PharmEcis

iTrader: (3)

So I'm going to rant for a bit and my rant will be long. You have been forwarned. That being said, anyone who lives in this region and is a member of dcevoclub should really read this post. While I don't have a lot of posts on this site, I've lurked for years as I've always been a Mitsu guy and always wanted an EVO. Today not only do I own an EVO, I've also helped build some of the baddest EVOs in this area, if not the country and am a member of the various local forums. Heck, I even had a pretty big helping hand in taking home a national championship title. (Someone had to be the ***** at Mid Ohio right Nick?... LOL)

The reason for this rant are statements made by an owner of one of the local EVO communities. Before I get into the rant, I think a little background about myself is important for the validation of my rant. I own www.2gstratus.org. I've been the owner of that site since the end of 2002. I saved that site when the original owner was going to disband it by purchasing the domain name and the forum database from him. I didn't save the site because I wanted to make money but because I had a love for the platform and its community in general. You see, the Stratus coupe was the first car that I purchased in my life that was new. While it's not a performance beast, it was the car that started me down this madness that is automotive performance. It gave me the mod bug and is honestly the reason why I am who I am and do what I do today. The reason I state this is because this is verification that I personally know what is involved in the day to day operations and expense of running an online community.

Now onto my rant. The local forums for the mid atlantic region as most of you know is dcevoclub.com. If you are a member there, you should be familiar with the various controversies that have raged in that community. What I'm pissed about is the idiotic way that the admin, Aaron, handles himself and states things. For starters, we recently had a client go on that forum and post that he had a favorable experience in his dealings with us. If you haven't gathered by now, I work with DTM while also running my own company. That thread ended up getting locked pretty quickly because it was alleged that we asked that client to post about his experience with us and that the thread was giving us free advertising as we were no longer a vendor on that site. For the record, I will state right now that we did not ask for such a post to be made on that site.

Why were we no longer a vendor on that site? Because since DTM's opening, we slowly but surely began to eat away at the other vendors market share. There are only so many EVOs in this area and with multiple shops that service this platform, there is a limited amount of work to be done. What would happen if we continued to take over market share? It's quite possible that the other shops wouldn't be in a position to be vendors and that would reduce the incoming revenue. So basically we were cut in hopes that it would hurt our business while the excuse was that we were causing a rift in the community. Luckily, our work speaks volumes and we were able to survive even without any advertising on the local forums.

Now back to my point. Aaron has alleged numerous times that the upkeep for dcevoclub is expensive. He states that he barely breaks even while he has / had multiple ads that run on the site, to the point that even clicking on a link would give you a full page ad instead of taking you to the link you wanted to go to. He has multiple vendors on the site who all pay to have their ads displayed along with a dedicated sub forum.

When I read this, I instantly became angry because the only way you could rack up those kinds of fees is if you are an absolute idiot. Aaron supposedly works in IT. Before I became a master wrench I also worked IT and ran a successful consulting company. I'm not the smartest cookie in the world but I'm not stupid. To be honest, I don't think there is any chance in hell that Aaron actually spent that kind of money. In fact, I do believe that he is outright lying in order to justify himself and mask the fact that he is actually making a tidy profit off the community he owns.

Let's do some simple math shall we? vBulletin has an outright purchase price of $160. That price has been pretty much constant since it's inception in version 1.0. With your initial purchase you have the right to free upgrades for a year. After that, it costs you $30 per year to have upgrade rights. So if dcevoclub.com has been in existence since 2003 and assuming he has purchased the rights to upgrades every time his subscription runs out, he has spent a total of $280 on vBulletin. He didn't include domain registration but I'll calculate that in for him. Only an idiot pays more than $15 a month for domain registration. Dcevoclub is registered through godaddy.com. Godaddy.com charges at the max $10 a year for domain registration. He needs a DNS service too. The DNS service he uses is dnsmadeeasy.com. While I can't state what package plan he is using, most likely it's the business membership. That costs $60 a year. I'll be generous and state that he has to spend $70 a year for the domain registration and DNS service even though he very might well have the much cheaper domain name service. Over 5 years, that's a total of $350. Simple addition brings our total so far to $630 for the forum software and domain registration / DNS service. If he has stated that his expenses to date are $6,425 for just hosting and software, simple subtraction tells us that he has spent roughly just over $5,800 on hosting for five years! OMFG. Aaron, will you please host your domains through me? I would love to have a cash cow like you as a client!

