to a Second Skin site. This one is loaded, but I will do my best here to answer to this concern. When I bought the site from NPDang, my intention was to own my very own forum. I really had not clearly defined, or figured out what I was going to do with it, I was just excited to own a popular forum that I could improve. I really enjoy making things better no matter what it is. Products, forums, audio, baking (yes, I bake, in the kitchen and make killer homemade bread). No matter what it is, I always like to mess with things and try to improve upon the existing designs. Like Spectrum, Sludge and our bed liner. I am always changing things, researching, learning trying to improve. Owning a forum kind of seems like a fun venture. I had seen many members complain about slow load times, and lack of updates on the forum. Seemed like an easy fix. I also got tons of suggestions on how to improve the site from many members. I believe all the suggestions for mods and hacks were added, but many complained about these changes. Some offered other suggestions, some just complained. I did my best to accommodate everyone but eventually, the complaining got old, I got emotional and complaints turned in to personal attacks. I over reacted (misery ban) and caught hell for it. Eventually I apologized to the guys in the forum and it seemed to blow over, but not without the consequences of me losing trust from members. At this point I had about $15k of my own money sunk in to the site, and would eventually spend another $12k or so to get things to the level they are at now. This included the mods, the hacks, skins and the failed home page that never really lived up to what I had hoped, and soon took down. Some other expenses include the KDA unit along with the initial purchase price of the forum from NPDang. As a business owner I needed to recoup that money and it seemed like the easiest way was to charge for ad space. Then while I was on another forum I saw and method that they used to bring in some revenue. They charged members to upgrade their account permission. No permissions were taken away, but members that paid to upgrade got extra bonus permissions. I added this feature and caught hell for it but continued anyway. Since I own Second Skin, it seemed like the most logical way to help recoup some of my lost investment was to advertise the shit out of Second Skin, which I did, and still do. I can’t honestly say that it brings me much profit since the Google analytics reports show that I don’t get many conversions from the banner ads, but I am certain that it helps with the brand recognition, which in the long run will lead to more sales. -SDS A lot of emphasis has been made about how I restrict Don from contributing on the forum. How I won’t allow him to advertise, How I delete sds threads and prevent members from posting sds in their sigs. Most of this perception comes from a 3 day period, and was very isolated. Before I get started on this, let me preface it by saying that I am not not trying to bash, or criticize Don in any way. I am merely laying out the facts as I remember them. If I any part of this is wrong, Don and ONLY don can correct me, as he is the only person that can verify his part & perspective on the situation When Don decided to come out with his line of sound deadening materials I was both shocked and relieved. On the one hand I had been anxiously awaiting his newest testing results, confident that we would fair pretty well. When he launched his site, I was infact hurt, and emotional about it. Going from a state of hoping, and almost expecting to see Second Skin at the top of his updated list, to a point of seeing him open up shop was truly a 180 degree switch. On the other hand I new that his site was generating a good deal of traffic for us, and Prior to this, I had worried about what would happen if he had decided to take the site down, or if we did not fair as well as we had hoped. I knew this would effect business to some degree, but I had no idea how much. Google Analytics could only tell me so much. The rest was pure speculation on my part. Fear mostly. So when he did open up shop, it gave me a better understanding of that fear. I got to see exactly how much traffic was generated from his site, and what kind of traffic loss I would see. IT was some what of a relief to know exactly where I stood on my own accord, not relying on anyone else for my income or profitability. Now that his site was no longer sending me referrals and potential customers, I was 100% on my own. This was scary and exciting all at the same time. [/QUOTE]
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