As promised, I am writing to give information to members concerning the state of the DMF.   This is a litle earlier than a true quarterly report, but things have happened so quickly it's the right time.

We have been running for two months now although it feels like much longer (I suppose for the admins it is as you'll see some of our posts are from January).

In those two months we have over 2,400 members, almost 6,000 topics, and we're closing in on 100,000 posts.    Thank you, members.  You folks rock.  We made the url change smoothly and we have a logo.

Many of you have noticed that we have some sponsors on board now too.   They are guys and gals who have been involved with our addiction and are similarly aflicted, and are truly great resources not for just emptying our wallets but for helping along our education about riding, owning, maintaining, and modding Ducs.

Which brings us to money.  We currently have a little over $2,000.  Much of that is donations, which will be kept separate specifically for the running of the site (and the occassional beer for the admins if so specified when you donated...thanks, folks).   Running of the site includes any actual expenses we have and some rewards for the guys who have put in tremendous time above and beyond the simple schmoozing and talking I do for instance.

We now also have a small stream of sponsor fees coming in.  It is not much as we have continued to say this is not for making us wealthy...but we are hoping it can be seed money for some swag that everyone is clamoring for.

growth of the forum is not a primary goal.  While we are happy to have as many people as who want to join, this is not a commercial enterprise.  More people sharing the Ducati Monster enthusiasm is great and it simply widens the knowledge base and the social networking (having folks with the same interest all over the world is admittedly a lot of fun), but we're not simply trying to grow for the sake of growing and having statistics to show off.

More money in means more money out.   You all are great, but the minute you effect our taxes something is wrong and we'll be looking for ways to spend/donate/raffle/build/something.   We're a long way off from that, but it'll come.

I, and the other admins, will continue to be happy to answer any questions and we will attempt to be as transparent as possible concerning our goals, our thoughts for how the forum should run, the funds involved, etc. 

We all owe a big thanks to the 'webgeeks' who have been doing a ton of work to make this place work and look the way it does.  Thanks, guys. 

I am very happy to report that the state of the forum is good.  Thanks, everyone.

It feels like much longer than two months and I am amazed at how fast this community came back together. I offer my thanks to all of the admins and founders that made this place a reality.
Jon

Quote from: porschaholic on July 02, 2008, 09:18:20 AM
It feels like much longer than two months and I am amazed at how fast this community came back together. I offer my thanks to all of the admins and founders that made this place a reality.
Jon

+1.
Big THANK YOU to the people how've made it happen.

Oh boy -- when I saw the title "State of the Forum" -- my first thought was the bandwidth use might have exceeded the host locations limitations or a server upgrade was already required. Glad to see it isn't! (yet)

Given this has been only "live" for two months, I'm wondering what it will be like a year from now.  Lessons learned from TOB and a more open statements like this give me great hope that hopefully I have a home for many years to come.

Thanks everyone for building this site and making it happen!  It truly is appreciated. 

Quote from: Statler on July 02, 2008, 08:50:19 AM
As promised, I am writing to give information to members concerning the state of the DMF.   [...]
I am very happy to report that the state of the forum is good.

What about the WMD?  The African uranium connection?  Naked aggression?

But seriously, great news!  Thanks for the update.

Thanks for the update - and thanks for giving us all an excellent place to play!

Big thanks to the Flounders and Webgeeks!

You flounders and geeks are doing one hell of a good job

"let me make this perfectly clear....I did not have relations with those Canadians"



Congrats Chris

WOOT!   

Quote from: howie on July 02, 2008, 10:31:02 AM
You flounders and geeks are doing one hell of a good job

(zig-zag man)

A huge thank you to the Flouders and webgeeks.

I love this bar....

webgeeks

i started lurking on the other one at about the time of the switch...mainly looking for 696 info.

seems like i made the right choice.