Help SMtF Build a Community!
Dear Readers,
My immediate goal for this website was to create a repository of information and articles aiding the marijuana legalization fight. As of the writing of this post, over 41,000 unique individuals have visited this site since March ‘09 and, needless to say, I hope to keep this momentum going.
One suggestion I have heard from readers on numerous occasions was the request for some sort of forum to help grow a community of fact-minded individuals to chat, discuss, share articles, opinions, information, etc. The consensus is that if I do start a forum, I should consider using a product like vBulletin and vBSEO to really help bring more traffic to the website and offer a quality community experience.
The problem is that vBulletin* costs $180 for a license, and vBSEO comes in at $149 for a license. Slightly better news is that used-licenses can be purchased for around $200 for both vBulletin and vBSEO if you look in the right place. While I have been able to keep this site running out of pocket thus far, I just do not have the personal budget to afford the costs of the license (even at the discounted used rate).
While I may not be able to afford it myself, I believe if there are enough of you out there willing to pitch in (or “chipin” in this case), we can pool together the needed funds to purchase at minimum the forum license, and hopefully enough for the vBSEO license as well. A good, trusted friend of mine has volunteered to handle the fund and has set up a ChipIn.com account that should make it a bit easier to orgnize everything.
You may be wondering, “What’s in it for me?” And that is a very fair question.
Other than the benefit of helping ShowMetheFacts.org reach a larger audience, I will offer “VIP Memberships” (a fancy title letting others know you helped pay for the forum + access to additional forums) to anyone who donates $10 or more. If you have any other suggestions of things I can offer, let me know.
Thanks so much for all of your support and please share this with any of your friends who may want to support SMtF.
Sincerely,
Eric
*For those of you wondering why I do not use another forum, or a free forum, I have used many various forum scripts over the years and while each one has its own benefit, I have only been comfortable with vBulletin and find myself having better results when using it.
