I don't like the ads either, and I put them up. I do try and make them less intrusive. Google would plaster the pages with ads if given the opportunity to do so. I do have costs to cover in operating the forum and we still operate in the red. That's okay, I just don't want it to be as deeply in the red. But kinda ironically, if we had a ton of forum traffic I'd probably remove the ads as the benefit to the users would outweigh the ad revenue. (And if we had a ton of traffic there's a lot of ad revenue potential, but this forum was not built to be a profit center.) If there were 100 forum posts a day (we used to be well above that) then I'd accept the costs as a giving back type of thing.
We haven't promoted product sales as there really isn't a market for them. A member tried a nice looking product a year ago and could not get enough for a basic preorder. Presales haven't worked and I don't want to invest in unsellable inventory. We just don't have the traffic. I do have some responsibility for that, but at the same time there are not a lot of active users. There's not a lot of future promise as new signups are rare. A few years ago we'd get a few signups each day and now we might get a couple in a month. I don't think that's as much related to this specific forum related as it is Hummer related, and that less people use forums nowadays.
If someone came forward that convinced me they could reinvigorate the forum, bring in traffic, get events together, etc. I'd happily cede control or sell the forum to that person. I do not know how to solve our current traffic/activity situation, but maybe someone else does.
BBYHUMR pretty much nailed it on all his points. I've considered shutting it down but it's a good archive. We can't even get enough members together for a Utah event. So the ad revenue keeps this place on life support by removing one of its pain points (even while it introduces another.)
