I recently posted some cryptic comments about the direction of the Part15.org website. I can now reveal what I meant.
Part15.org is going to be expanding in the near future!
The Forums will remain the centerpiece of the website. One of the advantages of a discussion based site is that it gets the entire user community involved. One of the disadvantages is that it tends to be opinion focused, and purely factual material gets scattered.
The intent of the changes is to concentrate select factual material in one place. You want opinions, you can go to the Forums.
In the continuing spirit of community, I'd like to throw open what you, the users of this site, think should be included in the new site. If you feel uncomfortable posting, you can contact me via Part15.org's email mechanism.
But to give you an idea of what we're thinking...
One idea is to have equipment lists, divided into categories such as transmitters, studio equipment, automation software, etc. These would not be opinion-based reviews, but descriptions of what is available, its purpose and links to manufacturer websites.
Another idea is a summary of rules and regulations. These summaries would be simple guides on how to get started in low power broadcasting for each country (the actual rules can be linked to). I remember the difficulties I had when launching a radio station in Canada. There were 2 sets of rules here, both nearly identical and then there were the FCC rules which seemed to be taken as universal in most discussions. I even contacted our FCC equivalent, Industry Canada, and came away more confused! There was nothing 'out there' that gave any indication of where to begin. These guides would fill that void.
Other ideas include radio station lists, stories and history, programming sources...
What are your ideas? What would you like to see?
I've asked this a few times both public and in private conversation and I always feel like there's an evading of the answer... Because I never get one.
My suspicion is that the owner of part15.org is not some one who participate here, nor is in the hobby. I suspect it was purchased at some point, and whoever bought it is simply using it as some kind of ad generating site to extract revenue.
Please correct me because I'd like to be wrong about this. But that is what it feels like and it also explains why I never get an answer to the question
It used to be a simple DNS search would reveal the answer.
Oh. I didn't actually post the question did I? So just to clarify, the question is:
Who owns part15.org now, and how long has he owned it? I presume the change of hands corresponds with when this site became saturated with ads.
I have a suggestion since ads have been brought up. Why can't the ads be on the right beside the posts in unused space. The ads split up the posts and parts of a post can be and are missed.
@mark That has been my major frustration here.. I do notice it's not quite as bad an experience when on a regular computer, but looking at it on a smartphone, which is what I usually use, it's even more horrendous.
When they interrupt a post is particularly annoying, but really they are in every book and cranny here.
I don't think there's any huge secret about ownership.
Part15.us was purchased by Haro Street Media. I can't speak for the motives of the purchaser (who is not in the hobby), but you can google the company to get more information. I do know that the owner has been extremely supportive from the start, particularly of the current proposed expansion of the site.
As to when? It was when the site was converted to Wordpress. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I think was about 7 years ago, going by some of the dates in posts.
One thing I do know personally. If I had to choose between a subscription model and a free model that is extremely accessible with ads, I'd choose the latter.
I'm not sure if anything can be done with the placement of ads but I can investigate.
Hmm.. personal is $4 a month, billed annually. Premium is $8 a month. Either plan removes all ads.
If everyone pays 20 cents a month each, I think we might be able to cover it.
By the way, I knew there had been a change of hands years ago, but I never knew who. What times I had asked the responses always seemed to glaze over the question! I guess it was just common knowledge that I did not know.
Hello All,
I am the owner of part15.org 🙂 I purchased the site many years ago and have wholeheartedly supported the community from day 1.
In the beginning I was quite intrigued and interested in the hobby and was looking into setting something up in my neighbourhood - I live right across from a popular beach and I thought it would be cool to broadcast to the beach, however my family and professional life would not really allow for yet another hobby 😉
The original website (Drupal) was quite corrupt (from a technical perspective!) and not secure so we converted it to a Wordpress site, it went through a few iterations over the years - changing forums, changing look and feel and changing the underlying hosting several times trying to find the most stable platform to deliver the best experience to the community (and I think we eventually got there!)
Generally I have tried to make sure that this great community you have has a safe place to gather and share and connect (heck, I even host(ed) the website for the ALPB - not sure if it is still a thing anymore?)
All of this I do with no expectation of making anything from it. In the last 3 years, it has generated exactly $249.47 - that is $6.92 per month.
To be honest, I was unaware what a mess the advertisements were making to the reading experience....not what I wanted at all.
The funny thing is that the ads and their placement is 100% handled by Google (I don't control any of it - not even where the ads appear). When it came to my attention that it was a problem (thank you ArtisanRadio!) I tweaked Google's settings and hopefully have 'quieted' it down a little. I will keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't rear its head again, but if it does, please let ArtisanRadio know and I will see what I can do about it!
Also, I am very excited to see the thoughtful leadership that takes place here, as an outside observer, I can see that it has breathed new life into it and there is a real sense of pride amongst you that this is an open and welcoming space. I am also extremely happy to do what I can to support all the efforts to expand the site and deliver more value to more people.
Feel free to message me directly anytime or relay something through your moderators - I may not answer right away, but I will definitely answer!
JP
@jpjanze Thanks for the info!
I hope the ads tone down a bit but when they split up the posts things are missed as it seems like the end but there was more if you scroll down past the ads. The space on the right side of the posts is blank and all the ads could go there.
Yeah, everything Mark said. That's some great news. I think it will do a lot for the general atmosphere of the site.
@ jpjanze Your appearance here is welcome so we can know more about our benevolent owner!
Also I agree that the leadership here is very nicely tuned. They make site management seem easy, which experience tells us is not always true.
If all of us could be even more interesting, we might attract more monetary results to make this venture even more lucrative. We certainly will try.
If all of us could be even more interesting, we might attract more monetary results to make this venture even more lucrative. We certainly will try.
Huh? What are we trying to do? Increase the $6.92 monthly average ad income it was making to something that's actually more lucrative? Is that what your saying Carl? Or are you being facetious? - I'm not sure.
Yeah, I know $7.00 a month revenue is snot on a rag, but is increasing that income a goal?
Presumably the ad revenue is in place to help offset the cost of running the site (I dont know what that cost might be other than the hosting cost.. which has been and currently is a big fat zero.. then there's the domain name (or names, i dont think we still have .com .ca. or our original .us, so that's only what, like $20 a year? Are there other cost involved? I'm not aware of any but I really wouldn't know since I've never run a site before.
But what I do know, as pointed out previously, is that its only $4 a month fee to have an totally ad-free forum. Of course it doesn't have to be ad-free, we could contact a couple people like Bill Baker (of ISS and AAIRO),and Keith Hamilton (the Rangemaster), and Chez radio, Angry Electronics, maybe even the AARL, a
Ask them if they would consider a $10 or $20 a month donation in exchange for an ad here. Those four alone could be a revenue of as much as $80 a month which is considerably better than it's $7 it getting.
@ Rich-Powers Rich Powers said, "Increase the $6.92 monthly average ad income it was making to something that's actually more lucrative? Is that what your saying Carl? Or are you being facetious? - I'm not sure."
No sir, I was not facetious. I was being idealistic. As a return gesture of generosity I was wishing-aloud that we could be revenue magnets in addition to being a group of friendly hobbyists.
I'm taking for granted that the over-arching reason to provide servers and websites is to realize some useful amount of profit. Maybe I don't want to feel like a charity case.
Next question?