TAMB CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENT

[biffer]

3 hours ago, Ormond said:

Scotty, I like you on here and I don't like those cvnts either but... 

I can confirm Scotty is sound in real life as well. 

[Bzzzz]

Never liked it anyway. Full of knts. 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Bzzzz

[euan2020]

http://taboard.com/archive/index.php?showtopic=76977

 

post from 2008

The Tartan Army Message Board costs £270 per month to run. This is entirely self funded from banner advertising and the "Help Fund the TAMB" links. We are independent of the Scottish FA and all fan groups including the Association of Tartan Army Clubs. 

So how is the board funded?
In 2004 we introduced advertising to the board and this has funded the board to this day. Our income each month comes from 3 sources:-

• Google banners - about £80 per month
• Affiliate Banners and text links (Expedia, Amazon, Toffs etc) - about £60 per month
• Banners from Tartan Army Footsoldiers (Football Heaven, Cragiebrown, etc) - about £20 per month

How can I help?
You can help by buying stuff through the "Help Fund the TAMB" link at the top right of the TAMB. This doesn't cost you anything extra as each of the companies pay us commision.

£220 A month seems an awfy much for a wee message board?
The TAMB is viewed by over 30,000 people each month and as such requires it's own dedicated webserver. This alone costs £260 per month to run. Add to that the cost of leasing the TAMB forum software and the various domain names it quickly eats up the cash. 

What happens with any surplus cash?
In 2006 the TAMB had built up a small cash surplus and we decided to launch a competition for the "Tartan Army Youth Devlopment Award". 5 Teams bid for the cash and after a vote on the TAMB, 2 teams received full funding to buy new strips and the other 3 received £100 each towards kit.

Like to advetise on the TAMB?
More informations on advertising is here - http://taboard.com/Advertising/ 

[euan2020]

http://taboard.com/archive/index.php?showtopic=152670

2014 post 

Fellow TAMBers: You are a registered user to the Tartan Army Message Board.
There are some impending changes to the board which you should be aware of.
The content of some threads and comments of certain board members on TAMB has meant that Google Ads pulled the plug on us some months ago. This was the main source of income for the TAMB for some time now.
Unfortunately, Google were unable to be helpful in any way and refused to speak to us to help resolve the situation so this has continued for more than six months. This means that TAMB has had virtually no income for more than 6 months either (we need to generate at least £2500 in income each year in order that the board can continue). 
This situation needs to be rectified and the proposed solution will seem quite radical to board members.
We propose to wipe the entire board of previous thread content and restart with a completely ‘blank’ board. This will happen on Tuesday 26 August so you have until then to copy and save any threads that you wish to retain or eventually repost to the ‘new’ board.
Apologies to all for the upheaval but this seems to be the only course of action left to us.
Google Ads have been decidedly unhelpful in our attempts to rectify this problem. In order to maintain control of the board and prevent this situation occurring again, the moderation strategy will become much stricter.
Obvious trolls will be punted, blatantly insulting or libellous comments will be deleted and in certain cases, this may result in the board member account also being banned / account deleted without previous fanny-ing about and discussion with the offender.
We hope to archive all historic board posts for reference. The URL for this will be notified in due course. Posting will only be permitted on the new board. The URL for the new board will hopefully remain the same as at present although this may not be the case if Google as our ‘advertising partner’ remain completely unhelpful and unforgiving. All PM's, usernames and other such info will transfer over to the new board so that registration should not be required. 
Thank you for your understanding. Please avoid libelous comment, personal abuse, posting pornographic images and don’t include pornographic links in your posts in future.
The TAMB Moderating Team

[thplinth]

Let's save the board if we can.

With that aim I think it would help to attempt to breakdown the various main challenges we will face to do it.

1. Technical. We need an IT techie to volunteer. Someone who understands what it would take to move the existing board to a better new platform, ideally preserving the boards history and continuity but worst case without it. Olas would be my choice but I expect this board has many lurking experts who would be willing. Out yourself here please. You have to select the new platform and move the board.

