Originally Posted by Ms PatriYacht

If you met Jay you would find him (or at least I do) as an aging Hippie .

Originally Posted by Ms PatriYacht

Zone, make a point to meet him, what I failed to say in my post is he is a really nice guy as well.

Originally Posted by birdog

Let me just say this...I formed my {Negative} opinion of Jay based on some comments that i perseived to be anti-Veteran or showed a lack of respect to Vets. I may be a bit sensitive on this subject.Sooo...Based on what some people that I respect have told me and you who have posted. I may be wrong in my opinion { Hard for me to believe}
sooooooooooo.....Jay, I hope you can accept my apolagy and
we can start over.

Sorry to interupt...Back to your thread....

Originally Posted by catastrophe

I can talk to some of these points.

Advertisers

It was decided at the outset to not charge for banner advertising with the theory that SOS would prove itself with traffic and interesting features before asking for money.

The same attitude was taken for the Classified Section.
Until it was populated and proved to be helpful for its users it was free to use. The classifieds went nowhere.

We watched traffic increase every month. We tracked daily post counts and were pleased that they equalled other sites and on specific weekdays actually surpassed OSO.
( subsequent to all that I have learned that this is not the measure of an active site, but rather CLICK THROUGHS is how traffic is measured )
Nonetheless we were pleased but decided in OCT.09 that we would target Jan.1 2010 as the date to start charging.
That was the date that a new feature at SOS would be launched.
We termed it Serious 2.0., and it would include industry writers and blogging and a host of new items that would again improve traffic and the entertainment of the members.
Different boardmember volunteers had different sections ( example-Calendars ) to work on and spent hours collecting info for it.

This feature required software changes to be done by someone who wasnt on the volunteer team and was the person who controlled our servers and the actual existence of SOS.

Chris told us that this person was working on it and would get us up and running this feature asap as far back as OCT.
This was the individual that Chris said was the major expense of the site. Serious 2.0 never happened.

We were never allowed to contact the person directly.

I did. In February I found who he was and called him.
When I asked how the project he was working on for Chris was coming along, he didnt know what I was talking about and said he wasnt working on anything.

You have read the rest.

TRAFFIC

SOS consistently enjoyed 700 - 900 posts on the busier days in the week. 2 of us tracked it constantly.

Tuesday ( 3 days ago ) SOS had 89 posts.

On some days when people have the time, it has been seen that flagwavers over there have actually posted as much as 132 times in one day.
That BS along with the stupidity of having the REFRESH clock set at what it is , is obviously to impress people like yourself that may want to advertise on a falsely busy site.

This gives me the chance to point out the resistence onhere to completely drop this whole subject.

Subsequent to the revelations about certain topics here Chris Sunkin has been very actively approaching advertisers despite the fact that Serious 2.0 never happened.

To accept a 3000.00 check for an annual banner ad you have to make sure you can deliver for a year. If you cant deliver or even exist you can expect that the advertiser will be asking for his money back for the portion of the period that he received no value or exposure.

Dozens of potential advertisers have told individuals involved in this topic that they were just about to send Chris Sunkin money, but because they read this information on here they declined.
A very major advertiser approached one of the posters on here just 3 days ago and said they hadnt heard any of this and luckily were warned by friends to contact people as they were also about to forward money.

12 month ad contracts involve trust funds. At the 3 month mark only 25% of that money has been earned and the rest better be available to be returned if need be.

Given the current circumstances you have to have some nerve asking for financial support.

The flagwavers are obvious on here so you might want to approach one of them to confirm that this post is accurate.
Be careful who you ask because a couple of them that still support the site did absolutely NOTHING during their tenure.

Hope that clears up some of your queries.

Originally Posted by Comanche3Six

Alec

With almost no money coming in (financial health)....almost no posts (interest level).....all due to advertiser and members growing awareness that the owner (Sunkin) is an incredible liar, charity bilking scumbag and con man extraordinare. A scallywag! When would you expect SOS to dissolve?

Ed

Originally Posted by catastrophe

As we mentioned a while ago, the monthly costs are being paid by Grindstone which is owned by Bootdaddy.
Havent found yet where Sunkin has any of his own money in SOS at all.
T Shirt purchases seems to be all there is in expenditures which are more than covered by membership fees.
As long as there is external financial support he will maintain ad infinitem.