Years ago bandwidth was expensive. I'm talking about circa 1980s to mid late 90s. The advent of broadband has changed all of that. Dedicated T1 lines can be had for a fraction of their original cost as cable and DSL give you superior speeds for a fraction of a T1's cost. The entire Internet hosting world has turned upside down. To give you an idea, I spend $120 a YEAR with dreamhost for my hosting needs. What does this give me?

Total Bandwidth Provided: 6055 GB ($0.1/GB over) PER MONTH
Total Used So Far: 14.386 GB
Estimated Average Usage: 15.927 GB (at end of billing period)
Estimated Overage Charges: $0.00

Yes that's right folks, I get SIX TERABYTES of data transfer a month. Ok, some times hosts will give you a sweet deal on data transfer but cap your storage and charge a lot for that. Well, what does dreamhost do for me?

Total Disk Space Provided: 297.8 GB ($0.01 / MB over)
Month Average: 5.2 GB
Currently Using: 6.2 GB
Estimated Average Usage: 5.2 GB (at end of billing period)
Estimated Overage Charges: $0.00

Hrm... I host about 9 domains through dreamhost and I run an online community that is 65% larger than dcevoclub and definitely gets a bit more traffic as my community is national and not local. Let's look at the community numbers shall we?

dcevoclub: Threads: 8,501, Posts: 107,246, Members: 2,090

2gstratus.org:
Board Stats Our members have made a total of 391,673 posts
We have 3,455 registered members

Ok so my community has almost 4x the number of posts and 1.65x the number of users. Obviously my ad revenue is going to exceed that of dcevoclub simply because my site generates more traffic. What I do not have is ZERO paying vendors. I never have and I never will as that platform doesn't get any love from aftermarket companies. The one company who would pay to be a vendor on my site has been refused due to moral obligations as their product is crap.

Let's look at what google ads have brought in for me in the last year shall we? In the last year alone, just some simple google ads that are NON INTRUSIVE and displayed at either the top or bottom portion of the screen have netted me:
Totals 1,163,835 2,384 $733.18
Since I started using google for ads back in October of 2005, I've received a total of:
Totals 3,519,518 8,084 $2,801.56

My overall expenses are $120 a year for hosting (which hosts not only 2gstratus.org but 8 other sites and has the capacity of hosting hundreds more with zero additional fees) and $20 a year for domain name registration and DNS service. So since 2005, I've spent $420 and NETTED just under $2,400 and have been able to host all my other sites FOR FREE. I should also mention that I purchased IPB Invision for my forum software and was charged $250 at that time as a one time expense. So in actuality my net is more like $2,150.

I don't know exactly what Aaron charges per month for his vendors but let us use some low calculations and see what that gives us. If he charges them $400 a year (which is what DTM paid for vendor status until it was revoked) and he has 7 paying vendors on the site, he is grossing $2,800 a year in vendor fees. If the site has been operational for 5 years and lets say an average of five vendors per year over that time period, that is $10,000. Even if his ridiculous claims of his out of pocket expenses for running that site are true (WHICH THEY CANNOT BE), he has still turned at least a $3,500 profit off his little community. Be mindful that his gross income in fees is not even calculating the money from outsourced ads such as Google ads but strictly in vendor fees!

So... Is Aaron lying or is he an IT guy who is an absolute ****ing moron? Did he enter into some binding contract with a host who is *** raping him in bandwidth charges? I highly doubt that he is that stupid. Hell, for the kind of money he is talking about spending, he sure as hell better have a rented or colocated server that is his and only his.

