Thanks UTV Underground

[deviant_illusion]

I stopped visiting Teryxforums.net awhile ago and had a member contact me here about a question on some pics and make a comment about me getting screwed. I left him a reply and it made me happy to be a member on the underground.

, I really want to point out I don't feel like anyone screwed me. I have had the opinion about a lot of forums that they are only their for a paycheck for some time. Teryx Forums is one of them. The site is 100% user content. People like me that contributed a lot to the site with detailed threads is what populates the database that helps make the site what it is. Then they use the popularity that the database of information generates and sell advertising to vendors. My issue came when I worked out a deal to do a large buy in on HID lights and planned to offer the members of the teryx community that I was involved with a good deal. People were pissed because I was going to sell them for much less then the paying vendors offer them for. I cant say that I blame them if I was in their shoes I would probably feel the same way. So they deleted the thread. At that point I wasnt really upset but it did tip the scale that the site was in fact less concerned about the members of the site and more focused on the money the vendors bring. I think if they feel that way then the owners and vendors of teryx forums should be more responsible for the site content then the actual members.
The owners of teryx forums own several different sites. They really dont care about teryx owners as much as running a business. Now this site your contacting me on for example is owned and run by someone who cares. Content on this site is mostly from him. Any money generated on this site has been earned. Also It has a classifieds section not associated with the forum and eliminates the need to play jr. woodchuck big brother with stuff like this.

Anyways I had some other stuff but basically JoeyD Runs this site the way I feel it should be. So Thanks

Jacob

 

[waytay]

I agree with you on most points and very much so that the owner is very involved and does care. Dont you think that if you were putting up a thread that sold large volume of items that joey would not have to stop it? He would because his family is supported by paying members. Joey can not eat xp's for dinner nor can his children. Unfortunatly business is business .....you are just shunning the rest of the members on the other site.

This is meant in a nice way please take it that way. Many good people on these sites!

 

[deviant_illusion]

I agree with you on most points and very much so that the owner is very involved and does care. Dont you think that if you were putting up a thread that sold large volume of items that joey would not have to stop it? He would because his family is supported by paying members. Joey can not eat xp's for dinner nor can his children. Unfortunatly business is business .....you are just shunning the rest of the members on the other site.

This is meant in a nice way please take it that way. Many good people on these sites!

I dont disagree with what your saying but Joey is active on his site. He contributes heavy on his site. So I dont mind following his rules.
The other site is making their money from their members and are not contributing. Business is business and like any of them I luxury of only supporting the ones I choose. And keep in mind What I was doing was offering the members and a lot of my friends a one time offer to buy lights in my group buy at a large discount from what they could buy them for and I was fronting all the money to boot. If I was lucky I would have ended up with $100 more in my pocket then I started with and would have spent a whole hell of a lot more time making this happen for everyone then a $100 is worth. At the end of the day I had a ton of super happy friends with bad ass lights for cheap and I now have a few new forums I visit.

Im sorry you feel like Im shunning the members over their. I honestly miss visiting that site and those people.

 

[Ali Baba]

Most of us cult members are over here too... So, glad to see you didn't fall of the face of the earth...

 

[az_amsoil]

I see both sides, however to say that Doug isn't involved is just not true...he is over on the RZR site a lot and owns one of the fastest RZRs on earth. What he does it trusts the mods to keep the site within rules.

Now you can sprinkle the underground with your fab skills!

transcribed by carrier pigeon for Tapatalk

 

[crazywatson]

Doug is a administrator the forum foundry owns the site and like 50 others

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[az_amsoil]

...and Doug is Foundry Forums


transcribed by carrier pigeon for Tapatalk

 

[waytay]

I dont disagree with what your saying but Joey is active on his site. He contributes heavy on his site. So I dont mind following his rules.
The other site is making their money from their members and are not contributing. Business is business and like any of them I luxury of only supporting the ones I choose. And keep in mind What I was doing was offering the members and a lot of my friends a one time offer to buy lights in my group buy at a large discount from what they could buy them for and I was fronting all the money to boot. If I was lucky I would have ended up with $100 more in my pocket then I started with and would have spent a whole hell of a lot more time making this happen for everyone then a $100 is worth. At the end of the day I had a ton of super happy friends with bad ass lights for cheap and I now have a few new forums I visit.

Im sorry you feel like Im shunning the members over their. I honestly miss visiting that site and those people.

I dont mean that I feel shunned, Nothing you did offended me......just a loss to lose a friend off of the forums no matter which one.

 

[socaldmax]

This is an interesting topic.

