[nearly original] Open Letter to Endless Sphere Community

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knightmb

100 kW
Joined
May 7, 2006
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Location
Franklin, TN
Dear Endless Sphere Community,

The Endless Sphere has been alive and active for nearly 6 years now. In all of that time, the community has grown and fostered many great idea exchanges. It has been the safe place to post your opinion of everything from battery technology to motor design. It has had its share of growing pains and technical challenges unique only to itself.

With that in mind, the forum has always been sitting in the shadow of a real-life business. This community has been shielded from the tinkering of those up top. Community members have been able to speak their mind or buy/sell anything they like here without having to worry about a corporate interruption of free speech.

The time has come though for this thriving community to break away from that shadow. No longer will it be the servant of unknown masters above. This forum and community will be taking over Endless Sphere completely. No more unrelated business be conducted on the main site.

Endless Sphere isn't going to be about a forum hidden somewhere underneath a company website. Endless Sphere is going to be it's own alive and vibrant community. With this change, comes a new face for us. Trevor will be taking full helm for the forum and community.

This isn't a change that happened overnight; this is a change many, many months in the making. Trevor has spent a lot of time conversing with the existing moderators and administrators to get a feel for what the community needs and wants. Trevor is pouring his own time and resources into this community by adding improvements and upgrading the infrastructure as often requested by many members and moderators here.

I will still be participating here as a member and as an administrator. The sky is the limit on the potential of what this community can reach. With that, all forum control has been ceased by the company Endless Sphere Technology. It now stays with Trevor and all the community members here as the Endless Sphere now.
 
I would like to introduce myself. I used the ES community for help to build my electric bike. It was a pretty big project for my first one; a Surly Big Dummy with a Crystalyte HS35, 48V, 35 A controller. I spoke to Amberwolf a little bit about the project who was a lot of help. The ES community was an unbelievable resource for this project. Everyone was very welcoming to a new guy who had very little knowledge of the subject. Their advice was priceless. Without them, I would have ended up an off the shelf bike that was less capable for the same amount of money that I spent on my Big Dummy project.

I contacted knightmb months ago to discuss ES, why it was founded, and what it has grown into. I explained to him how impressed I was with the community. We all spent a lot of time discussing the value that I saw in the ES community and how that value could become so much greater with somebody that was willing to dedicate time to it on a full time basis. knightmb became extremely interested in my thoughts on the community and how to take it to a level superior to its current state.

I have a lot of ideas that I would like to implement at ES. I see the site having reference wikis to help new builders, dictionaries, complex personal profiles with user galleries, videos, blogs. I would like to implement a lot of these features to enhance user experience at ES and continue to build the community.

I do have an interest in monetizing the community. It will be tastefully done and well integrated. knightmb knew this from the very beginning. He agreed with my vision and also agreed that the our community would benefit from the enhancements.

Our community has grown into the ultimate resource for anything with wheels that runs on a battery. It is in the best interest of the community to organize all of the resources to benefit the members and vendors that have supported it for so long. Members deserve better ways to make sense of all of the information contained within this community. Vendors deserve better ways to communicate with the membership. A lot of resources are going to be needed to make it all happen.

knightmb is right, the sky is the limit for our community.
 
Who is Trevor?

Did he buy for forum out of a passion for ebikes, or did he buy the forum to commercialize and destroy it like so many others that buy perfect forums and 6 months later it's a pile of banner adds with no core members and no further advancement or deep discussion. (as I've watched so many car forums that started out amazing while non-commercialized and then drop into ruin a few months with a new owner who's motivations are profit driven rather than passion driven)

What does this guy post under (so we can review his post history and see what sort of guy he is), or does he not even participate and just looking for a forum to milk dry?

Didn't Justin donate thousands of dollars to keep this site hosted and private and non-commercial? What happened with that?


Forgive me skepticism here, but after watching similar things happen where profit motivated folks buy outstanding forums because they see a potential for milking cash. Fast forward time 6months, all core members are gone, no more cool projects or things that made the site exceptional. The site just becomes a place where newbs come to see banner ads and read posts from vendors fighting over why you should buy your parts from them over the other guy. 6 months after that, the good name and reputation is gone that was making the newbs come, and then the forum becomes a dead shell.

