Will a subscription improve my STW experience?

Is that trying to justify why you paid to join the club?

I realise that I am very privileged – even though not in any way a high earner – because I can afford to spend £20 supporting something I enjoy without having to even think about it, let alone ever justify it. (possibly also helps that I don’t waste all my money on flash cars, too 🤔 😉)

I’ve no idea how its keeping 2 people busy given there is very little evolution

I suspect most of their time is spent on more “productive” activity, such as whatever is needed to keep the digital print stuff going. Forums are probably filed under sideline.

I very much doubt the revenue from paid member’s exceeds the revenue from ads from non members and passing traffic.

Talk to Mark. I’m sure he knows better than you or I do.

I can see a number of solutions:

Talk to Mark. I’m sure he knows better than you or I do.

But it hardly encourages people to report issues if they get zero response

What do you expect? They could likely set up a “thanks for your email” autoresponder (assuming they haven’t already), would that change anything?

Frankly I’ve no idea how its keeping 2 people busy

Talk to Mark. I’m sure he knows better than you or I do.

There is a beautiful irony that…

Mostly, the commentary on the forum regarding the Tech team is how shit they are. Would you choose to read that about your job? Mark himself largely stopped engaging over a decade ago because whenever he did the bear pit just lined up to give him a kicking.

Is this site perfect? No, of course not. But to assert that this is the only site anyone ever has issues with ever is a nonsense.

Maybe you should read my posts properly and not be so condescending I said this is the only forum I have ever had problems with. Not everyone in the whole world. So many people say the same thing, are they all lying as well?

Do they pay you to defend STW?

I’m pretty sure that happened to me a few years ago.

Well it can’t have happened as Cougar says we are lying about it.

STW main forum page: Opens a total of 749 requests in 54 seconds! (If you leave it other stuff keeps loading the longer you leave it). Clicking a thread it opens 873 requests in 32 seconds.

Don’t start quoting facts, they’ll be “bullshit”. 😂😂

Or not happening on Cougars old crappy PC, which it seems is what STW IT bods tailor the site to. 😂😂

STW main forum page: Opens a total of 749 requests in 54 seconds! (If you leave it other stuff keeps loading the longer you leave it). Clicking a thread it opens 873 requests in 32 seconds.

Fairly standard for The Internet these days isn’t it?

I’m joining the no-complaints-here camp.

With one exception: if I’m not logged in (because self imposed cookie auto-delete) only the audio of embedded youtube videos play and there’s no controls to stop it playing.

Well it can’t have happened as Cougar says we are lying about it.

Lest you forget, I was a moderator for ten years. I know how the moderation team operates. I can state with absolute conviction that no-one was or would ever be banned merely for criticising the site. I put it to you that either you are mistaken or your pants are on fire.

These sorts of accusations crop up from time time to time. Every time I’ve investigated them – which, obviously I can no longer do – it’s turned out to be… shall we say “economical with the truth.” Bans are considered a last resort; usually this kind of complaint is loosely based in fact but neglects to mention that they’ve received multiple warnings to desist in whatever it is they’re doing and ignored them, which leaves the mods no other choice. An out-of-the-blue instaban would only be issued due to a Gross Misconduct sort of offence.

I push back at this argument because it’s unfair. It paints a picture of some sort of draconian (ho ho) dictatorship which we worked very hard to prevent. If what you’re asserting were true then that would be no forum I want any part of, let alone one I would have volunteered for for a decade. It is, frankly, a kick in the teeth.

my browser hung for 10 minutes

You do know that the hanging and outages only happen to free members don’t you?

and the money I would have spent on a subscription has gone on an adblocker

On my first visit to the main page of the forum the ad blocker blocked 32 ads – in one page visit!

Note that many ad blockers will report the number of blocked HTML elements, not the number of adverts.

If I switch on my ad blocker to test it reports 33 blocked elements on this page and slowly rising, whilst logged in as a Full Member and thus having zero adverts. What it’s actually blocking looks to be a site statistics pixel and I can only assume that it keeps trying to serve it over and over because of the blocker. Ie, with a full account an ad blocker generates more traffic to the browser. 68 now.

Singletrackworld is an ad supported website. As a non-premier, registered user you are accepting that the displaying of ads in your browser is the cost of being a registered user and you agree that you will not block these ads. If you block the ads we reserve the right to suspend your account and/or block our content from displaying in your browser. In addition you agree not to promote the use of ad blocking on our site in either story comments or forum posts.

Just a reminder.

I’m pretty sure that happened to me a few years ago.

You were banned for abusing and bullying STW staff and having a history of being abusive to other members. Normally that’s a life ban so you’re fortunate it was removed.

Hmm, some posts appear to be missing

Maybe you should read my posts properly and not be so condescending I said this is the only forum I have ever had problems with. Not everyone in the whole world. So many people say the same thing, are they all lying as well?

Pray tell, how many other sites do you regularly use? This is, by far, the easiest forum to use and navigate that I’ve ever come across, and while there was a period when it was plagued with huge banner ads that swamped entire pages, usually for Maserati cars and Tudor watches, IIRC, by removing Google from my search and browser, I pretty much stopped it dead in its tracks. In fact I got rid of virtually all ads, which is why I now subscribe to balance out the loss of advertising revenue. You’ve been on here since 2020, I’ve been on here since 2003, although it shows as 2008 after the Great Hack forced a site rebuild. I don’t get problems using an iPad. Makes you wonder…