Future of Venomland - We need your help!

Dear Venomland Members and Friends,

Venomland is a little more than 6 years old now and by far the biggest Hot Snake community on the Planet! We want to thank all of you who made Venomland the leading Board. We are also very thankful to our Moderators and Admins for years of hard work.

Now, it is time to move on. I have been thinking how to proceed and what to do with our beloved board as we reach a size, that we need to make drastic changes to secure the future of our community. As of now, Venomland is hosted by a free (well mostly free) hosting service. That was good for the first years but now we need to find a new way to run our forum. I have spend hundreds of Dollars over the years to keep Venomland up and running, and i have done so with pleasure.

Now, we need your help!

We need to come up with several thousand dollars for our Venomland 2.0 project, which i frankly cant pay for any longer by myself. So Venomland is asking his Friends and Members for the first time for their financial Support. Please help to keep Venomland alive, and let us move on to a new, better Portal in the Future! Every Dollar is helping us a great deal. I know, its hard times for everyone, but please spare a few Dollar for our community. If you have only 10 Dollars to spare, we are grateful, if it is more, it would be awesome.

We are planning to develop a very new Venomland, with real community functions, a forum like you are already loving it and a real (online) Hot Snake Magazin. Also, there will be download areas for scientific papers, Wallpapers and more.

Again folks, we can only do that if you all help. Please send me a Private Message if you want to keep Venomland alive, i will provide you with the details on how to donate Money. For now, we can accept money from creditcards via skrill (please google it, its a free service - account-details will be forwarded to you) and paypal.

All the best, and for a (hopefully) nice future of our Board.

Mario

ok,as promised. So far donated have:

Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson

actual (May 17, 2014) count: 150 euro

List will be actualized daily. Thanks for your support!

Count me in!

I wanna be part of this progress.

Hello People,

we have received so far roughly 10 messages from you guys who want to help.
i will, in a few days time edit the starting post and ad the names of everyone supporting the forum (please let me know if you want to stay anonymous).

please keep donating folks!

Thank you

I am definitely in!

Hello Community,

we have started working on the new version already, and i can tell you. if we will be able to realize all of what we have in mind, wow - that will be a big, big improvement. I will start to inform you on what we plan and what feature can be expected.

Today: Venomland 2.0 will be a real community, the forum will be only one part of it. Every Member will have his very own page... ecxited

So far donated have:

Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser

actual (May 18, 2014) count: 250 euro

but another 11 Members have promise to support as well, we just waiting for the money.
please guys, talk to the other members here on the board to help us.

Thanks for your support & all the best

UPDATE:

Hello Community

So far donated have:

Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser
Manfred Gessner
Hans Juergen Vogeley

Summary actual (May 19, 2014) 290,- Euro
(Still, 12 more Members have announced their support, just waiting for the Money here) - it's nice to see that some Members are supporting their Forum.

I have received also lots of supporting eMails from Members to let me know VENOMLAND is important! Thx

Please send funds true Skrill.com (former Moneybooker) using your creditcard. Its quick, easy to set up, secure and free! If you cant work with skrill for some reason, then send your donation via. Paypal.

We do not have a own bank-account for venomland, so no bank to bank wiring money possible.

our skrill account: mario.lutz@gmail.com
our paypal account: plazaphilippines@gmail.com

please dont mix it up. Thx


New Project:

Venomland 2.0 will have 3 mainparts. 1. Community (FB like), 2 Forum and 3. Magazin, especially for venomous snakes.
Of course, we will continue to have a serious board, professional and clean.

We are looking as well for photographs of our Venomous friends for our new Portal, for graphic and design. Please, send us your best Pictures (please state that Venomland is allowed to use your pics!) to my email (mario.lutz@gmail.com).

Thanks for your Support Guys!
(People, dont forget, every single Euro/Dollar is helping! Please help to activate the other Members to participate!)


All the best
Mario

Hi Community,

we have no new information for you. Unfortunately, no new donations the last two days, we still stand on 290,- Euro... Please guy's, we need more funding...