This has been universal in reefkeeping forums, engine forums, and car forums that I've been involved with over the last 10 years. Somebody new buys it, commercializes it, and it's dead inside a year.

OR, even crazier, somebody buys a thriving forum, then tries to charge members an admission/membership fee, thinking ohh, these guys will never find a new place... That technique has been a roughly 100% effective death blow to every forum.


Tell us, who is Trevor, what are his motivations? Should I be buying space in a datacenter today and start building the framework to make the swap for the core members to have an uncommercialized place that will never be corrupted by commercial influences?




PS: Thank you for running the forum so long KnightMB, and thank you for keeping it pure and uncommerical. This is the whole reason it is such a great place and great community. REALLY hoping this can stay true, but from past history of forums selling, it's always spelled death.
 
That's funny. The one site that's left on the internet that hasn't sold out....and just as I'm getting totally worn out on all of the other unnecessary stuff having to do with the e-bike world.....my favorite site is going corporate.

I for one have also offered to donate instead of seeing this forum go corporate.

The worst thing about all of these new ideas is that it's definitely going to slow the site waaaay down for people with crappy internet connections. Well, actually, the worst thing will probably all of the new members that are attracted by the flash and spam.

This forum was totally fine as it is.

My email address is m d d 0 1 2 7 i v at yahoo so if anyone is going to start a new, corporate free forum, shoot me an email and I'll join.

Now I have to go delete all of my posts here because anything influenced by money gets corrupted and instantly turns to shit.

Goodbye endlless-sphere!

Thanks for holding out and keeping it alive and REAL for as long as possible. Stumbling upon this site has put me $80K in debt so it's probably good that I move on anyway :wink:
 
liveforphysics said:
Who is Trevor?
What does this guy post under (so we can review his post history and see what sort of guy he is), or does he not even participate and just looking for a forum to milk dry?
Have you tried clicking on his username and looking at his post history?

Didn't Justin donate thousands of dollars to keep this site hosted and private and non-commercial? What happened with that?
Thousands, no? Anyone can buy/sell anything at the forum (online market area), so it's hardly "non-commercial". Most donations that come in, come at the tune to $1 to $10. There have been larger donations, but I don't think it would be in good taste to post up how much members are donating. I'll leave that up to them.

Forgive me skepticism here, but after watching similar things happen where profit motivated folks buy outstanding forums because they see a potential for milking cash. Fast forward time 6months, all core members are gone, no more cool projects or things that made the site exceptional. The site just becomes a place where newbs come to see banner ads and read posts from vendors fighting over why you should buy your parts from them over the other guy. 6 months after that, the good name and reputation is gone that was making the newbs come, and then the forum becomes a dead shell.

This has been universal in reefkeeping forums, engine forums, and car forums that I've been involved with over the last 10 years. Somebody new buys it, commercializes it, and it's dead inside a year.

OR, even crazier, somebody buys a thriving forum, then tries to charge members an admission/membership fee, thinking ohh, these guys will never find a new place... That technique has been a roughly 100% effective death blow to every forum.

Tell us, who is Trevor, what are his motivations? Should I be buying space in a datacenter today and start building the framework to make the swap for the core members to have an uncommercialized place that will never be corrupted by commercial influences?
Well, there is not much to comment about your opinion, I mean it is your opinion after-all I'm not going to argue with it. I will be glad to give my opinion though. Actions speak louder than words. If I can see improvement here, be it faster servers, and new features for members (at no cost), then to think the forum is getting worse seems silly, even a little "sky is falling" kind of thinking. Just my thoughts.

PS: Thank you for running the forum so long KnightMB, and thank you for keeping it pure and uncommerical. This is the whole reason it is such a great place and great community. REALLY hoping this can stay true, but from past history of forums selling, it's always spelled death.
Well, it might not be well known, but the forum was owned by a corporate entity before (years). That's why the main site had business that had nothing to do with the forum. Go check the main site now, http://endless-sphere.com/ and let me know how much of a corporate take-over the site appears to have now? :D
 
I got interested in ebikes last year and spent months doing research on them. I live in an area where I don’t travel too far from my house very regularly. I saw an ebike as the perfect opportunity and solution for me to spend less time in my car and more time out enjoying my area. Through my research of ebikes, I kept coming back to Endless-Sphere to gain more knowledge. I decided a Surly Big Dummy would be a perfect fit for me and my family. I bought the bike and built it out with a little local help and the help of some retailers from this site.