Aaron, your attempt at being a bleeding heart is pathetic. Your blatant lies to the community that you founded abuse the trust your members have in you. You have manipulated your community so that it serves YOUR interests and not theirs. You desperately tried to destroy a fledgling company and tried to turn an entire community against us. Luckily for us, the majority of your members have a brain and can think for themselves. They are independent enough to make decisions based upon their own observations and their deciphering of the facts.

We are here to stay. The truth shall set you free. The tides are finally turning and you have been digging your own grave for years.

I post this on this site because any attempt to do so on the other site would result in this thread being immediately deleted and my account along with my IP banned for life. Why? Because what I have said here has the beautiful reality of truth. In truth, my account will probably still be banned because of this post on this site.

For those who are a bit geeky and really want to know the truth... Prepare to eat the red pill. Trace route dcevoclub. You will see that it runs through two primary hosts. www.savvis.com and phre.net. If you whois dcevoclub you will see that it's registrant is Phre Solutions, LLC. Whois phre.net and you see that it's owner is Aaron Pursell who is obviously nastea, the site admin of dcevoclub. If you hit phre.net's website, you basically see a site for an IT consulting company in Montana. The only thing that can make sense about the figures that Aaron has stated is that his hosting fees are not just for dcevoclub, BUT FOR HIS BUSINESS AS WELL. But honestly, in this day and age can ANYONE believe that someone is paying $6k for less than 5 years of hosting? All you really need to do is contact www.savvis.com and see what they charge for hosting. One must realize though that you do not need a McLaren F1 to goto the store and get groceries, an EVO will suffice. If Aaron is indeed paying the amount he stated for hosting, it is because of his business and NOT because dcevoclub.com requires that expensive of a host. Also, his DNS fees are over inflated. I spend $5 a year for each domain that needs such service so his overall cost calculation above is highly inflated. If I can run a site that is bigger in every sense for $140 a year (hosting, dns, domain name registration), so can he.

Regardless, I think I've quite handily proved that the expenses for dcevoclub.com are hardly what the owner makes it out to be and that he in fact is turning quite a tidy profit off his little endeavor. I need to state that there is absolutely nothing wrong with turning a profit. I could only wish I was Ali with the kind of revenue he sees with his portfolio of communities. The problem I have is when someone blatantly lies about it to serve an ulterior motive and when that person has directly tried to negatively impact my lively hood for no just cause other than a personal vendetta against particular individuals.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long *** diatribe.

MadMsheen

iTrader: (4)

Ok.. I can understand why you posted this here. It was well written and well thought out. I can't help but feel that this is just venting.

I've been part of the DCEvoclub since December of 04. I've met some great people there, and made some very good friends. I can understand your frustration. But there is a bit more to the DTM controversy than just kicking DTM off for business reason, but I won't get into that.

I think our community is growing in the right direction. Aaron is fairly quiet on DCEvoclub, but he keeps an open line of communication with his moderators, and I can tell you you're midjudging him like I misjudged Nick from DTM.

I don't think mudslinging on EvoM is going to help matters get better for you.

PharmEcis

iTrader: (3)

I'm absolutely venting. I state it from the beginning that my post is a rant. To be honest, the biggest reason I posted this is not because of how Aaron has treated us but because he is lying about how much money he has spent running dcevoclub. I CAN'T STAND LIARS. PERIOD. It angers me that he attempts to make himself out to be a martyr and a savior to his community when he is in fact profiting from his community.

THAT IS MY ISSUE. The DTM issue just happened to kinda come along as I was typing this up last night. I know full well that there is more to the DTM issue on dcevoclub than what I stated, but in all honesty, I think I summed up the DTM issue very quickly in a nutshell. The fact that he put our name out there in the NSFW thread when NO ONE MENTIONED US AT ALL also has part to play in the reason for this post. We haven't tried to start anything on dcevoclub yet he can't keep our names out of his mouth when it comes to derogatory comments.