2. Cooperation from the old board - sounds like they are on board with any effort. But this is key.

3  A leader, a face for the new TAMB - someone folk can trust to push all this shit through with integrity and bring back old users. It has to be a well liked but more importantly effective person. A Flat Earth character would be ideal in this role... This person needs to be nominated not volunteer. Not Reeky. 

4 Transparency - make the board owned by the fans and not for profit organization. Folk will be far more willing to support it. The opaqueness of the old board ownership really hurt it. Private ownership is ok but the owner has to be a good un.

5 Money - I think this seems the worst problem but after reading the posts over the last few days I am confident money is not the main problem here.

Come on!

 

[TDYER63]

18 minutes ago, thplinth said:

Let's save the board if we can.

With that aim I think it would help to attempt to breakdown the various main challenges we will face to do it.

1. Technical. We need an IT techie to volunteer. Someone who understands what it would take to move the existing board to a better new platform, ideally preserving the boards history and continuity but worst case without it. Olas would be my choice but I expect this board has many lurking experts who would be willing. Out yourself here please. You have to select the new platform and move the board.

2. Cooperation from the old board - sounds like they are on board with any effort. But this is key.

3  A leader, a face for the new TAMB - someone folk can trust to push all this shit through with integrity and bring back old users. It has to be a well liked but more importantly effective person. A Flat Earth character would be ideal in this role... This person needs to be nominated not volunteer. Not Reeky. 

4 Transparency - make the board owned by the fans and not for profit organization. Folk will be far more willing to support it. The opaqueness of the old board ownership really hurt it. Private ownership is ok but the owner has to be a good un.

5 Money - I think this seems the worst problem but after reading the posts over the last few days I am confident money is not the main problem here.

Come on!

 

Can I give out cakes, like Adele?

I can also make tea and am willing to donate. 

[thplinth]

Regarding the money if the shortfall of revenues (mystery per month) versus expenses (300 crazy pounds p/m) is say 50 quid or 100 quid or 150 quid... I guarantee you could fund it from donations given the love for this board. But there should be no need for that. Bring the costs down, improve the board experience and this place like scottish football in general is a very under valued asset.

You are giving up the ghost without a fight. Sure it is not good but fuhck this pussy way to go out. Coooome on! Where was plan B, C D before you quit!?

[fringo]

23 minutes ago, thplinth said:

Let's save the board if we can.

With that aim I think it would help to attempt to breakdown the various main challenges we will face to do it.

1. Technical. We need an IT techie to volunteer. Someone who understands what it would take to move the existing board to a better new platform, ideally preserving the boards history and continuity but worst case without it. Olas would be my choice but I expect this board has many lurking experts who would be willing. Out yourself here please. You have to select the new platform and move the board.

Plenty of techies on here I think that could do it.Might depend on how much time it takes initially and then hopefully settles so it's not too time consuming for him/her/them afterwards. 

2. Cooperation from the old board - sounds like they are on board with any effort. But this is key.

Current board Mod/Admins do seem happy/keen to pass it on in the right hands.

3  A leader, a face for the new TAMB - someone folk can trust to push all this shit through with integrity and bring back old users. It has to be a well liked but more importantly effective person. A Flat Earth character would be ideal in this role... This person needs to be nominated not volunteer. Not Reeky. 

Someone Flure would be an obvious choice for me but despite being surrounded by servants in Flure Castle, I suspect he's pretty busy with his excellent work with TASA.

4 Transparency - make the board owned by the fans and not for profit organization. Folk will be far more willing to support it. The opaqueness of the old board ownership really hurt it. Private ownership is ok but the owner has to be a good un.

This links into point 3 IMO

5 Money - I think this seems the worst problem but after reading the posts over the last few days I am confident money is not the main problem here.

I don't think there would be any shortage of willing contributors (this came up a few years ago and there were loads).

The clever bit is finding a simple way of doing it. Even if it was to try it for 2 months.

Come on!

 

Good post.

My thoughts in red above.