I was amazed at the wealth of knowledge that could be found here in this community. There was so much information that it was almost paralyzing. It took a long time to digest everything to make some decisions about what I really wanted and needed. After that, it took a long time to find compare all of the retailers, who I felt comfortable dealing with and so on.

I contacted knightmb to tell him my experience. We agreed that everybody in this community would benefit if some serious resources were put into it. Enhancements would be made for both people looking to buy or build bikes, as well as vendors doing business on the site. Gurus would have better means of profiling their projects. Through these enhancements, our community will continue to grow and introduce alternative means of transportation to more people.
 
What a day.
One of my stocks opens this morning 23 bucks lower than the close yesterday.
Other holdings are also in a spiral.
And now this news. Another trifecta.


If change must happen try to copy the pattern of this site
http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

But why F up a really good thing
 
mdd0127 said:
That's funny. The one site that's left on the internet that hasn't sold out....and just as I'm getting totally worn out on all of the other unnecessary stuff having to do with the e-bike world.....my favorite site is going corporate.

I for one have also offered to donate instead of seeing this forum go corporate.
This seems to be a common mis-conception here. The forum was corporate owed from the beginning. The main site had business on it totally irrelevant to this forum. Go check the main site now, http://endless-sphere.com/ and let me know how much of the corporate influence you see on this site now? :wink:
The worst thing about all of these new ideas is that it's definitely going to slow the site waaaay down for people with crappy internet connections. Well, actually, the worst thing will probably all of the new members that are attracted by the flash and spam.

This forum was totally fine as it is.

My email address is m d d 0 1 2 7 i v at yahoo so if anyone is going to start a new, corporate free forum, shoot me an email and I'll join.

Now I have to go delete all of my posts here because anything influenced by money gets corrupted and instantly turns to shit.

Goodbye endlless-sphere!

Thanks for holding out and keeping it alive and REAL for as long as possible. Stumbling upon this site has put me $80K in debt so it's probably good that I move on anyway :wink:
I'm sorry, but this is about the silliest thing I've read so far. The site is on a server than is 3 times faster now. Members can select from many different themes with "slow-Internet" connections taken into account with slimed down theme renderings. There are already things in the work to improve the slow experience for mobile users of the forum. So despite all this, you want to delete all your posts (which is a lot of time and effort on your part) and leave? Why feel need to be self-destructive?

I think members can make up their own minds here. I'm staying here. It's still the same great community. I don't care for the end of the world doomsayers, but that's expected anywhere you go. Just gotta ignore them and move on.
 
The only successful forum site I can think of that went commercial is ratrodbikes.com. Their commercialism is limited to having ebay links to vintage bikes and such on the side bar and the fact that they sell t-shirts and bumper stickers and such. So it is possible to do. If you haven't checked them out, you should take a look. Having links to wiki pages and blogs could be a good idea. I'll wait and see what you come up with before casting judgement.
 
EDIT: OK, IT IS OVER FOLKS> WE WON!
Read this post to hear Trevor state publicly that he intends to return ES to the hands of the people
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30607

************************************************************************************************************************************

This is a message from the future... like 15 pages into the future. :)

Long story short the forum is in the middle of a hostile takeover by a guy named Trevor. He got the idea to buy ES from a guy named Andy R who is a professional forum vampire. KnightMB sold us out to him without so much as telling a soul. Not even Fechter or any of the mods.

The main topic of debate is the fact that our members do not want Trevor to profit from our donated IP. Forget banners and flashing ads... think about intellectual RAPE. These guys rolled in, bought the forum (from someone who did not have the authority to sell it) and now they want to monetize our hard work and information.

Many members are ready to jump ship..... people are very upset.

Justin (and others) have offered to host ES free of commercialism. They have offered to buy Trevor out but he is (at the moment) dug in and in total denial.

