How can we help GOC?

[harbl_the_cat]

Not a criticism, but it's been pretty apparent GOC's been having issues.

If I could wager a guess, I'd say the amount of traffic being generated on the site isn't producing enough ad-revenue to justify the capital investment needed to resolve some of the technical issues the site has been having and/or make the investments needed to improve the user experience to the degree that would attract more members.

We have to remember that GOC is a firearms business, no different than any other in Canada, and the Liberal attacks on the community as well as their systematic dismantling of the Canadian economy have hit all businesses very hard (one of my main businesses failed 3 years ago during the lockdowns).

I consider myself a regular patron to GOC, in the same way one might consider themselves a patron of a small restaurant, coffee shop, or pub - but it's pretty clear, our beloved internet hangout is having a tough go.

So for all of us regulars, what can we do to help out?

Personally, I try my best to buy from GOC sponsors, although in the past, I've tended to make direct purchases from sites I recognize through Google searches that sponsor GOC, rather than clicking on the site Ad banner.

I know now this doesn't DIRECTLY help GOC out, but going forward I'm going to be more intentional to buy direct from GOC sponsors through the banner links.

I'm also going to be more intentional to try to buy through the GOC Marketplace, since marketplaces always attract more traffic.

I try to post more threads that follow current trending topics (hence why I haven't let the Ukraine war thread die), since a lot of GOC forums are crawled by Google and SEO optimized content does generate more traffic.

Could the site admins setup a "Donate" or "Paid Subscriber" feature somewhere on the site too? If it exists, could you make it more obvious where it is and promote it better? With the current site UX, it's not apparent where it is

Given the amount of time I spend on here, I don't think it's unreasonable to chip in $10-20 a month, and I think if the other site regulars did the same, that could help the site out a lot.

Lastly, and again, this is not a criticism because I know a lot of you guys on here better than I know my extended family, is there a way we could be less toxic, cynical, and pessimistic about the things we post about?

I know these are shitty times for all of us - but we really need to pull in more people, especially young blood, into the community or else we play right into Trudeau's hand.

Hosting / subscriptions / technical resources aren't cheap, and while I know a lot of GOC is volunteer run, it's not as if a site like this shows up on the internet because someone wasn't willing to pay money for it.

I personally am very grateful to JWire and the site owner/operators who invested the capital in making GOC possible and I absolutely do not want to see it struggle or worse.

I'm also extremely grateful to the site volunteers who keep the site going.

I run a few dozen of my own sites and I know how much work it is - so at a minimum, can we all be more intentional to express and show our gratitude to the GOC owners and Admins for giving us a forum to express ourselves and be in fellowship with one another.

Does anyone else have any other ideas before I have a conversation with ChatGPT about it?

[Camo tung]

I like my GOC like my porn - free.

If they want to pull more people in, get rid of guests. Require a sign-up. I don't think there's rampant toxicity on the site, in fact I can only name about 2 people that regularly dance the line between being dicks or being baiters.

I'm not sure what your time is like between work, family, your other sites and ChatGPT horoscopes but a member with skills similar to yours might be more responsive to issues like layout, an outdated banner (TACCOM 2022 - woo hoo!) or general inquiries. The photo posting connundrum is an embarrassment. It's a gun site so in addition to memes and other funnies there's fish, animals, boats, rigs and guns to be proud of and want to share. Thankfully BSD isn't able to show his ingrown toenail and we're currently free of the Beaver's post- assault potato pics.

I'm not as hopeful as you are. I believe it's run it's course as a project/investment/tax deduction for whomever. Maybe it's time to pass the torch or pull the plug.

[barkerlakebob]

The site cannot be everything to everyone. Of course improvements could be made, but at what co$t and time for the volunteers. I am satisfied with the content and the players - if I was not happy I am sure there is nothing holding me back from leaving. The price is right, the technical information is great and I appreciate what I have.

[M1917 Enfield]

Why would the couple dozen or so regulars pay a monthly subscription fee when at least 500 freeloader guests get to use the site daily without even bothering to become members?

[JustBen]

The original owners of the site sold it out. The new owners don't seem to care. I would donate and support a site that is truly grass roots, but not when someone with deeper pockets is the owner.

[Dewey Cox]

The members provide the content, not the funds.
Want to help out?
Post something people want to read.
Bonus points for talking about guns.
Extra bonus points for posting pics.

At this point the only thing generating reliable content is burning desire to mention putting a potato in your speedo as often as possible.
This site is starting to remind me of my truck. I don't want to put much time or money into it because it might not last a lot longer. (And if someone makes me a good offer on it, I'd dump it...)

