Link to Tony Brong's blog on Bullseye Shooting

Rather than write a thread here, I'm just going to copy an email I am sending to Tony Brong.  Until a few days I never heard of him.  That's what I'd like to correct:


Tony, I’ve been on the Bullseye forum for several years now, but mostly to go into the forums for topics I was interested in.  I never click on “advertisements” which is what I thought was up at the top of the Bullseye home page.  I think I may have glanced at them, never seriously.  Then a few days back, I was bored, and started looking at them – and found your blog.
 

Seriously, your blog link should be all the way at the left, the first thing someone might see.  If others, like me, avoid advertising and links to ads, they’ll never find you.  For anyone who enjoys reading the forum, your blog is wonderful once they (like me) realize it’s there.  I think I’ll post something about this in the forum – they’ll be doing many, many new participants a favor by fixing this.




My suggestions are to have a "sticky" leading people to this blog, and as I said above, move it all the way to the top left on the page, so people (especially new people) are likely to notice it.  I'm fairly new here, so if this is not realistic, this thread can be deleted.

FYI 
Tony decided to quit doing the blog, last year I think, but it will remain up as a resource.  He may not be responding to emails.
- Dave

I wrote Tony yesterday, and got a reply this morning.  I mostly wanted to thank him for all the work he's done - lots of good information there.  

Yep, as a resource it is excellent, but maybe others are as unobservant as I am, and don't even know it exists?  Maybe this thread will help.  

I did notice all those "boxes" on the home page, but assumed they were advertising from supporters, which at some point I would get around to checking out.  Had I known about Tony's blog years ago, I would already have been reading much of it.  I like finding the information, and I enjoy his writing style.  It's more like a "chat" than the Bullseye website, which makes for easier reading.


Oh, and Thank You to those in charge of this forum, for listing it there in the first place!!!

Oops, the third link from the left on the Bullseye-L Forum home page now goes to "http://bull-market.biz".  Probably needs fixing, or deleting....  The others seem OK.  Never looked at any of them before...

Correct, I don't.  I dislike advertising.   I sent a message to the forum administrators long ago that I wanted to donate something to the forum directly, but never found out how to do so.  I did get a very nice reply from Rob Kovach. 

I donated extra money to my gun club, over and above the membership fee.  I would gladly do the same thing here.  As to advertising, when I want to find something, I'll go searching for it.  Sorry if that's the wrong answer....     I have an ad-block installed on my browser, so advertising gets blocked.

The point of this thread wasn't to complain, but rather to point out Tony's blog, and to suggest that the link to it be placed in a more prominent location.

To me, the real "forum supporters" are the people here contributing all the information that we (I) get to read when I come here.  Yeah, I also know that it costs $$$ to set up and maintain an internet presence like this, and maybe we all ought to chip in $25 per year to help out.  That's for another thread though.  This thread was for Tony's blog.

It also seems like the Bullseye-L merchandise link has been hacked.
- Dave

The bullseye-L marketplace has been defunct since John Dreyer died years ago.  Neither me nor his widow know any of the passwords for the checkout or the accounts.  I need more free time to clean stuff like this up.

I don't know where else the link may appear, but removing it from the top of the main page, "supporters" would solve the problem.   

Maybe at the same time, if possible, Tony's blog could be moved to the extreme left, so it's the first thing readers will see?

Let's not get carried away! Changing stuff is hard.

I'm not a very good webmaster.

Rob Kovach wrote:The bullseye-L marketplace has been defunct since John Dreyer died years ago.  Neither me nor his widow know any of the passwords for the checkout or the accounts.  I need more free time to clean stuff like this up.

Maybe one of the Russians can hack and find the passwords for us!

Lol

Rob Kovach wrote:Let's not get carried away! Changing stuff is hard.

I'm not a very good webmaster.

Be careful of what you volunteer for.

I subscribe to the camp cook theory...if you're complaining about lunch, you're volunteering to be the new cook.

If it was a standard web page, done they way they were made long ago, no fancy stuff, I would gladly volunteer.  I used to do things like that.  However, this is a forum, and the only forum software I have any experience in is v-bulletin.  Even that is from ages ago.  I even had a shooting forum (http://www.sgrid.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?11-Guns-and-Shooting ).   

If anything breaks here, I'd volunteer to try to help, but I wouldn't want to risk breaking something that I don't yet understand, unless it was really needed.  It's probably an easy fix, but so, so many times I've said that, only for things to get real complicated real fast.

One thing I would like to suggest more than anything else - someone, somewhere, somehow, needs to be doing backups.  Unless that's already being done, I'll see what I can find out.  In today's world, that's essential.  Does anyone know the name of the forum software that this forum is using?

Look at the bottom of this page...

Thanks - Gee, that was easy - https://www.forumotion.com/phpbb

When I get home, I'll dig into the 'help' pages.  Something about customizing the forum and adding advertisements.  If it's standard html code, it should not be difficult to find.

Thanks for offering to help, Mike. If there are things you find in the help pages that I'm not doing well, let me know via email.
kovach_robert@hotmail.com

Hey, other than for guys like me who always are way too picky, you're doing great!!!  TheHighroad used to be my favorite forum - now my favorite is this forum.  I wouldn't change anything.  Well, maybe Tony's blog, but I have a feeling everyone here already knows about it, so moving the image doesn't matter!

Suggestion - just post something so those of us who feel this way can donate, say, $25 per year to help cover the expenses?

Sure!

By PayPal to kovach_robert@hotmail.com
or by snail mail to:
5726 Alpine Rd.
Brooklyn, WI 53521

Thanks!

I will send you my check for $25 on Monday.

If enough of us do this, it will cover your web hosting fees, the renewal fee for the domain name, and so on.

I guess I should start a new thread about this, rather than have it mixed in with Tony's blog...   will do that Monday, unless someone beats me to it.

Rob:  Ever thought of setting up a Patreon account.

Rob:  Ever thought of setting up a Patreon account.

I don't even know what it is....I don't even have time to google it.

The simplest way to do that is to create a thread "Bullseye Forum Patrons", and list the names of those people who donate towards the system.

There are fancier ways, but that takes programming time.  I think the main goal would be for many of us to chip in towards running the system.  Anyone could enter a thread here in the 'general' forum suggesting we do this - I could, but I think it should come from one of the people who have been here far longer than I have, and who have been involved in the forums, and who most everyone will recognize.