All the best

Done

UPDATE:

Hello Community

So far donated have:

Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser
Manfred Gessner
Hans Juergen Vogeley
Ralph Tümmers
Central Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology
Marco Kunz


Summary actual (May 19, 2014) 420,- Euro

We are looking as well for photographs of our Venomous friends for our new Portal, for graphic and design. Please, send us your best Pictures (please state that Venomland is allowed to use your pics!) to my email (mario.lutz@gmail.com).

Thanks for your Support Guys!
(People, dont forget, every single Euro/Dollar is helping! Please help to activate the other Members to participate!)


All the best
Mario

Hi Guys,

i want to thank:

Andre Schmid, Niko Weinbeer and Manfred Gessner for the nice Picture!

Donation is still the same as yesterday people, so nothing new to report there...
Hope i have some news tomorrow for you guys!

cheers
Mario
VenomLand Team

You are welcome, Mario.

UPDATE:

Hello Community

So far donated have:

Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser
Manfred Gessner
Hans Juergen Vogeley
Ralph Tümmers
Central Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology
Marco Kunz
Alessandro Lazzarini


Summary actual (May 19, 2014) 470,- Euro

We are looking as well for photographs of our Venomous friends for our new Portal, for graphic and design. Please, send us your best Pictures (please state that Venomland is allowed to use your pics!) to my email (mario.lutz@gmail.com).

Thanks for your Support Guys!
(People, dont forget, every single Euro/Dollar is helping! Please help to activate the other Members to participate!) C'mon People, that's not enough yet... 2100 + members and 10 Donations? What happend?


All the best
Mario

Mario! You know I'll support you and your cause to the moon and back. I'll be seeing you in 29 days, I'll bring a cheque for the donation. Sorry though I don't have a dollar account, so it will be in PHP.
Good luck and more power!!


Love,
Claudia

What photos are you looking for exactly? Photos of snakes taken professionally?

UPDATE:

Hello Community

So far donated have:

Mario Lutz
Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser
Manfred Gessner
Hans Juergen Vogeley
Ralph Tümmers
Central Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology
Marco Kunz
Alessandro Lazzarini
Anonymous (member who dont want his name revealed)


Summary actual (June 13, 2014) 620,- Euro

We are looking as well for photographs of our Venomous friends for our new Portal, for graphic and design. Please, send us your best Pictures (please state that Venomland is allowed to use your pics!) to my email (mario.lutz@gmail.com).

Thanks for your Support Guys!
(People, dont forget, every single Euro/Dollar is helping! Please help to activate the other Members to participate!) We still need your support people!!! Please help us!

Thanks to all
Mario

UPDATE:

Hello Community

So far donated have:

Mario Lutz
Christian Scheich
Michele Angelo Furiani
Stefan Marx Olsson
Dr. Rainer Fesser
Manfred Gessner
Hans Juergen Vogeley
Ralph Tümmers
Central Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology
Marco Kunz
Alessandro Lazzarini
Anonymous (member who dont want his name revealed)
Kim Majewski
Claudia Go Tuason


Summary actual (June 17, 2014) 650,- Euro

We are looking as well for photographs of our Venomous friends for our new Portal, for graphic and design. Please, send us your best Pictures (please state that Venomland is allowed to use your pics!) to my email (mario.lutz@gmail.com).

Thanks for your Support Guys!
(People, dont forget, every single Euro/Dollar is helping! Please help to activate the other Members to participate!) We still need your support people!!! Please help us!

Thanks to all
Mario

Hello Mario
what is the state of affairs?
What's the news?

best regards Manni

Hello Mario,
any Updates now ?
Regards Hans

Busy or frustrated?
Dont know..

But personally i feel littlebit frustrated.
Many members do use this forum via them own creating possibilities and efforts just making this place marketing or shopping center. Idea of sharing knowledge and experience is coming second or third..anyway, i feel that forums future depends also very, very much about forum users.

