Airsoft Canada 2008
 

As you've probably noticed, the Airsoft Canada site has been going through some changes in the past couple weeks. The most noticeable change has been the server move, and as any frequent user can tell, we're still working out the kinks. What hasn't changed, though, is the fact that ASC is Canada's largest airsoft community and an internationally-recognized airsoft resource.

Airsoft Canada has historically been a venue for the sale of airsoft, by its owner. Tru and his Trumart flourished for a time, and part of his proceeds helped keep the site online. More recently, Miles/Honest John (and Carl/MadMax, for a time) had been running an awesome store called ASC Armoury, which paid for an even better server to keep ASC running fast. Unfortunately, ASC Armoury has since closed its doors, and ASC's funding has been cut short. This leads us to our next change: Miles has transferred the responsibility of keeping ASC up to Lisa and Harley/Mantelope.

You've probably noticed by now that, unlike Miles or Tru, Lisa and Harley don't operate a retail operation, so we've needed to find another funding stream. You've also probably noticed the "Ads by Google" in two distinct locations on the site, which is the method we've decided to go with to help support ASC. We're trying to keep the ads as unobtrusive as possible yet still generate revenue from them, and we don't plan to insert any other Google ads on the site.

We have a few ideas that we're going to implement in the very near future. Because we're not going to be operating our own retail operation, we're going to be making some changes to make it even easier for retailers to operate their business on ASC. In exchange for a modest fee, retailers will have unique status on the boards, including a special retailers forum that we hope will solve all the problems they have had with keeping sales threads up-to-date and replying to customer inquiries. In the same vein, the space in the top-right previously used for the ASC Armoury ad will become available publicly to any age-verified user at a reasonable cost. They will also get a larger PM inbox than the average user to account for the extra messages they send and receive.

We've also started the long-overdue task of organizing and cleaning the forums. Things are getting better already! In addition, we're bringing back the site supporter program due to popular demand. The planned benefits are a greatly increased PM box, removal of the Google ads while you're logged in, access to posting in the trash, and a few other surprises we've got up our sleeves.

We have every belief that ASC will continue to grow and prosper, and at the same time we intend to keep the signal-to-noise ratio at a maximum. ASC is known internationally because of its communal knowledge and expertise in all fields of the sport that we love. While some of the changes that are being implemented may upset a few of you, we firmly believe that ASC will benefit from every single one; if we didn't, we wouldn't be changing anything.


-Lisa and Harley

Thanks for the heads up.

so when can we donate? Got money in hand!

We don't have a timeline yet, but rest assured we're working as fast as possible towards it.

Glad to hear positive changes are on the horizon. I'm more than willing to make a donation to ASC as well, as it has been such an invaluable resource to me since summer 2007 (lurked for 3 months before joining).

yea ya....like i said im glad ASC is still here good job to scotty, mantelope and lisa!!!!

I want my gold status back!

will donate or pay for retailer forum!

We have yet to work out the specifics, but rest assured that if you've donated in the past, you'll continue to have a supporter status.

Definitely coming, we know how much retailers will benefit from having their own dedicated storefront.

Hopefully there's not just changes in ASC but in the prices of airsoft in canada too..

Not saying anyone here has any say in that or that the changes on asc will effect the prices in Canada. Just wishful thinking. can't afford to drive and play airsoft right now..

I would LOVE.. (And I'm sure moderators would love it too) to be able to change the title of my threads instead of reporting them and having a moderator deal with it..

I would pay money to be able to do that and have a boost in privet messages.

Perso XX $ each year for my best forum about airsoft is a good way. I really don't want pub on our forum, if you need money for the year, don't worry i will help.

I wound't mind to donate. It's really annoying me that I have to delete my PM in full of 100 messages. Glad to hear about that.

KND

Count me in for a donation for ASC as well, just let me know where to do it.

Congratulations on the 'inheritance' of the site.
I trust all is well with Miles, and he is simply focused on other matters at this point.

I am on the same page as that.

The forum seems to be very slow at loading...
When's the donation?

If you pay a little more, I'll get mods to mess with your profile pics and sigs.

Already happens enough as it is lol! :P

You should have the advertise open in a new window, not in the same frame, to avoid member to exit the forum.

Miles has retired to a boat in South America where the living is cheap.

So, how much does it cost to run ASC for a year?

I mean no offense by this, but ASC's finances have never been public. We don't exactly intend to start showing off our bank statements. ASC's main, but not only, costs are hosting. ASC's gigantic traffic means high requirements not just for bandwidth, but also for the actual processing power and disk performance of the server; this necessitates at the very minimum a high-end VPS if not a dedicated server altogether. The $7/month "unlimited" plans you see on some hosts will NOT cut it, not in the least.