Trevor has been asked many times to respond and he has done nothing but spew money-man bullshit.

To be continued and updated.....
************************************************************************************************************************************

Here are similar summaries compiled by our valued members:

______________________________Joseph C.
______________________________neptronix research
______________________________amberwolf - speaking up!
______________________________liveforphysics - awesome skit!
______________________________GMUseless (his first post!!! awesome!)


Change your signature to something that tells other members that we have been attacked by money grubbing forum Pirates!

************************************************************************************************************************************
 
Icewrench said:
What a day.
One of my stocks opens this morning 23 bucks lower than the close yesterday.
Other holdings are also in a spiral.
And now this news. Another trifecta.


If change must happen try to copy the pattern of this site
http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

But why F up a really good thing


I can't wait until people have to earn their money for real instead of relying upon "stocks and holdings". Terrible businesses are able to keep running simply because people who know nothing about them continue to buy stocks and holdings in the hopes that their having money makes them more money.......

This is partly why I'm bummed about the sphere going for profit. Too much corporate influence and ignorance in our lives already anyway and it always stinks in the end. If it was corporate hosted before, that's a lot different from profitizing the site. I for one liked the "plain" appearance and simplicity, have never had a forum speed issue and find it really easy and efficient to post and reply here. The only improvement I would make to the site is fixing the search engine. It's always been a little screwy.

As far as vendors being able to sell through here easily.......show me a vendor that's actually selling a sustainably produced product that's a good value and works as advertised, and I'll show you that the last thing they need is more advertising. People producing good stuff are already backed up with orders and for the most part, currently offered e-bike parts are horribly unsustainable, chinese produced, environment raping garbage. Lets make it easier for them to get more market share.

This is a monstrous fail.

Luke, if you get a new forum up and running, I will happily donate or pay a membership fee to help maintain it......as long as it stays simple, efficient, and true to it's cause.

The only reason I want to delete posts is that I posted those posts in confidence that this site was ran by people that loved electric bikes and wanted to advance the whole game....and....weren't worried about profiting from it. I simply don't know what the motivations of the new management are, and the first few clues about that don't look good.
 
I have had many discussions about how the site will need to grow with the rising membership, and how to best keep it afloat without a "sugardaddy" injecting cash and time to do so. After talking with knightmb and trevor on what the site needs and will need in the future, I have no doubts that trevor will be able to keep our site free to use, the best place for knowledge, and do it in a tasteful manner that is not money grubbing for a "cash cow". If knightmb has the faith in trevor to see ES into the next phase of awesomeness, I have faith that the proper choice was made to keep this forum on the right track that does not deviate from our core purpose- the free sharing of information.

I figured there would be protests about any changes, but to complain about failures before anything is actually done is a self fullfilling prophecy. If you feel that making the site self sufficient is a death blow, then yahoo groups are always there in all of their glory. I will do my best to help facilitate a self sufficient site to guarantee that it will be here for us even when no sugar daddy is around to provide hosting money and upgrades. I have been involved in an excellent example of sites going from out of pocket funding to self funding, and the community was tightly knit just like ES. The community understood when the owner could not bear the burden of hosting, and trusted his judgement. Years later the site is 5x larger and holds the same core values and vast informational value.

Welcome Trevor! I am not afraid of a little bit of change to ensure the community will be here for all to use.
 
mdd0127 said:
This is partly why I'm bummed about the sphere going for profit.

Where was it stated the site is going for profit?


This is a monstrous fail.

Looks like the forum is the same to me, how has it already failed?

Luke, if you get a new forum up and running, I will happily donate or pay a membership fee to help maintain it......as long as it stays simple, efficient, and true to it's cause.

The only reason I want to delete posts is that I posted those posts in confidence that this site was ran by people that loved electric bikes and wanted to advance the whole game....and....weren't worried about profiting from it. I simply don't know what the motivations of the new management are, and the first few clues about that don't look good.

You are passing judgments on events that have not even happened. How has the site cause changed? How does Trevor not love electric bikes? You somehow know that he is worried about making profits? I can tell you that keeping the site self sufficient should be a priority, that is just a smart move to keep our site alive and kicking without down time and slow servers.


