Wow. I am really surprised at the over reaction by some of the members (former members?).
According to the e-mail that Kevin sent, I saw no hostility or even a cease and desist type of response. All that he did was say that the project could not go forward using the PipesMagazine.com name, especially since nobody even asked for permission to use it. I totally agree with his decision 100% and it is not because I work for the site either (although some of you may think so anyway). If any of those who are upset about this would put themselves in his position, I am sure that they would agree. If they had worked their ass of and poured themselves into a business venture and someone decided to use their business name on something without even asking, I am sure that they would be more upset than Kevin got. Actually he wasn't even upset, he was flattered. But at the end of the day it is still a business and he owns the rights to it and he can not allow people to use them without even asking and giving serious consideration. Nobody who owns a business would.
I am a member at a lot of the other pipe forums and I read almost all of them. Yes, some of them do offer Pipes of the Years, tobaccos, lighters, etc. But they are all ran through and approved by the site owners and sometimes the site moderators, not the site members.
As far as the part about it being “all about the money”, this is a double edge sword. On one hand, it is about the money because this is a professional business endeavor. Anyone who owns a business wants to make money from it. Isn’t that the point of owning a business? On the other hand, Kevin isn’t worried about making money on a PipesMagazine pipes, tobaccos, shirts, etc. We talk about these things frequently and are always trying to find a way for us to be able to do it without it costing the members much money, which means that there would be NO income from those things for the site. But our main priority is the running of the site by putting up articles, videos, reviews, interviews, etc, not selling PipesMagazine merchandise.
On the part about the site having sponsors; yes, we have sponsors. Everyone has to remember that we are a Professional E-Magazine. Just because we don’t do a print magazine doesn’t mean that there isn’t any overhead. Keep in mind that we are a 100% FREE site. Members and readers don’t have to pay to join and/or read the articles, reviews, watch the videos, etc. Where else can you get a free subscription to a magazine for as long as you want? Since we don’t charge to become a member or read the site, and we don’t ever want to charge people for it, we need advertisers. Hell, even magazines that you pay for, buy, and subscribe to have advertisers in them.
To address the part of it being like a “Homeowners Association”, I don’t see how. There are rules to follow at EVERY forum, club, or anything else. And to be honest, I know for a fact that we have the least amount of rules of almost every other forum out there. We don’t over moderate or forums, hell we barely moderate our forums. We allow all of our members the right to say pretty much whatever they want about anything that they want (within reason). We prefer for most of the talk to be about pipes and pipe tobacco, but we also understand that there are other things that people would like to talk about as well.
There are some pipe forums out there that won’t tolerate ANY discussions of anything other than pipes and pipe tobacco. Maybe if we moderated our forums more, this situation wouldn’t even have happened. But we like to give our members free range to discuss various things without being told what they can and can’t say. As far some posts or things in posts being moderated or deleted. That is the prerogative of the site if the rules are not followed. All forums do it and I would like to say again, that we do it the least out of any pipe forum that I have seen. Soliciting people to go to another site is spam and is not tolerated on any site.
With all of that being said, everyone is welcome here. But if some people want to get upset over something trivial and want to take their ball and go home, there is nothing that we can do about it. So for those people who are leaving and have left; farewell, best wishes, and good luck.
Regards,
Bob
