A wee bit hypocritical there, Ed

[nd_n8]

Ah my fellow ignorant dumbasses. Your lack of reading comprehension (or even reading ability at all) belies your wrath over the new forum.

(that means you are dumb, either can’t or won’t read and this is why you are pissed off)

Allow me to repost Ed’s views on the forum:

@Ed_Zotti

Legitimate question. Let me explain the thinking here.

The original idea was that I’d set up a book forum in the message board for a new site we plan to launch. We think the new site is an exciting idea; you’ll be hearing more about it in the next couple months. But it became clear the site wouldn’t be ready in time for publication of the book. So opening the forum here instead was Plan B.

I think it’s a good Plan B, though. If the book does well and people want to talk about it, they’ll be directed here. (The last page of the book mentions www.edzotti.com, which is merely a landing page that tells people to come here.) That’ll bring new blood into the SDMB. Our user base stopped growing after we went to pay-to-post. We want to boost growth now that we’re going back to free posting. The new forum ideally will help us do that. (And yes, I have every confidence that we’ll be able to accommodate growth once Jerry gets the board upgrade tweaked - Jerry was fine with launching the book forum now.)

Why not just direct people to a thread? Because I want people to understand that they can start threads and post their own great thoughts, not just respond to someone else’s. I need a forum for that. I could have just started a blog; nowadays that’s what most book authors do. Directing people into a message board is more complicated; frankly I’m not sure it’s going to work. This is an experiment - I’m trying to get a conversation going, not give a lecture.

The whole thing could be a fiasco. The book may flop and no one will post here. If it becomes evident after a while that the forum just isn’t working, we’ll pull the plug. As it is we may move the book forum to the new site once we get that launched; we’ll see what makes the most sense.
Anyway that’s the thinking. Bottom line is I get to do it because I’m the site administrator, but this isn’t just an exercise in ego gratification - it may do the SDMB some good.

If you pull your collective heads out of your asses long enough to check out the website:
http://edzotti.blogspot.com/
you will clearly see that the forum is not an ad for the book, the book is an ad for the forum and for the message board itself.

Readers of this book will come to the “Vanity” forum to comment on the book and get shown the ads - boom, profit.

If they find us entertaining they may stick around, post a little, lurk a little, be shown more ads - boom, more profit.

It is ok children, I for one forgive your ignorance. After all, that is the mission of this board anyway, but let us not forget the purpose of this or any business venture - to make the PTB enough cash to cover costs and turn a dime or two to make it worth their time.

Pay to post did not do that.

Random strangers posting on an ad sponsored message board will.

Hell, it’s possible that if a doper wrote a book and wanted the SDMB to host a discussion forum it could turn into a mutually beneficial relationship. Or not, what the hell do I know.

But I know this, no matter how much belly aching we do TPTB will do whatever justifies their budget. And if we belly ache enough to piss His Most Perfect Baldness off then, one flip of a switch and the SDMB is history no matter what the income projection is.

So suck it up buttercup, the new forum probably won’t be around forever (mentioned in Ed’s quote) but for now burning up bandwidth bitching about it is going to get you jack squat, especially when the bitching is coupled with ignorance.