Comments for "Putting on the Brakes"

First off, I have read all of your comments, and I really appreciate the very thoughtful and kind words of encouragement. Your support means a lot, and the ability to provide a good lottery web site for all of you is the main driving force behind what I do.

I was definitely not looking for 'ata-boys' when I wrote this; it was mainly an expression of some recent frustration, and a heads-up to explain that I may be laying low for a short while.

One thing that I think is important to get out there, because there seems to be a misconception, is that this web site is not a source of income for me. As I described in a PM to someone this morning, if I were to rely on this web site as my source of income, I would go broke within a month. In plain language, I spend more than I make to keep this site running.

Any membership fees for Gold and Platinum memberships, as well as the limited amount that I collect in advertising fees, are very important to me, as they help to offset the tremendous cost of running this web site. The thought that I am getting rich off this site couldn't be farther from the truth. It is actually somewhat of a drain for me.

The reason I think it's important for people to know that is to understand that money is not the motivation for running this web site. If it were, believe me when I say there are a LOT of things I could be doing to drive as much revenue as possible from the tremendous traffic and unique visitors that come here. In the industry, they call that "monetizing the traffic" - i.e., squeezing every last penny possible from traffic that goes through here.

If I were to do that, everyone's experience here would be a lot different than it is. You would be bombarded with advertising, put onto e-mail lists, and would be constantly enticed to buy stuff. To be honest, people have asked me why I DON'T do those things, like lots of other sites do. Sometimes I wonder myself! For example, have you ever gone to lottery (dot) com? Now THAT's a web site that tries to monetize its traffic. Everywhere you go there are ads, and the little content that is there is squeezed in between so much advertising that it's difficult to find it. That is what Lottery Post could have been, but I did not want that.

As far as the web site itself is concerned, as well as the effort that goes into it, I am in uncharted territory. Lots of the things I'm now doing and building are not on any other lottery site, so there is no template to follow. That tends to make each new feature a bit of a challenge -- and also a bit of an EXPERIMENT. In this environment, there will be things that work great, and things that aren't perfect at first and need to be adjusted.

One of the things that is different about making these kinds of experimental changes today (as opposed to a few years ago) is that there are at least 200 people online at any given moment on this web site, each with their own opinions about it, and collectively there are 16,000+ opinions about it. And that's just the registered members.

I certainly enjoy and thrive on all of that diversity, but when it comes to trying to introduce a new feature or concept, or when trying to enforce some of the rules that have kept this site going for 6 years now, it can be a challenge for one person to handle. And that's where I could use some help from this site's long-time supporters.

I am frankly tired of playing the bad cop on this site, and that is increasingly become my role. I am growing tired of explaining about spamming, linking, e-mail issues, and explaining why change is important and good. I honestly thought that by this point, there would be a large group of long-time members who, because they understand how everything works and why, would be able to jump on some of these topics when they come up and put them to bed right away. In other words, "watching my back."

Now, I understand when I come out with a new feature that only I have knowledge about, that I will have to handle everything regarding that topic, at least in the beginning. But when something comes up such as someone insisting on posting a link to a certain gambling site, I would expect the membership to be all over it. In this example, the typical response is either silence, or "it's Todd's web site, so you have to follow his rules." While that's true, my hopes would be that the members, realizing that it's these very rules that have helped keep this site going for so long, would TAKE IT PERSONALLY that someone had tried to do something bad for the site, and would post something like "Hey jerk, stop spamming the forums!" Well, OK, you don't have to use the word "jerk", but you get the idea. You know, when I see someone do/say something like that, it is like a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders, and is really a positive mental thing. Functionally speaking, if everyone pitches in like that, it's not just good for me, it absolutely makes the site much, much better and positive. There is NOTHING like a community of positive, supportive people -- because that's the kind of place everyone wants to belong to.

I think I've rambled enough, so I'm going to stop here. I'm sure there's more to say, but that's enough for now. I hope at least that by sharing some of my thoughts it will make this a better place.

-Todd