In the past, I organized a group buy of HID lights, back when they were $400-600 ea, we got a relatively new company to agree to sell us their lower priced lights for about $100 off ea., if we bought more than 50 in one shot. We ended up getting 50 lights for $250 ea, I bought 8 of them (4 for me, 4 for a buddy.)

There were a couple of vendors on that site that sold those lights retail, and they were not happy at all, but the owner of the site never stepped in. Why? Because it was the MFR who agreed to sell them to us at that price and undercut his dealers. Sure, that's a problem, but the problem was between the mfr and the dealers, it had nothing to do with the owner of the website.

Now if the owner of that website had tried to stop the deal, I'd have just switched to PMs and phone calls to finish the deal up. If I decide I'm going to go to the mfr to save $400, I'm going to save $400. It's called a free market system. No one else has the right, or the resources to tell me to overpay for an item just because one of their vendors got his panties in a wad. Now you see HID light and even LED light prices dropping every day, because it's a free market and competition will help dictate the current prices.

No vendor in his right mind is going to try to blackmail a forum owner by threatening to stop advertising. His competitors will just continue to advertise and leave him in the dust. He either chooses to keep up with the competition in terms of price, or he decides to quit and go work at his uncle's used car lot.


As for the side discussion about what really makes up a forum - it's mostly the contributions of the members. While the site owner or admin has the power to guide the general tone of the website in the desired direction (as it should be), it's the many and varied contributions of the members that provide the traffic and clicks that determine the ad rates that he can charge. If there were no members, then it would just be a blog. I've read some very interesting, informative blogs and quite often I use some of the valuable info I learned, but you just can't beat a forum to get a look at the many different sides of a lot of different topics.

It almost takes a cult of personality to grow a forum like this. Joey does a great job letting people be themselves, talk about their rides, trips, busting each other's balls, etc. while maintaining a certain level of respect towards each other. That's a fine line to walk, between over-moderation and a total free for all, but he does a great job and most people understand where the line is drawn. There's another website I used to go to where the assholes have taken over and every thread results in personal attacks. Meanwhile one of the moderators started a thread asking people if there was some way they could stop the constant personal attacks. Duh, how about moderating, for a change?? LOL

We all know of the guy who started his own forum. I've never been there, but it sounds like he's still the only poster, which technically makes it a blog. LOL

Anywho, I'm not around here a lot, but I really enjoy this place and everyone here, it's a breath of fresh air to see all of the different people all driving different rigs and not hating on me for driving the absolute best UTV there is.

The Wildcat.

 

[JoeyD23]

Not sure how I never saw this thread.

First off, Thank you!

I am a true enthusiast. I was a member of "the forums" back in 2005 long before I ever started UTVUG. Many here knew the old DGAF Joey D. on the forums lol.

I realized after tons of turmoil on other sites that I along with a couple close friends, felt I could probably start and run a pretty cool site of my own. At this point I had friends who had Rhinos, RZRS and Teryxs so I wanted something everyone could participate in and enjoy.

Fast forward almost 6 years this month and you have what I think is the most informative all inclusive UTV site on the web. While I won't sell myself short and discredit the hard work the team and I put in to growing this site, I wholeheartedly know that this sites success is based on our membership. Without you guys we are just a blog. I am ok with that, but this sites foundation is it's forum.

I refuse to take anything away from the forum foundry. They purchased the forums.net network from our friend Brian Bush and I know he kicks himself everyday for selling when he did. But Doug and his team have done a fine job growing the network, primarily RzrForums. While I will agree that they do rely on the membership for content and rarely have they ever spent much money creating content, I won't knock them because that's their biz model and frankly that's what forums are and do. We however don't want to be the traditional forum. We don't have the luxury of relying on our domain name to instantly gain membership. We have to really work to drive people to want to find utvunderground.com (what the internet calls an organic name). Word of mouth by you guys has always been our best form of advertising just so you know. So, if you think UTVUG is bad ass, then tell a friend! Help us grow this site. With more growth means we can do more content! We put back in what we get out!

In regards to a group buy. If it's a one time group buy I am ok with it. I'm all about hook ups too. But if one guy buys a butt load of product for cheap and is then pumping it for sale then I won't allow that. I can't. At that point you're vending and it's only fair for you to pay to be an advertiser like the others. It's a tough job sometimes being in my shoes. I need to balance between being a member myself and the owner. My gut is to always side with my members, but my pocket book and biz side obviously has to uphold the commitments I have made to my paying advertisers. At the end of the day this site is how I make my money. I have a wife and 3 kids, 3 kids I want to put through college!

Anyway, I do appreciate the props. I plan to always give you guys a cool site to spend your time at but if you really want to thank me then spread the word and tell a friend or 100 about UTVUnderground.com.

Joey D.