by ttweed on Thu Sep 03, 2015 11:51 am
Bob,
Good to hear from you! It's been awhile. This is what I understand regarding this issue. Others with more knowledge and experience concerning the situation may jump in and correct me:
There are a couple of reasons for the ad policy on this forum differing from the other Porsche forums with which you are familiar (Rennlist, Pelican Parts, etc.). The first is that the ad2ad site for PCA-SDR classifieds predates the forum and is the source for the ads that are published in the Windblown Witness each month. They can be downloaded in bulk by the editor in a format that allows "pouring" them into the layout of the WW in a fairly simple manner. It is also a minor source of income for the club, though short ads are free there.
The second is that the forum originally came into being through the efforts and resources of a club member, and is hosted on his private server. Though the club has "adopted" the forum as a means to promote, organize, and discuss club events, AFAIK these resources and the efforts to set up and maintain the forum were offered on an entirely volunteer basis and "gratis" to the club. One of the concerns in hosting the forum was that it might grow to the point where storage (disk usage) and processing resources on the server might become an issue. To avoid this, the function for uploading and storage of images directly to the server (as it exists in most other online forums) has always been disabled in this forum, as images are a much greater "disk hog" than text archives and require more processing resources to display. It was felt at the time of inception of the forum that disallowing classified ads would avoid the conflict and redundancy with the ad2ad site, as well as the possibility of overloading a server that had other private functions to maintain that were more "mission critical" for the owner.
Perhaps the time has come to review this policy, but that is up to the Board of Directors, and I'm not sure it is a very high priority item or concern at this point. In the intervening years, both disk storage and processing power has become exponentially cheaper, but the time and expertise to establish and maintain such an enterprise as this forum is not inconsequential, and with the other technological projects we are engaged in (website, social media, AX and TT timing and results, etc.) it may be that we would be stretching our available human and financial tech resources too thin if we added a major upgrade of the forum software and hardware at this time, I don't really know. It is something to bring up at a Board meeting if you feel strongly about it.
HTH,
TT
Tom Tweed -- #908
SDR Tech Inspection Chair 2005-06
SDR Forum Admin 2010-present
Windblown Witness Assistant Editor 2012-present
Driving Porsches since 1964