I think everyone's had their say now it's getting stale. Should probably start a new Darr thread to liven things up again.

#BUPMatters!

New guy here. I ended up visiting the site because many of the answers to questions I had pointed to threads on here. BUP chimed in on a few Q's I had with great detail.

It was because of his free advice and other's recommendations that I felt I should contact him when I needed something.

He actually called me yesterday to see how a custom set of spark plug wires fit on my engine. While I had him on the line I asked him about 2 other things in which he had no problem answering . Who does that?

I understand the paying advertisers concerns and all, but I don't even know who they are or what they sell/do. (as I write this there is a Jeep ad to the right of the screen, what does that have to do with performance boating?)

In the biker world, there's a saying: $20k and 20 miles doesn't make you a biker. Just because they pay the advertisers fees doesn't mean they're going to automatically get the business. Quality parts at reasonable prices with great customer service will get mine.

Sorry, not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers. Just letting you know how I see it.

Did you learn about his custom plug wires that you purchased here on OSO??

what's the story on "custom plug wires"?

Well I never post much, been here for a long time, know some of the people, etc. I pay 75 a year just to buy stuff......If I was supporting a business, that 500 I would pay in a drop of a hat.
New shop is going up in the next few weeks. So maybe by fall I get put more of my money where my mouth is.
This all will be just as a "hobby" of course, as my employer at this time, does not allow one to own a "Business".
Did not really deal with BUP, but it sounds like the 500 would have been a steal. He should have at least paid the 75 as it might have at least been seen in better light.

I don't expect much for FREE in this world, in fact I would rather pay so I do have a right to bi tch about stuff.
Note: can I get my Tee **** faster this time? It is ironic I ran into this thread two minutes after I renewed....lol

Omg! I see The Niger! I was like what the heck is this dude talking about and there it is. Wow!!!

No. There was a flyer in the shipping box when my fuel injectors were returned.

After he explained what to look out for during the injector installation I asked about the wires since I was also needing to do a tune up on the new to me boat. .

And you learned about his fuel injector service on OSO ???

I'm a (new) performance marine business owner. Can OSO show me what value I would be getting with a commercial membership? Some things I'd like to see:
- OSO's forum membership grew by x.x% over last year
- Forum members that log on at least once a week has increased by x.x% over last year
- Here are the 500 most-searched terms on OSO, to help you with SEO on your own website
- OSO has unveiled 'Plan _________' focused on engaging current members and signing new ones. 'Plan _________' has a goal of x.x% membership growth over the next year, and we're targeting performance boat owners with a yearly spend of $xx.x thousand on their boats.
- OSO's member estimated net worth averages $xxx.x million
- OSO has implemented a vendor suggestion window. Through recognizing keywords in forum questions, members are directed toward your business via _____.
- OSO appears at the top of a Google search for these terms: _________

These are the kinds of things I'd like to see. To me as a newcomer, OSO looks like a captive audience. I want to see growth and a plan to grow more, quality, engaged members with money to spend. Just as my customers want good value, I too want good value from OSO if I am to enroll as a commercial member.

That would be great if OSO was an independent company interested in growth. The reality is that it is one of 17 gazillion forums bought and run by IB. These forums are disposable commodities, given just enough nourishment to hopefully survive,

Ive been here for a very long time, mostly a spectator. I think I found OSO in 2005/2006ish so I have seen my fair share of shenanigans here, but nothing that compares to how incredibly dumb this situation is as a whole. BUP had great posts and I received a lot of knowledge reading them esp regarding 496's. Whether the man refused to pay for a commercial membership or not is not smart on his part and this is assuming this is the reason for him being banned. For OSO its equally not smart to ban a guy who offered so much knowledge even if he was self promoting.


Over the years there have been (many) far more offensive members (I honestly enjoyed the reads) that did far worse things than self promote, offer advise and maybe violate commercial rules. It seems almost kind of doom and gloom for forum sites as places like Facebook march into different genres in the social media world, Facebook has literally made craigslist obsolete and I'm sure eBay isn't far behind.


My point is banning someone like BUP that attracts people to OSO, those people see the advertisers and hopefully utilize them for whatever they may need. Eddie Young is probably one of the top 5 great minds in this sport and the information he posts is invaluable. If OSO wants to stay relevant as a forum, maybe reconsider the ban. Its not much fun here anymore, the personalities I used to love reading are gone. If you want to keep the place interesting and keep people coming back then there has to be give and take.


I miss the days of the OSO Cigarette boat, Rolex's, Professional Athletes, the missing Card Shark, boats in wood chippers and being violently thrown from boats and surviving to tell the tale (even though it was all lies). We have degraded our own entertainment to technical advise and now it seems thats on its way out too. Self and corporate over policing others will be the slow death of this once amazing place full of personality.


maybe im too nostalgic

Let's start a protest and burn stuff down ...

Can’t even make glue out of this poor horse it’s been so badly beaten.

I miss the days of the OSO Cigarette boat, Rolex's, Professional Athletes, the missing Card Shark, boats in wood chippers and being violently thrown from boats and surviving to tell the tale (even though it was all lies). We have degraded our own entertainment to technical advise and now it seems thats on its way out too. Self and corporate over policing others will be the slow death of this once amazing place full of personality.


maybe im too nostalgic[/QUOTE]


You forgot Subway, Nort's corner gas station , SBRT, Rachele, to name a few of the classics.