[Aniest]

This and CGN are not the only forums I am on. I keep my ear to the ground on a lot of things. The opinions other gun owners have about GOC is not always favourable, but yes,there is enough exposure on other forums that people could come here.

CGN is known to be a hunting and shooting Equipment Exchange site primarily, with enough other forums and activity to water down the conservative-based right wing politics topics (religion, abortion, LGBTQ2S+, US politics).

GOC is known as solely a conservative-based right wing political site under the guise of being a hunting and shooting site. If someone is not willing or not wanting to be a part of those topics they don't come here. If they don't agree with one topic that dominates over hunting and shooting topics, let's say the proliferation of American politics talk, then they don't come here.

In other words, GOC is a niche site (conservative-based right wing politics, religion base, and beliefs), within another niche (gun rights, gun ownership and politics), of which is within a specific broad niche (hunting, shooting and those outdoors sports). I am actually surprised this site survives at all because it is just the personal (but publicly accessible) Discord server for (as M1917 Enfield says) 'the couple dozen or so regulars'.

That is just fact and truth, and there is nothing wrong with that. Just enjoy someone is willing to pay for your personal pre-school sandbox and keep the spammer cats from shitting in it.

[harbl_the_cat]

Why would the couple dozen or so regulars pay a monthly subscription fee when at least 500 freeloader guests get to use the site daily without even bothering to become members?

Because there's a pretty good chance those 500 guests are actually the ones keeping the lights on.

Random people find a GOC post by searching Google about a topic they're searching for, find the information they're looking for, click a link on the ad-banner, and convert a sale for one of the sponsors that GOC can get an affiliate payout for.

That, or conversely, one of the sponsors see they get traffic directed from GOC and see their conversion rates on certain products go up as a result of traffic from the GOC banner, and agree to pay to put up a banner.

As someone posted prior, us old regulars having the conversations we do on publicly indexed posts is what brings the guests, the guests brings in the revenue that keep the site online.

The problem is paying for licenses for software, hiring technical staff who can fix problems beyond what the admins can manage (including UX design or implementing new features) is obviously something beyond what the current revenue the ad banner pulls in.

That puts GOC in a bit of a precarious situation, because thus far, the ad revenue appears to be keeping the lights on, but we could wake up one day and find GOC's gone dark and it's never coming back.

Like I posted in the Wolverine G&T thread, they said one of the reasons their store shut down was because of repeated cyber attacks.

GOC's came under attack already - and it's not as if it's free or cheap to recover from those sorts of things.

[Camo tung]

Maybe telos is undergoing reassignment therapy and identifies as a gun hater now.

[Gunexpert007]

I don't really see any issue with GOC , other than the lack of actual firearm related content . A lot of the same political content and news stories are posted on both GOC and CGN ; but I do find these large number of " guests " on line very bizarre . The site is free to the users , and its success depends on what members choose to post on it ; so can't really blame the site owners as the site is member driven .

[M1917 Enfield]

Currently only 11 members and 679 guests on this site!

Most I ever saw at one time was just over 1200 guests viewing this site while only 9 members were logged in.

The average seems to be 60 non-member's on this site to every member.

I often show online even when I'm away from the computer but still have GOC open in one of my browser tabs. Sometimes I'm away for a couple of days but still show online as I seldom log out and always have a GOC tab open and just refresh the screen when I come back to see what else is new from the Cat, Bob or Camo.

[M1917 Enfield]

There are currently 634 users online. 4 members and 630 guests

[SwissArmyMan]

Guyz, the cat think we're toxic & cynical because we mock his drug habbit!!

[Camo tung]

Guyz, the cat think we're toxic & cynical because we mock his drug habbit!!

I'm more concerned about him having replaced his Ouija board for ChatGPT for advice on life's critical issues (maybe that's paranoia and anxiety from the devil's lettuce?).

Front to back cat, never back to front!

[harbl_the_cat]

You guys are awesome, but what I mean by "toxic" is an overarching sense of cynicism, pessimism and dread about the future and lamentations about the past.

These are unbelievably hard times, and there certainly is a reason to be cynical and negative about our outlooks, but to paraphrase Jordan Peterson, if we all didn't make a bad situation worse, we don't know how much better things could be.

My cat just died, my business and life savings were wiped out by the lockdowns and my daughters medical expenses, my reputation was destroyed by the vaccine mandates, my social circles and extended family have abandoned and rejected me for protesting during COVID, and yes, I rely on medical THC oil to prevent the downward spiral of negative emotions that would otherwise see me become angry in a way that is destructive to my family.

But as bad as things are, I still have hope things will be better and that there are opportunities to turn things around.

I haven't posted in that spirit recently, but maybe in light of the compounding tragedies that keep piling up, maybe that's just one thing I can do to help.