You reap what you sow.

4G63 T

iTrader: (14)

ouch..

MadMsheen

iTrader: (4)

Yep, I'm hurt.

PharmEcis, you're making inferences. If it bothers you that much, you should send Aaron a PM on DCEvoclub, of which you are still a member.

The DTM name has not been knocked down to NSFW on DCEvoclub, as far as I know. If I'm wrong, please cite an example, and I'll look into it.

As far as liars go, I'm pretty sure no one likes those. Not to sound insulting, but I hope you don't explode to this extent everytime you think someone is lying to you.

jba3

iTrader: (7)

What he was talking about on DTM and NSFW is not that DTM is NSFW material. It is a reference to the thread RichJ started, in which Nastea compared the discussion of the NSFW section to starting a big revolution of people who "need to STFU" and "like DTM".

Personally I think it's pretty ****ed up I can't even put the name of the company who services my evo in my signature, and that people who had it there had it changed from things like "DTM 50 trim" to "POS 50 trim".

Stupid (although MAYBE innocent) comments like "Why so hush hush n ****? Out with it." by a DCEvoClub member (and co-owner of a DCEvoClub vendor/sponsor) directed towards a DTM client in response to his preview post of his new turbo setup is just asking for trouble. If we were to post specs or theories on what the turbo will produce, when, and how ... the thread would get locked or deleted for "advertising for a non-vendor", I'm sure.

The extent of BS on DCEvoClub has shot through the roof in the last week. So much so that both of the DCEvoClub.com stickers are coming off of my car, because my choice of companies to work on my car has turned me into "one of them" despite being a DCEvoClub member for over 2 years.

The fact that another member on DCEvoClub had to come out and literally throw money in my face and act like he's better than me only put more fuel on the fire. I am very active in DCEvoClub, I've helped members with installs for free, given advice when I can, tried to provide at least meager entertainment at times, and represent the community by sporting the stickers and talking to people when they ask. The guy who insulted me moved out here from 3,000 miles away and hasn't owned an evo since he moved out here.

And, PharmEcis, those numbers do sound pretty convincing. I do IT work, and for the gov't, and I can't find a single fallacy in what you've stated from a tech standpoint. Only thing I can think of is maybe he does drive a McLaren to Food Lion.

MadMsheen

iTrader: (4)

Holy cow!!

This sounds like a thread that belongs on DCEVoclub. Here's a bunch of it's members airing out dirty laundry pertaining to that club on another forum.

Check SPEED's sig on DCEvoclub. The "DTM" censor was lifted almost as soon as it was put in place.

As far as advertising goes, there's no problems with members posting their setups or even saying where they got it from. But I think that the forum has an obligation to it's vendors to moderate posts that clearly advertise or point to a competing business's services. If someone wants to know where you got your awesome turbo setup from, ask via PM.

I actually made that mistake here. We all slip sometimes, but I clearly understand EvoM's standpoint on it. You don't see me making ellaborate posts about it.

It's simple. If you don't like the forum. Don't go to it. That's a bad thing to say, but it's the simplest answer I can give.

However, give it some time, you'll see that we're trying to be as fair as we can while running a sponsored forum; all the while, trying to keep it for enthusiasts.

I really don't think DCEvoclub is business driven, or else there would be a lot more deleted threads.

PharmEcis

iTrader: (3)

I would have posted this on dcevoclub but we both know what the eventuality of such a post would be. Thread deletion and account termination. I posted it here because I hope/hoped that it will give anyone involved the ability to post their sentiments without fear of a thread lock or deletion by biased individuals.

My issue has never been with the forum itself or the community that makes up the forum. For the most part, the local community is a great commodity for all involved. My issue is the fact that the owner of the community is a LIAR and is twisting the reality of the situation in order to support his agenda.