You will cause your own doom with this attitude. Just relax and see what happens before passing such harsh judgments on the future. Seriously, you are condemning the forum before anything has even changed!
 
I nearly puked when i first heard that bit of news, fear of the unknown huh... I have put A LOT of effort and time on this forum as everyone knows all too well, and my initial thoughts were exactly as outlined above, but after digesting the news and reading some of Trevor's replies in the moderator section i'm not as upset as i was.... Of the little i know about our new boss he seems intelligent with good intentions..

That said, i know we need someone available to patch things up at a moments notice when things happen, something that knightmb has not always been able to do ( not faulting and/or pointing fingers here, he's a busy guy and this forum is certainly not paying the bills.. I cincerely appreciate everything knightmb has done for us all these years by giving us a home in a time of need ) .. If trevor can step up to the plate and provide the needed support to keep the gears grinding, i'm all for it..

I"m told and assured that this place will not turn into a flashing banner, the homepage is finally ES forum related ( or soon to be i suppose ) .. bonus.

The rest, well, time will tell, but i'm going on business as usual while staying as positive as possible.. i encourage everyone else to do the same ! 8)
 
As other's have said, if you bought the forum and the intent is for this forum to start generating revenue in any way shape or form, it will die a quick death - This forum is loaded with bright and frugal folks who will start up a new free one somewhere else.

Trevor, I think everyone here would feel better if you will confirm that there are no plans to put Banner Ads on it, or start charging membership fees. The ads on visforvoltage drive me nuts, which is why I don't spend much time there. The valuable content on this forum accumulated because it was open and free; closed forums with membership fees have a much different feel that will not attract content. It's not a cost issue - I contributed $100 last year because knightmb did a great job keeping this site going without ads or fees, and I wanted to help out.

We all spent a lot of time discussing the value that I saw in the ES community and how that value could become so much greater with somebody that was willing to dedicate time to it on a full time basis.

Is the "Value" you reference $$$, or is value the content on the forum? If it is the content, can you describe what changes you plan that would to enhance that content? I see you just added iPhone/Android apps, but I personally can't stand apps for websites that I can see just fine in a browser, so that isn't really a help.

-JD
 
I was wondering when this news would finally go public.

I've written and deleted a whole bunch of stuff trying to get this right. But in a nutshell it's this.

I hope that Trevor has the wisdom to follow the craigslist model and not the ebay model for achieving site sustainability.

There is an enormous amount of 'untapped value' that countless people contributed in the spirit of free and open knowledge sharing to make the ES site into what it is now. It reminds me so much of the early days of the internet itself, and that's what made the net become so big in the first place. There is always a business temptation to try and cash in on that value, and in so doing 99% of people would end up destroying the very thing that made it so. Craigslist is still going strong. Ebay has gone to shit.

As YPedal has said, lets give keep a positive attitude and give Trevor the total benefit of the doubt. There are a lot of things needing time and energy to make this forum able to cope with expanding membership and activity, and it will be great if there is someone dedicated to this and with a vested interest in keeping things current. So for now we should congratulate Trevor and wish him the best.

As far as 'monetizing' goes, I really think that could be done by having vendors pay a fee for listing things for sale on the buy/sell forum. Similar to how craigslist charges property listing fees in select areas to cover the site operation, and keeps the entire website itself ad-free. If there are ads that show up on actual forum posts and technical discussion threads, I personally would be completely turned off from contributing. Others might feel differently, but at the end of the day if the forum wants to keep the core community on board, the new owner will need to touch the issue of ads (which is cashing in on a 3rd party's free contribution) with a lot of sensitivity.

Justin
 
Damn, this is my go to place whenever I turn on the internet. Never have I found a place so full of decent geeky like minded people who are not hell bent on money.

If this does not work out the community will lose some amazing pioneers and contributors.

I used to be a composer professionally (still am but not so much for money)... and whenever money got involved the soul left the project. Without throwing my toys out of the pram this will not be a place I would want to come to if there are detracting flash adverts or heavy moderated posts.

Not happy about this to be honest.
 
Thank You to KnightMB for being a generous host for these past years. We have come a long way in a short time.

