It's been a month since we opened the doors to the new site. The traffic flow for this time of year has been phenomenal. We are about 10% ahead of last year at this time, which surprised us because we had made efforts to reduce the garbage that was happening which we thought would reduce page views by about 25% overall.
In the last 31 days we have had 10.3 million hits, 1.3 million total page views and over 64,000 visitors. Our page per visitor is an astonishing 20+ right now. Considering we did a few things like have 50 thread visible per page and 25 responses per page, this is quite huge. We did 36 GB of data transfer. This is also really huge. This is likely triple what we did on the old server and is a testament to our host.
We launched 3 skin packs and added several new sponsors to our site. We've made the pricing very attractive for our banner ads and between that and our Google ads, we should be able to keep this afloat without more money coming out of our pockets.
In January we will be adding new software as well as upgrading the board software to the newest version. To see the newest version, you can click on the Invision link in the copyright line at the bottom of the page. We're not upgrading just yet cause all the skins are not available for it and we want to make sure there are no bugs in the upgrade script. This site will always implement security updates the day they are available. The newest version available is a core upgrade and not a security upgrade.
With success comes trouble..it is inevitable. We are not babes in the woods and we know the ramifications of our actions. Still, some stuff has come about we were not prepared for and because of it, certain changes will be put in place. Also, we made some administrative changes to reflect the changing nature of the business.
As of last month, this site is no longer the property of the Ontario Fishing Network. It is now co-owned by four members. Since the Ontario Fishing Network board was more than just a site....it was more like a community...we needed to make changes to not only reflect that, but to protect the owners.
Hence the OFC Community was born. While it maintains strong ties to the Ontario Fishing Network, it is not directly a part of that business.
There's a few reasons for this move. First and foremost the nature of the site meant it was important to seperate it from everything else TJ was doing. TJ never really dream't this thing would take on a life of its own. It had grown to the point where it was taking up 90% of his time but only contributing less than 1% of the income. This was an untenable position.
TJ then approached Spiel, Roy and myself and a partnership was inititated. This partnership will likely result in a new Corporation in the new year. The corporation is now needed to protect the families and assets of the sites owners.
Recently we have been under a barrage of legal threats. While the threats are quite without merit as well as a really huge pain in the ass, they have to be dealt with. Unfortunately, because of the name recognition, TJ was bearing the brunt of these communications. It was, in my opinion, a disgusting set of acts brought upon TJ. For this reason we are laying out for everyone to see the list of owners and admins along with their duties for all to see. Also, it is no longer TJ's sole role to accept complaints and he will no longer receive them at his personal email address. All complaints must be sent to
[email protected] . Reporting a post will still be done the old way (clicking on the report button on an offending post). The complaint address will be forwarded to a site owner and this will be rotated amongst the group ... likely on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.
Site Admins and Root Admins (owners);
Administrators
Marty, DanC and Muskiestudd are the site admins and mods. Marty also provides legal advice to the site and his contribution of late has been exemplary. These guys also have full access to all site functions. There's no way we could do this without them. Kirk has also helped us out in the legal area with sage advice on Ontario law.
Root Administrators
Roy- Roy is in charge of making sure the bills get paid. He is also in charge of the Old Milwaukee.
Spiel- Spiel is in charge of overseeing all admin actions and functions as well as his duties with the Fishing News department. He is also the reigning tiller boat champion.
TJ Quesnel- TJ is in charge of contests and promotions as well as advertising sales. He's the best salesman in his height category, bar none.
Rick O'Banion- Rick is in charge of software and graphics. The alpha-geek.
OFNcommu- The OFNcommu name is a non-deletable core admin account. This is used to recover the site in case of an attack and has a quadruple encrypted protection lock.
ALL Site and Root Admins get copies of the "REPORT" button. The first person to get this PM will deal with the report in what ever ways seems fit.
Site assets - The site is run on Invision Power Board and Gallery. Quite simply they are the most secure, finest pieces of forum software available. It isn't cheap, but it is the best. Skins are all done by Kim (member name Dragonfly). The site is hosted by Invison Hosting on a secure server in Virgina, USA.
This site and its predecessors have always been successful due to the participants and alot of hard work behind the scenes. None of us will stand idly by and watch anyone try and dismantle it for any reason.
It is your site. Use it, promote it and protect it.