I'm trying to figure out When BUP had time to sleep with running a business and posting on multiple websites and Facebook.

delete

I'm still here. Not nearly as much as I used to, but I pop in from time to time. Thats the biggest issue.....TIME.. I seem to have none of it lately. Business has been phenomenal, so that eats up most of my time. I still enjoy handling out advice so anyone can call me anytime and I will do my best to help. 615-216-7449.
Eddie

No credit card needed ??

No sir. Free.....like an Obama phone.

I was kidding Eddie, Ill call you next week about those 4b ecms we talked about last week

can we get the history of apache power boats thread back and BUP? also some pics of rice hauler.

I know. It;'s all good. TTYL.
Eddie

I read people recommending him on here, yes.

As well as, on Cobaltchat. https://www.cobaltchat.com/viewtopic...=BUP&start=195

If you look at the last reply in that link they too recommend his service.

Like I said, I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers here. You're asking me direct questions, and I'm giving direct answers.

I hate to see that BUP is gone from this site. I understand that everyone thinks that he should have paid the money to advertise or whatever. I found this site years ago and found all the technical information that I needed. A lot of it was from BUP and a couple others that were also willing to share their experience with me. BUP has been the most helpful of anyone from this site. I met him not from this site but from craigslist. He was selling a boat. I had no idea the guy that was helping me on here was the same guy. I learned of his account on here years later when I called him for parts because he is local. Now this is just my opinion, but I have seen this situation before. I used to belong to a mustang forum that was very similar, lots of content and lots of people selling parts in the free section of the site. That site had to be the number one site for mustangs in the world. lots of traffic and technical information. Some company bought the site from the guys that ran it, and they made a bunch of money. Their mistake was they started banning people for selling stuff and talking about their business. I bet that site had 100k hits a day or more from just folks reading the tech stuff. Once the contributors of sites content slowly went away, they were left with nothing. all the paid advertisers left and now that site is inactive, and no one uses it anymore. These sites are content driven, without content and tech they just a bunch of regulars posting back and forth and they always fail. I bet half of the business owners like myself on here pay monthly for content on their sites to drive the search engines. this site receives free SEO work from its contributors,and its completely foolish to start banning the ones that drive traffic to this site for free. Advertisers don't invest in the sites content, they take advantage of the fact its already there driving traffic to their ads. I really like this site and I do think John is a very helpful guy in the boating community. He answers my calls when I just have questions, or he will text back and say he'll call me when he is free. He doesn't need this site for his business. He works 7 days a week and bust his butt all day for his customers and from what Ive read he spends hours on here almost daily helping other people. Its crazy to see how many folks on here have nothing but good stuff to say about him. That alone should have made an impression on the admins.
Most everyone that has found themselves on this site was driven here by technical content, that doesn't cost the site anything, and this sites advertisers are paying for that content. I hope this doesn't start a trend for this site.. it would be sad if one day this was just like the mustang site that could have possibly never failed.... Just my $.02 God Bless

In protest I may let my "Platinum Member" expire"?

I've joined some forums, including a Mustang forum, F-150 forum and a paintball forum that were so big and had thousands of people on all the time and any thread that I posted quickly got buried and lost in the chaos. Just an observation but some forums are too busy! I think OSO is just about right. There seems to be plenty of action here still while the two Donzi forums are all but dead. Anyway maybe compromise and let BUP return with just a platinum membership.

per the OSO site statistics there are Active Members: 2,263 the past 30 days.

Well when his bragging on Facebook about the calls and work he is getting just from this thread, can we put away of the idea of buying him a membership at this point.

I'm not feeling great that no admins from the forum have reached out to me on this. Makes me feel like they don't care about potential customers.

I can't justify the $500. Maybe if I were a larger operation I would. Yes, OSO could maybe grown my business but also, at what expense? I've seen a lot of companies on here over the years that advertise but also get strung up and hung in the middle of town when something goes bad. I can think of at least 2-3 businesses that were highly touted on here over the years and then became a mortal enemy of the community. Whether right or wrong, it's hard to see that happen to someones business.

I do my work part-time so I'd rather pay $500 for another round of T-shirts to give to customers to promote my business locally which is about all I can handle in a one man shop.

Years ago, the company I worked for sponsored a race boat who inevitably won the world championship. They came to us with exactly that kind of data...which is why we decided to sponsor the boat instead of building our own race team!

i was thinking if i ran this site,,wouldnt u think of BUP,,as someone that attracts new subscribers to this site,,and is a money maker for them,,,
it remindes me of the shopping malls,strip malls,,mentality ,where the big anchor store help the smaller shops around them,,

If we can ever help you out with custom tshirts, let me know. :party-smiley-048:

^ lol
are you a commercial member? :champs::lolhit:

sorry couldn't resist.

In the year 2020...........................

I agree BUP's presence helped the site but where do you draw the line?
If you give someone free membership because they help OSO profits, it could be argued that if they help profits even more, they should be entitle to a commission.

Too hard to administer every 'would be' commercial member individually and decide who is entitle to what benefits. Better off to make a clear ruling, no exceptions.

Don't see many commercial members replying to this thread, I bet I know what they'd say....:)

RR's humble opinion.

Hey Panther, I would love to buy one of your shirts if you have an extra to sell. PM me how to get you the dough. You are another member that has helped me out of a pinch or two. I would be glad to advertise for you. Thanks Roscoe

Anyone know how many commercial members there are on OSO ?
and
Why are some insurance companies marketing their products as registered members ?

So can someone email me Bup's number or email contact. i need some parts that I know he carries but dont know how to contact now. And yes this is real. Not trying to ruffle any feathers here.

Thanks in advance
Chris 727-599-1941

Done.

Don't want to rock the boat either but it's not classified information, members can find it by looking at his profile on here.

RR.