Hello everyone,
It's been a long time since I've posted an update, so first things first - I want to thank all of you for helping us to create one of the fastest growing cycling forums on the web! Your contributions and continued support are very much appreciated - especially the hard-working moderator team who give up their free time to keep our forum in such great shape – THANK YOU!
For our newer community members, here’s a quick potted history of CycleChat: I started CC as a hobby site in December 2005. Not many people joined to start with, but in July 2007 a bunch of popular cycling forums were merged and a few people didn't like the result so they came over to CycleChat. We worked together to build what we have now - a large, rich, and positive community for cyclists. We've been through numerous software changes and, most recently, invested in a powerful super-fast web server as we continue to grow from strength to strength. This has all been in my spare time; initially funded with the profits of my part-time small business - more recently becoming self-funding through adverts and merchant links.
Those of you who have been here for a good while may have noticed that I haven't been as present on the front-end of the forums in recent months. That's because I've been working in the background to secure the longer-term future of CC. Some time ago it became apparent that if CycleChat continued to grow I would need to commit more time and resources to managing it – something that would be difficult to do whilst working full-time, raising a family, and helping out at home. So I looked at the options: close it, sell it or try and run it full-time. I couldn't do the first and second ones - not after all the hard work everyone had put in, so I decided to look at running it full-time. There was one small problem – the large debt I'd incurred building CC and the fact it was only generating enough revenue to cover operating costs!
Running it full-time was going to need a different approach, so that's what I've been looking into all these months - working out the finances, researching, talking to other people who run forums for a living, and experimenting with various revenue generating and site optimisation ideas to see what works and what doesn't. It's taken longer than expected but the work has paid off and things are looking good. CycleChat is now generating more revenue, clearing its debts, and I'm able to reinvest a small amount each month into developing the other forums. With continued growth I'm hoping to be able to dedicate full-time hours to the forums in the next 18-24 months.
Now, over the past few years that CycleChat has been growing so have the communication and management requirements. This means that until I can get to running it full-time I've actually got less time available for PMs and emails, so if I'm more succinct than before, it's not personal, I've just got a lot on! Site News and Updates has been made read-only to save time and I want the Site Support forum to be strictly support only from now on please, for much the same reason. Feedback, suggestions and questions about the moderation or running of CC are still welcome but please send them directly to me via PM or the site contact form. Please don't post them in the forums as they will be removed.
As well as the support and feedback changes, I've also re-written the site rules to make them clearer and will be making a few more minor site changes: the Games sub-forum is being removed and the threads returned to the Cafe; off-topic threads will be moved to Cafe or CA&D, cycling threads in off-topic will be moved the opposite way; CA&D is getting some new debating rules and slightly firmer moderation; and some individuals are going to have their access to selected parts of the forum restricted. These tie-in with the other changes I’ve made recently and are intended to give everyone clear guidelines on how we want to operate CC and keep the cycling content at the forefront (to help with our future growth) whilst keeping the overall tone of the forum friendly and positive.
So, please carry on with the friendly welcomes, the great cycling advice and encouragement, organising rides, posting funnies in the Cafe, putting the world to rights in CA&D and making CycleChat one of the best cycling (and other stuff!) forums available; and me and the moderator team will keep working hard on your behalf to keep it all running smoothly.
Oh, and don't forget to tell your cycling friends about CycleChat and link back to us from your blogs and social media spaces: https://www.cyclechat.net/
Thanks,
Shaun
It's been a long time since I've posted an update, so first things first - I want to thank all of you for helping us to create one of the fastest growing cycling forums on the web! Your contributions and continued support are very much appreciated - especially the hard-working moderator team who give up their free time to keep our forum in such great shape – THANK YOU!
For our newer community members, here’s a quick potted history of CycleChat: I started CC as a hobby site in December 2005. Not many people joined to start with, but in July 2007 a bunch of popular cycling forums were merged and a few people didn't like the result so they came over to CycleChat. We worked together to build what we have now - a large, rich, and positive community for cyclists. We've been through numerous software changes and, most recently, invested in a powerful super-fast web server as we continue to grow from strength to strength. This has all been in my spare time; initially funded with the profits of my part-time small business - more recently becoming self-funding through adverts and merchant links.
Those of you who have been here for a good while may have noticed that I haven't been as present on the front-end of the forums in recent months. That's because I've been working in the background to secure the longer-term future of CC. Some time ago it became apparent that if CycleChat continued to grow I would need to commit more time and resources to managing it – something that would be difficult to do whilst working full-time, raising a family, and helping out at home. So I looked at the options: close it, sell it or try and run it full-time. I couldn't do the first and second ones - not after all the hard work everyone had put in, so I decided to look at running it full-time. There was one small problem – the large debt I'd incurred building CC and the fact it was only generating enough revenue to cover operating costs!
Running it full-time was going to need a different approach, so that's what I've been looking into all these months - working out the finances, researching, talking to other people who run forums for a living, and experimenting with various revenue generating and site optimisation ideas to see what works and what doesn't. It's taken longer than expected but the work has paid off and things are looking good. CycleChat is now generating more revenue, clearing its debts, and I'm able to reinvest a small amount each month into developing the other forums. With continued growth I'm hoping to be able to dedicate full-time hours to the forums in the next 18-24 months.
Now, over the past few years that CycleChat has been growing so have the communication and management requirements. This means that until I can get to running it full-time I've actually got less time available for PMs and emails, so if I'm more succinct than before, it's not personal, I've just got a lot on! Site News and Updates has been made read-only to save time and I want the Site Support forum to be strictly support only from now on please, for much the same reason. Feedback, suggestions and questions about the moderation or running of CC are still welcome but please send them directly to me via PM or the site contact form. Please don't post them in the forums as they will be removed.
As well as the support and feedback changes, I've also re-written the site rules to make them clearer and will be making a few more minor site changes: the Games sub-forum is being removed and the threads returned to the Cafe; off-topic threads will be moved to Cafe or CA&D, cycling threads in off-topic will be moved the opposite way; CA&D is getting some new debating rules and slightly firmer moderation; and some individuals are going to have their access to selected parts of the forum restricted. These tie-in with the other changes I’ve made recently and are intended to give everyone clear guidelines on how we want to operate CC and keep the cycling content at the forefront (to help with our future growth) whilst keeping the overall tone of the forum friendly and positive.
So, please carry on with the friendly welcomes, the great cycling advice and encouragement, organising rides, posting funnies in the Cafe, putting the world to rights in CA&D and making CycleChat one of the best cycling (and other stuff!) forums available; and me and the moderator team will keep working hard on your behalf to keep it all running smoothly.
Oh, and don't forget to tell your cycling friends about CycleChat and link back to us from your blogs and social media spaces: https://www.cyclechat.net/
Thanks,
Shaun