Mario hasn't been online here since June 29th.
He might be busy with other stuff, and additionally he's going through rough times due to some familiary problems able to let appear these forum problems not that important and urgent.
Frustrated? Yes - i can imagine that - if i have a look at the supporters list here. I know he's been awaiting way more support, even if i told him not to be too optimistic.
I hate it to be right with my estimation of these things, but those are the facts.
Just a few people have been ready to support this board and Mario's future plans.
Many of our members do have plenty of time for daily smalltalk on FaceBook, some of'em post or discuss even good, factual stuff which could also written or discussed here.
Facebook is a threat to all discussion boards - and our problems here are not just VenomLand problems.
Actually, advantages of discussion boards like VenomLand in comparison with social media sites like FB are very clear. Facebook discussions disappear within a few days - they're gone, unless you spend your life with search and scroll.
It seems to be a sign of our time, fast, funny, sketchily....
But what can we do?
First of all, do not ask forums owners or admins. Those can only provide "the pot" - as Toni already wrote, it has to be filled by the users.
So do your postings - questions, answers, reports, open new topics and participate!
One of our problems Toni mentioned is that VenomLand is overflooded with sales ads. It's not very interesting, especially for newcomers, to see the portal (latest topics) filled up with only sales ads.
Further on it has never been our intention to be a sales board (for free) for everyone and to see the board more and more misused by "members" who do not contribute anything else to the "forum life".
So we have to change the ads system:
There will be only one everlasting sale/swap topic.
Posts in this topic will be deleted after 30 days by an admin.
Sales ads should not be discussed - use PM for questions, answers, discussions.
Sales ads posted elsewhere or in separate topics will be deleted.
Sales ads from "members" not participating in the forum discuusion sections will be deleted.
Just a small, but important step - keeping the portal, which gives everybody a first impression of the board free from these overflooding ads.
As Mario wrote a long time ago: we're looking for quality, not quantity!
So do your postings, keep your forum alive - it's up to you!
regards
Peter

I must admit I'm a bit surprised that the support for the development of Venomland hasn't been greater. The quality found here on Venomland just can't be replaced by "social" networks (mainly FB). I hope more members realize that and decides to help/donate.

I know the reason I won't contribute or donate. It's due to the ridiculous amount of rules by the Admin guy. The classifieds have been ruined and I'm sure that the fact the traffic has reduced massively isn't a coincidence.

LOL....the admin is guilty, beat the admin....ROFL

How can you be sure, Mr. Roberts, you cannot see the statistics.

But first of all, let me tell you that we do NOT want traffic only based on sales ads and sales talks here!

Further on let me tell you that the important criteria such as new posts, new topics and new members per month have still been on a normal level as usual on VenomLand in the first three month of 2014 (the time you joined the forum and LONG after I started to regulate the classifieds). Then these counts decreased slowly over the summer 2014, reaching an absolute minimum in September, but increased again (30 - 50%) in October, right after the "admin guy" has  started his second attempt to "ruin" the classifieds.
Further on, please note that the "owner and founder guy" (your language, Mr. Roberts!) has switched off the classifieds completely in June 2014. I switched it on , offering this service to our members again, but with additional restricting rules.

Once again, VenomLand is not and will never be a sales board!
We are looking for quality postings and discussions here - i did not see any contributions from your side - and now you come up with curious and individual-related theses?

You don't want to contribute or donate only because we ruled the classifieds in order to avoid the board getting overflooded with sales ads and sales talks?
The "admin guy" does everything wrong?
Not enough classifieds, sales talks and other small talk here?

well then - wrong board!

I'm sure you will find the button....

regards
the admin guy

Hi Guys,

first of all thank you to all the Members who supported and donated.. Secondly, i apologize not been here active for quite a while.. my female has left me and our 4 year old offspring and i had to figure out stuff...

ok, update... the numbers in my last post was the final sum we had collected and unfortunately, i am not able to move on with VenomLand 2.0 respective the development for the new platform as a more interesting board..

but

VenomLand as it is is safe for the next 3 years at least, and will be add free for our registered members.. so, thanks for keeping our forum up and running guys. thanks also to Peter who has had a hard job (beside his job) to moderate the forum.. ill second his move with the add section and i think thats not a problem for anyone here who would like to sale somethings, it keeps the portal more focused on the topics with real interesting content..

i, for myself will continue to work (as much as i can) on the new version of our board, but i cant say yet if and when it will be running.. i do believe, that a content oriented board is actually more worth to our community than any social network.. the facts are clear...

all the best
Mario