birdog

uumm..People on the Internet may not be what they seem to be ?...."Chatting" with some guy on a board does not make him your "Friend" ?...Just a thought

DollaBill

A few bad apples don't ruin the whole basket. Most of my best friendships have been formed here. Chatting on the internet...

You know it's interesting, you can actually "feel" a diff tone here than over there. It's very clear since I havent been over here in a while. Much more aggressive. Thats whats changed since it was sold to IB

Catastrophe

Bill is correct here.
There was no group plot to create a successful site only to sell it for profit.

I joined the board a while later than the rest, but I have talked to every volunteer boardmember that was there. No one was motivated by any share of the pie. They were all there for personal pride and accomplishment.

Now Chris Sunkin , on the other hand may have had other plans.
But his motivations, I cant comment on.

Couldnt trust what he ever said in retrospect.

In the end you could tell he was lying, because his lips were moving.

One thing that made me think that Sunkin may one day take on investers or sell it, was his constant comments to the few of us, that he had 120k in software costs plus 30k in the classified plug in.

After he made those claims to us , we checked and they were proven to be completely out to lunch.

The classiffied plug in cost less than $ 1000.00 to purchase and can be installed quite easily.

Back to the volunteers....never were they looking for or expecting money.

Interceptor

Sharkey,Jay,
Let me try again. This whole SOS fiasco was/is a on going mess. Part of the mess is a couple photographers disagree with the policy regarding where pictures are posted and the fact that a third photographer get favored by the site operator or owner or whatever he is.
I enjoy your photos, I consider you all very good photographers and I understand the amount of effort you put into your products.
But I still consider you businessmen and I visit these sites for a break from the business world and don't need to hear your issues. If you felt SOS wasn't giving you what was in your interest then leave like you did.
ed

VtSteve

Boating forums are usually pretty special. At least there's one big interest people share in common. Sometimes it's pretty easy to figure out the BS'ers, sometimes not. I never quite understood the need for people to feel so important, I guess they think the truth would ruin their reps? Who knows. I make pretty decent bucks, but my ex gets so much after-tax money, I couldn't put a 525 in my budget to save me, much less the boat to fit it in. Oh well. So I have a 22' cuddy with a small block. Better than being on land all summer. Maybe Jay can come up and do some arial shots of me blasting through one footers at 40 mph

This site and others have some very good technical data on it, and I know many of you guys push the HP engines through hell, so it's good data. I'm on many, many boating-related sites. Some pretty fantastic pictures and videos, good guides to where to go and what to do. No reason to BS people at all. I could care less if Chris had an Apache or a Bayliner, makes no diff to me. Some of the other stuff makes a big difference. I'll always be a spectator in the land of offshore racing and poker runs, which is fine by me. I plan to go to the Key West races in November, something I missed out on last year. Many people on this site I'd love to meet and have a drink with.

Maybe the best lesson that can be learned from all of this chaos, is to just be yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. If that's not good enough for people, not much you can do to change it. The alternatives are to live in some fantasy world, and to live your life for someone else. Not much fun in that IMHO. Have fun, go boating. People shouldn't be so full of themselves, there's always going to be someone, somewhere with more money, bigger and faster cars and boats, whatever.


I now need to make some major boating-related purchases. Some more 303 Hi Tech Fabric guard and some Woody Wax, so there goes the April boat budget.

HaxbySpeed

I wasn't around in the good ole days but I know what you mean. You couldn't even post a response in the tech section here without some arrogant know it all jumping all over you, and a noob asking a question was almost guaranteed to get abused. On SOS almost everyone was easy to get along with, had good advice and nothing to prove. I made a couple friends and some very good business contacts. But, i'm back here now and look forward to meetin some new folks..

birdog

I too, have made some great friends from these boards, but...The Fred ordeal sure taught me a valuable lesson !

Catastrophe

The welcoming tone of that boardroom was established by the volunteers, one of which developed the phrase " KINDER GENTLER".

That phrase was used on numerous occasions when determining the treatment of errant posters.

Every single boardmember saw value in being welcoming.

wrinkleface

Hey, what about me??????

HaxbySpeed

If you're not careful I'm gonna come to Boyne Thunder and sleep on your couch!