There is a fair amount of work put into any forum, blog, web site ect. This work comes at a cost physically, mentally, and financially. The moderator/owner/operator of any website should diversify and generate income from that site. This I say is to directly cover site expenses and reimbursement for personal time spent on maintenance, moving posts, banning Spam bots, blocking some posters, warnings to posts with inappropriate content, locking threads, dealing with hosting, and the list goes on and on. I am very surprised to see that over the time i have spent(registered march 4th 2007 before the forum moved) here mainly reading not posting that there isn't any ads or even a donate now icon/link.
Steve and Noxx I would say do 90% of the work with up-keep of this site. Both should be rewarded with finances to reimburse them for time well spent(i'm sure others would agree). On a more personal note no to offend anyone I Would say both steve & noxx are individuals with a personality of a modest nature who are not looking for momentary gain from this site for their time vested. When what you hold in your hand(from a batch of whatever) isn't what you expected most of us undoubtedly would turn to this forum for answers, the next thought is undoubtedly it would be rare to see a thread titled WHAT IS THIS without having one or both chime in.
I would be comfortable with a Donate now banner at the forums home page, or a donate now banner that blankets the top of every new every subject. I would feel comfortable with some adds running down the side of each forum topic in a 1.5" column with relevant ads to the site like "get spot PM price now" "discount lab ware" etc. An advertise with us link/icon would generate some E-mails. There are numerous ways to go about this not even close to all i have covered here.
Most forums that do move from an independent funded community to a advertised externally funded community and will get some complaints from users it would be RARE if any forum would loose users to this change. Most 99.99% will adapt and tolerate the adds and continue to post and read. I have even been to a number of forums that charge a fee to view it.
I notice the original web site had a donate link but the new one dosen't. really makes no sense to me.
Final note I DO GENUINELY ENJOY THIS FORUM COMMUNITY AND APPRECIATE THE EFFORT THAT GOES INTO IT BY IT'S CREATORS MODERATORS ADMINISTRATORS AND USERS. ANYONE THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH REFINING GOLD OR OTHER PM'S WOULD BE HARD PRESSED TO NOT FIND SOMETHING OF USE WITHIN THIS FORUM.
If anyone is wondering what the page view rank is for try this link if the link dosen't work copy and paste the forums web page address in the search area at alexa. Before looking i didn't know 23.1% of traffic came from Poland to this site.
P.s. this post took me over 45min to type using one finger. Go from typing 67wpm to this do you feel my pain oh and the perocet isn't speeding things up either. I think someone is trying to teach me patience.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB2/index.php
scroll to the bottom for data.