Who do I pay / how much do I pay to be apart of the armory? :)

How much to get a 'Airsoft Canada, Home of RONAN' banner on the top right?:D

Ha! Called it last February!

Let me know when I can throw money at you.

if we give money...can we still get banned??? it should take A WHOLE LOT MORE if you give money...

Yes, being a site supporter will not stop you from getting banned if you act like an asshole to people.

More work for you guys, but I see plenty of good in the SA model.

Only paying subscribers have access to a/some/all forums, ability to pay to change the avatar or title of another member, etc...

Or just hook us up again with the silver/gold/plat titles.

im in to donate i also got my money in hand wouldnt mind the extra privalages with sales and shuch.

Restricted access to people who don't pay? I don't think that was a part of the whole idea...

I don't mind supporting the site financially. I just hope the amount of goodies is not proportionnal to the amount to give.

Because some people have more than money to donate to this forum.

one billion dollors muhaahahahahah lol

Uhhh... WTF... it says I have one unread PM, and all my PMs have been checked?

Issues??

ISSUE: AdSense links to International sellers. As much as I encourage Darwinism, I think it would be unfair to our Canadian noobs to have links pointing to cheap US guns.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather pay 20$+ from my pocket than allow some poor sap to get suckered in to getting a seizure or worst.

I imagine I can rationalize this by saying I don't want the board to be flooded by butthurt noobs whining about seizures.

They way I see it, if they're smart enough to find ASC, they can read up on Canadian airsoft. If they order from overseas it's their fault.

i dont seem to have access to the age verifiers thread anymore

I compleatly agree. This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the ads. That and we might get more thread like this: "is this gun good? I found it on your links, it must be good lololoolololollol."

I'm in for donating.

When the last time you were 14? Most noobs are just gonna see the cheap price and just go bug their parents to order. The less reading they have to do to find the super leet guns the better.

I am tweaking the ads, its slow cause i can't click on them as per the agreement with google.

Same. I no longer have access to the verifier's thread, and will have info to post later today after I meet with someone.

Great Idea. I like the idea of paying to change your avatar. Also the about having certain sections available to SMs (supporting members).

- Greg

I can't read what's in that section, but I can see it on my account. Its never been there before. Everything else seems to be in order.

The age verifiers section got moved to the team bunker, you should still have access to it no permissions changed. there is also a new section for age verified people to talk, I think renaming the later to something else might be in order to avoid confusion

Which pages will someone like me not be able to view?

Any page located in an age verified forum.

will clicking on the advertisement generate a bit of revenue for the site?

I'm not sure how to answer this question with out breaking Google's Terms and Conditions.

If you do find a link that is offensive, please copy the url down and pm it to me so I can look into blocking it.

Whats the point of ads if they are not clicked wink* wink*

Will the links at the top of the page be updated? because some are really out of date and some out of business.

It is probably a safe bet that such things will be attended to after stability and troubleshooting are taken care of. Give our new volunteers some time - in the meantime, report anything broken or not working quite as intended. They will get around to it. :)

Do not click on them a lot, they[google] track IPs that click excessively then penalize the site (asc). I speak from experience.

I think that FAQ's or server rules should be put in the general section so that every noob that comes here has it in his face.

ASC forum rules are posted as a stickied topic in the general area. It doesn't much matter what we do as people tend to just...not read.

I find the ads very suitable to my interests and they may be eligible for my internet spending. *thumbs up*

if you like the google ads you'll love the other paid ads when we introduce them.

Thanks to Drake we now have the site supporter tags. They stand out

I don't mind the ads if it helps keeps the site up.

That said, I REALLY miss the links. What's the chance we could get those back up?

Atlantic Airsoft has the same links.

I've found a solution, just need to wait for Harley to code it. The links won't be in the exact same place but they'll be easily accessible.

Okay, we just moved servers, AGAIN! Post here if you've got any NEW technical problems with the site.

i got 1 try to use the serch fourms/Google.... you cant keep the box open to type anything...

What browser/OS are you on? It's working fine on everything I've tried so far.

+1, this is working fine for me. Doesn't go away unless you click on another part of the browser.

No issues with me either using the search bar, from either IE or Firefox on Vista, or Safari from my iPhone.

The forum is nice and fast now. Hope this server can handle the load this time. Seems to be so far.

Please bring back post counts. It helps to identify bullshit accounts before clicking on bullshit links.

+1

You should still be able to view post count by viewing the accounts profile.
It takes an extra moment but the ability to see post count is still there.

Yes but then the user knows who's been looking at their profile. It's kinda creepy "Big Brother" stuff.

LOL, it was nice having it right there underneath the avatar, but like T7 said, its a click away.

Nice!!!

Ahahaha

Teehee...