Welcome Trevor, you have a large, skeptical group to convince that your interests are as altruistic as your predecessor's.

I believe the forums can be self-sustaining, through ES merchandise and donations. AdWords are tolerable, but a flashing french-whorehouse will spell doom. In the best of all worlds, I'd prefer to see the forums spawn a 501-(c)3 with an elected board, so the destiny of the bbs is not solely controlled by a single person.


I'm eager to know what the vision for the "new" ES includes.
 
Does anyone else think it's horribly ironic that people are complaining about 'commercialization' and the like when the site is transferring from being completely dependent on the good graces of a corporation to trying to become self-sufficient? The fact of the matter is that high-traffic websites cost money to run; at the very least hosting costs. Shouldn't the ideal that this forum strives for support the idea of it being self-sufficient, not dependent on a corporate or private sponsorship? Is that going to mean a compromise? Probably. I'm assuming there will probably be ads cropping up in the near future (just because they're the simplest revenue source). Was it nice to not have any ads on the site? Yeah, sure, but I personally would rather deal with a few ads and have the site be sustainably self-sufficient than it be ad-free and at the mercy of a financial overlord (no matter how benevolent). There are plenty of forums that have ads without being intrusive. One good example is thebestcasescenario.com where I spend a lot of my time online when I'm not here. Hackaday.com is another good example. As other have said, wait and see what route is taken to achieve self-sufficiency before crying that the end of the world is upon us. As for myself, consider me cautiously optimistic.
 
Well if someone has to be devils advocate then I suppose that will be me.......whilst I do not entirely believe what I am about to write I just want to throw it out there.

Trevor I do not know you so please do not take this personally as I .....well ....do not personally know you.

If I were to look on the dark side of things my pessimism would shout out, this guy who has only 33 posts to his name suddenly wants to buy the site?

Now unless you are a total fan why would an unknown want to buy the site? Maybe he has seen the amount of traffic this site gets and thinks damn there is money to be made here?

This most probably is not true but like I said Trevor I do not know you and had not heard of you on this forum before today, I would rather make a yearly payment to help keep the site clean of adverts.
 
Thank you to those of you who are posting with messages of support in this thread. I completely understand if there is some underlying skepticism throughout it. I am completely aware that the only way to ease that skepticism is going to be by showing rather than saying.

The value of our community lies within the members. A lot of key members have spent a ton of time providing support of the community through the posting of useful information for the benefit of other members and the public. Over time, Endless-Sphere has grown from a tiny start-up into the best resource for all things electric on the web. The membership is made up of people who are just starting out with their first electric project and of total Gurus on the subject. There are a lot of people who fall in between.

Members of our community will have the ability to turn off all ads if they wish. There really is no benefit to showing people ads if they don't want to see them. They just ignore them anyway and they don't generate any revenue for the site. There also won't be any annoying flashed based ads like punch the monkey or anything else like that. So, that's it, members will not be subjected to ads.

I believe that our community would really benefit from features such as galleries, enhanced member profiles, wikis that explain different components and how they work together, reviews, and blogs that highlight members' custom builds. All of this information would be much easier to access if it was more organized than it currently is. It would help educate people just getting started as to what works and what doesn't and serve as a point of pride to all of the Gurus out there.

Trevor
 
I think it could go either way. Until someone sheds some light on what the plans are nobody can do anything but speculate.

Trevor, I hear what you're saying about new site features etc, but this isn't what people are asking about. If you're not gonna subject us to ads....or you are going to do that but accept that people won't click on them, how are you going to monetize the site?

I also think its a shame that it wasn't revealed until the deal was done. Maybe other people might have been interested as well. Or Trevor's plans could have been vetted by members and given the thumbs up beforehand, without putting anyone's nose out of joint.
 
how about just have adverts, and have a fee (membership type of thing) to block them out if you want ? as long as they're not TOO flashy (i usually just scroll down to avoid THOSE anyways).
 
with this statement does it mean that trevor and all es members now have equal say in the direction the forum goes...?
"all forum control has been ceased by the company Endless Sphere Technology. It now stays with Trevor and all the community members here as the Endless Sphere now""
 
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