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by fringo

[thplinth]

4 minutes ago, fringo said:

Good post.

My thoughts in red above.

 

 

 

Yeah 3 & 4 are connected and it will also require 

6. The help of a voluntary lawyer to transition ownership into the fans hands  and probably a bunch of other shit.

[Flat Earth]

On 9/7/2017 at 7:53 PM, Toepoke said:

It'd certainly be tragically ironic if the TAMB shut down a few days before we finally qualify for something...

 

Hmmm. Scotland have never qualified for anything since the TAMB came along...

[fringo]

1 minute ago, thplinth said:

Yeah 3 & 4 are connected and it will also require 

6. The help of a voluntary lawyer to transition ownership into the fans hands  and probably a bunch of other shit.

Hopefully the current guys/gals can help advise on that and it might be relatively straightforward.

PS - it deserves a separate thread but current owners/mods/admins deserve a huge, huge thank you for keeping it alive all this time.

[TDYER63]

1 minute ago, fringo said:

Hopefully the current guys/gals can help advise on that and it might be relatively straightforward.

PS - it deserves a separate thread but current owners/mods/admins deserve a huge, huge thank you for keeping it alive all this time.

I would agree. 

[thplinth]

2 minutes ago, fringo said:

Hopefully the current guys/gals can help advise on that and it might be relatively straightforward.

PS - it deserves a separate thread but current owners/mods/admins deserve a huge, huge thank you for keeping it alive all this time.

I said it on another thread but so many are going I have lost it... they were / are the best. The ideal solution is they continue and solve the money issues... but I think maybe there is more to it than money. Hard to say I am not an insider.

[fringo]

2 minutes ago, thplinth said:

I said it on another thread but so many are going I have lost it... they were / are the best. The ideal solution is they continue and solve the money issues... but I think maybe there is more to it than money. Hard to say I am not an insider.

I'm guessing the money keeps making it more difficult along with many years of giving up time and more hassle than thanks.

We've probably all taken it/them far too much for granted and all they get is moans and little or no appreciation.

If it does get handed over and kept going, the next lot will have to be prepared for that too.

[fringo]

11 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

I would agree. 

You start it then..... 

[TDYER63]

If it was to be self funding, it may encourage Flure to be involved if a small donation was made to TASA each month.....

[TDYER63]

1 minute ago, fringo said:

You start it then..... 

I am waiting for Flure to get rid of this bloody photo for me before starting any thread that may be there for eternity. 

[fringo]

3 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

I am waiting for Flure to get rid of this bloody photo for me before starting any thread that may be there for eternity. 

It might only be there until 1st Nov unless you get your skates on and start swiftly praising and thanking the current TAMB owners.

[TDYER63]

3 minutes ago, fringo said:

It might only be there until 1st Nov unless you get your skates on and start swiftly praising and thanking the current TAMB owners.

To hell with all this namby pamby praising and thanking new world. Wasnt like that in my day ?

I thank the Lord every day we have the current TAMB owners . Without them,  I wouldn't know you....

[fringo]

8 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

To hell with all this namby pamby praising and thanking new world. Wasnt like that in my day ?

I thank the Lord every day we have the current TAMB owners . Without them,  I wouldn't know you....

[fringo]

9 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

To hell with all this namby pamby praising and thanking new world. Wasnt like that in my day ?

I thank the Lord every day we have the current TAMB owners . Without them,  I wouldn't know you....

PS I don't think they can hear your prayers.

They might be important but I don't think they're that high up the ladder.

[TDYER63]

Thanks Flure ! Just realised its gone! Feel much better. 

You see, my prayers ARE heard  Fringo ...?

[fringo]

2 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

Thanks Flure ! Just realised its gone! Feel much better. 

You see, my prayers ARE heard  Fringo ...?

I've always held Flure in high esteem but this just confirms it

[TDYER63]

6 minutes ago, fringo said:

I've always held Flure in high esteem but this just confirms it

He could be doing wirh a haircut, but apart from that there is an uncanny resemblance.  

[brant grebner]

nawbags