Seriously, a better output of the trader rattings + AV + join date would be best.

heres what im talking about... its not a big deal but a little shitty at times...

YouTube - serch fourm

I've had that problem a couple of times as well.

This is something I definitely want to address... the problem is, everyone has different opinions about what's good and what's not. I think we're going to keep post counts off by default, but add an option to enable their display. Trader ratings, I'd like to display numbers briefly on every page, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to accomplish that technically yet. Join date and AV... how else could those be displayed?

Make sure you check out http://www.airsoftcanada.com/profile.php?do=editoptions every so often, I'm constantly adding options so that you can have ASC presented to you in the way you want. There's a show-post-counts option now, and you can change the userbars that get displayed as well.

Check out the new and improved gallery! http://gallery.airsoftcanada.com/

im not a big fan of the stupid threads getting LOCKED that fast.... let us have some fun....

I think not locking a thread on ASC is actually an easy way to lead to an atomic explosion lol

I'm a big fan of stupid threads getting locked very fast. Fun should not come at the expense of immediate ceasation of stupidity.

edit doubble post....

why not... i need stupid humour.... this is where i used to get it

Feel there's to much add banner,or they are maybe simply at the wrong place the one on the top doesn't bother me at all, but the 2 on each side really overload the page. Making it too condensed and visually heavy.

I liked the old "Breezy" format better.

We're only going to have one banner on the front page, but we're trying out two different advertising partners at the moment. Both ads will be up for a short period of time, but it's only to see which one is more effective.

We're still tweaking the ads heavily; expect more changes tonight. We really hope we're not pissing too many people off. Site supporters will still have the option of turning off the third-party ads (Google and now Project Wonderful too).

Do you guys have a list of items posted up that are not acceptible items to sell on ASC? I know there are some pretty odd things that have come up, like blank-firing guns, real guns, etc.

As regulations on items gets tighter in many areas, it seems like a logical thing to do.

I don't think it's posted but I think the only verboten stuff is anything illegal to begin with, anything requiring a PAL and blank firing guns (I don't know if a PAL is required for them, but we don't want them, take them over to CGN). I haven't seen porn listed in the classifieds either, but while we are not out right opposed to it it should be clearly titled in the thread title as porn and NSFW (yes "porn for sale" should be a good indicator of NSFW but I think in this instance we can over kill a little).
Obviously charging for copied music/videos is not allowed and that includes charging an extra fee to have an iPod filled. If it doesn't come with the originals it's not legit for sale (though if an iPod happened to be filled with music and videos when it was shipped that has nothing to do with us, it's up to you to erase your back ups).

Well there have been guns posted in the classifieds. But only by BC_K I think.

It was removed and when the NAR classifieds were first opened there was an example done and removed (it was posted at an insanely high price, as the owner didn't want to sell, just get dialog going).

I can start selling man-love video's of porn actors in army uniforms? SWEET:D

Ep 1 will have some dude with a PTW, thats for sure:cool:
(With one of The Acer gigantic silencers on it:p)

Why am I not surprised you have gay porn?

Because i got them from your computer?:p

Edit: Can i get my old title back please. Oh and someone fix the smillies please :D

Hmm, so the new Airsoft Canada of 2008 is based on Ronan making gay porn with a PTW.
D:

dont forget about The Acer's huge silencer ;)

Don't you mean dildo? Ahem*

LOL

Ok, That Quick links on the left drives me nuts lol.
Can I disable it in my User CP?

A big +1 to that!

Kuro_Neko

+100000000 It also seems to slow down page loading time.

Yeah the quick links thing is really annoying. A way to toggle it would be nice.

My Feedback on the new site design.

Two points.

1) The new quick link box on the left;

- disfigure the look of the site. (Threads' list got smaller)
- Puts the big ass ad the comes with it in the spotlights. (Not subtle ads)
- Quick links? What's the real purpose of it? It's pretty much useless.

2) Like mentionned before, the content of the ads;

- They have nothing to do with airsoft.
- Credit score ads are still present.


I wanted to wait a couple of weeks before saying anything. I wanted to wait until the changes where pretty much fixed to avoid commenting on things that wouldnt last or would just be temporary.

Now, I know this is a privately owned site web and that I could just fuck off if I don't like the way it is but I wanted to state my views anyway. Honestly, I was ok with most of the changes, beside what I said in my second point. However, the big banner on the left that follows, what I think of a useless, quick link box pretty much disapointed me. It might sound exagerated but in my mind, this demonstrate pretty well where ASC is heading at. Looks like what was at start a few ideas to support ASC might just get transformed in something less helpful and less innocent, maybe.

Speculations aside, this big banner takes all the view space and is not needed. Even more so that it displays credit score and related shits. Please keep the design simple, the yesterday's version was perfect.

Thanks you,

F!reStorm*