[squidlyboy]

Technic

Someone posted last night that he got banned ... i don't know why either. But I responded to the thread. Eventually the thread was deleted, and i'm guessing this one will be too. Lets see how long it takes

Just wanted to publicly acknowledge how helpful the dude was to all us BMW and especially audio enthusiasts who wanted to upgrade/mod our audio systems to something better. The guy was unlike other sponsors in that he was actually helpful and was more or less one of us - regular everyday joes who cared about our cars and wanted to help the community in providing timely information on how to do audio upgrades. Because he's been around so long and was so knowledgeable on these boards, he could at times be a little bit of an a** h*** but i guess theres some of that in all of us who own BMWs.

But that brings up another subject about sponsorship. I get the general idea in that sponsors are here to make money, and the forum owners need money to keep these boards running, so sponsors get charged a fee/subscription for the privilege/right to post their "ads" to a very targeted demographic they are trying to sell to. A match made in heaven.

But Technic was in a special category though... he was almost certainly a sponser, as everyone went to him for this audio harnesses, but he almost rode a fine line between a regular forum member as well. I'm guessing the ban was related to crossing over that line. But i don't know that for sure.

In any case, hats off to you bro! Hope they let you back in here, and thanks once again for all the informative stuff you've posted over the years. Most of them have been bookmarked!

[tdott]

Was he actually a sponsor on these boards?

Technic is definitely very knowledgeable and helpful around here. But I think the issue was that he also sells products and wasn't an official sponsor all of the time.

[squidlyboy]

hmm... I was actually wondering about that as well. That's very interesting...

If he wasn't an "official" sponsor of these boards, he most certainly was in spirit. Everyone went to him for his harnesses. And at $90 a pop (i'm guessing) for his harnesses, that's a ton of $$$. Some official sponsors could only dream of that kind of income.

I think the lines blur a little bit as far as sponsorship goes. To me, what constitutes a "sponsor" (whether you are an official one or not), is whether your primary motivation on these boards is to make money or contribute content. If you are here to make money, all you will be doing is posting ads about how great your products are and all your postings will have the goal of trying to sell more stuff. If you are a non-sponsor (content contributor) - i.e. regular forum member, you are here to either learn something or educate someone. But whether to learn or educate, you are providing the content that draws more people in who want to learn stuff about their cars, so are what makes these board owners $$$. We are the demographic and target audience that these board owners market to sponsors so that 1) sponsors can make money off their products and 2) the board owners make money off sponsorships. We are what makes the wheels go 'round

As far as Technic goes, he must have rode a VERY fine line between being an unofficial sponsor and a content contributor.

I think ultimately the call from the admins is.... is the dude making enough money that he should be paying sponsorship dues? Its a fine line though, right? I mean people sell their stuff (i.e. classifieds) here all the time, so its not commerce in general that's frowned on. The criteria is: are you making a s**** load of money, and if you are, we want some of THAT

[Nitrousbird]

This board cares about making money first and everything else is a distant second. Hence board members getting badly ripped off by certain sponsors and silence from the admins.