I'm glad that the moderation team is attempting to be as fair as possible. If you really want to be fair, why deny what is arguably one of if not the best shop in the area the ability to be a vendor?

When someone lies about his expenses in relation to his income, you can only assume that the model for daily operation is financially driven.

Again, there has been a lot of this and that about DTM and the local community. This is NOT what this thread is about. THIS THREAD IS ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE OWNER OF THE SITE IS A LIAR AS THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL HE HAS NOT MADE MONEY OFF THE SITE AND HIS EXPENSES FOR THE ACTUAL OPERATION OF THE SITE IS FAR LESS THAN WHAT HE STATES.

Sympathy vote FTL.

DTM

iTrader: (4)

Seyla, Even before meeting you I had and have respect for your thoughts on many matters.
Regardless of what was posted by anybody on that forum, in person, whatever.
I also appreciate the comment above more now then ever...but I still and have never understood what Aarons problem is with us. If what Greg posted above is not the case then why not reach out and try to fix the problem? I have tried contacting him numerous times. NOT RECENTLY, but over a year ago. We have never asked ANYONE to cause any trouble by posting ANYTHING. What we have said on many occasions is this: No matter if you are happy or unhappy with your experience with us, just let us or the community know how you like the service provided to you. Very simple. NO ONE can get better or grow in a positive direction without constructive positive or negative feedback. That is all we have ever asked.
You know some of the people that come here. They are very open and would not think twice to expose anything. We have done our best to serve everyone here in the midatlantic region. The volume of car that come thru here support that thoery.
When we have open house events like we will be in March EVERYONE is invited.
Have we ever said to anyone, your from xxxxx and your not allowed here? Like "some" others have dome to our customers.
I know it sound silly, but (imagine a customer point of view) when you closed the shutters on things, people are still going to be curious. They are going to want to know what really goes on back there that is so bad. So bad that in fact they have to censor their name..... I'm going to found out....

Nick
DTM

MadMsheen

iTrader: (4)

I understand what you mean. Calling the forum owner a liar wouldn't go over well. But I'm more than happy to discuss it with you here or over PMs.

Not saying that he is lying, but I can understand why he doesn't tell anyone how much he makes from the forum if anything. I mean, not everyone likes to give out their income level, unless it's to a hot girl in gold-digger central aka Northern Virginia.


I think that's something Nick should take up with Aaron.

For guys like you and me, who are just members of DCEvoclub, let's just keep posting, and concentrate on making fast Evos. I'll leave the business aspect of it to the forum/shop owners.

MadMsheen

iTrader: (4)

I've heard nothing but good things about you and DTM from your customers. I've even seen how DTM satisfies any mishaps that befall a customer's car. Very impressive.

It's been over a year since you contact Aaron. I definitely cannot speak for him, I'm just a moderator over there, but maybe opening a line of communication would be a good start.

I personally think your shop would be and is a great asset to our community. And there's nothing wrong with a little healthy competition.

As for the open house, I just hope you have enough food, because Evo guys can eat.

CharlesJ

iTrader: (6)

Just a quick note. Not everyone will use the cheapest hosting service. There are many reasons to go with a different service. We host at an enterprise level facility and pay an ungodly amount for it. But the service and security it provides us is extremely important. Another thing to consider is time. A persons time is money. If I can make X amount of dollars spending my time doing something else, I had better make it doing that. If he is not personally spending his time with upkeep and management, then he would probably be paying somebody. After everything is said and done, it is very possible he does not profit by doing this with his time. Just a different viewpoint I thought I would share.

It is also important to mention that while you viewpoint and frustration may be warranted, there are two sides to every story. So lets keep that in mind and keep this topic civil. If anyone gets out of line, this will be your only warning not to.

SPEED

iTrader: (11)

hahahahahah

SPEED

iTrader: (11)

I have to agree with you on this one Seyla...lol

SPEED

iTrader: (11)

OMG Greg...this shyt is like an essay. Too many coronas last night...i'll read it later.