board77

laureanna wrote:

leading a pack of rabid B77 posters: bouncing eyeballs, sharks, wild-eyed hobbits, ranting smilies, agitated elves, ... sorry, must.control.images.in.head.

Ara-anna wrote:

laureanna wrote:

they are making money (quite a bit, according to their website) by making custom made websites. Tolkienonline is their prime example. They are using TORC to do business, and in a fairly substantial way.

Now this is verrrry interesting Laureanna. So TORC is all about an example of the kind of website that they build as part of their business. They probably take any losses on TORC as a business deduction. Suddenly a lot more makes sense now.

....Now I'm really sorry I ever had a PM.......

Ditto. I feel almost. . . I don't know. . . used? No wonder they didn't care about what happened to the messageboard. As long as it's still running at all, it looks good for business. We were practically advertising for them. And here I thought they ran TORC because of some deep and abiding love of Tolkien. Ack. I'm sorry I supported that, and I'm glad I'm gone.

B77 is much nicer anyway.
[/quote]

You know, I am geniunely puzzled when people in free-market, capitalistic countries where "communism" is a swear word, are so much put off by the idea that someone is motivated by making money. Maybe I'll ask in Symposium.

Honestly, I don't care why they started TORC. It had been a great place where I met wonderful people, got up the courage to start writing in earnest, and had a lot of laughs. And it gave a start to this board, which is now an even better place, except for lack of RPing. If someone else was making money off that, that just goes to show that capitalism doesn't have to be evil.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, it's the methods that might be questionable...

A crime boss just wants to make money, but they do it in a very bad way.

I don't think that it's wrong to make money, but the fact that TORC is the "calling card" for their web building business makes me a bit suspicious about how much they really love the dear ol' Professor. It's a little underhanded not to disclose that more openly on the site.

Have you looked at their other site? It isn't exactly a vinyard ....

http://forums.thelastfreecity.com/viewtopic.php?t=26257
http://forums.thelastfreecity.com/viewtopic.php?t=5

Their TOS, for some reason, is just ripped off from TORC (complete with references to Tolkien ?!?!?!) but obviously there are different interpretations when it comes to enforcement of the TOS.

The original members include Jonathan (AKA the_one, Steward of Zion) and Ted (who only posted once, but did not inhale).

They used a 30 day free trial site traffic reporter, found here: Wusage, to get statistics like this: Aug 20 2003 stats.

Why am I spending time on this tripe?

EDIT: Yes, Elli, I agree. I wouldn't mind meeting interesting people at a coffee house that says it's a coffee house and takes my money. I wouldn't mind meeting interesting people at a non-profit cooperative of idealists who want to promote forest grown coffee and chocolate. But I would mind meeting in a place that claimed to be one, but was actually the other. I'd grab my friends and move to another location. There have got to be more non-profit forest grown chocolate purveyors out there.

Jonathan just posted over at Ethel's board and says that Enthusiast Inc. is his alone and not in partnership with Ted. Update: TORC is not a non-profit. He seems to indicate that there have been profits for TORC.

Still doesn't change the bad smell as far as I'm concerned.

Good grief, that place is horrible... And to the TOS. Couldn't they even bother to change where it says "Tolkien Online" in it?

Maybe that's why J&T seemed to spend more time and have more posts at TORC?

I do feel kind of like a lab rat now though.

OK, I was confused by Jonathan Watson starting TORC, and Jonathan Cline starting The Last Free City, but they really are two people:

http://www.tolkienonline.com/comments.c ... e=articles

laureanna wrote:

The original members include Jonathan (AKA the_one, Steward of Zion) and Ted (who only posted once, but did not inhale).

(Maybe the place wasn't as rank with feces as he had hoped.)




*E*

Jonathan just posted over at Ethel's board

Yes, I am a bit confused by Jonathan's answer, but didn't want to quiz him on owernship structure because ... I just don't want to quiz him on personal topics.

He implied that TORC is separate from Enthusiast ... wait, hang on. I just got into the middle of this post and realize that I don't remember exactly what he said. Be right back.

Edit: OK, I'm back.

Yes, he said that TORC has nothing to do with Enthusiast. TORC leases software from Enthusiast, and is listed in Enthusiast's portfolio -- comparing it to the relationship between a design company and video game packaging.

TORC premier membership payments are paid to Enthusiast ... and I guess their other websites operate the same. Hm ... well, it's beyond my ability to predict how they record that, though Lidless is probably familiar with the arrangement.

Jn

But all the money went to Enthusiast....at least the PM money. To me that does not seem like TORC is separate from Enthusiast.

the more I hear, the more shady it sounds.

Of course, it could just be that they didn't know what they were doing, but that could come back to bite them harshly.

That wasn't supposed to sound gleeful...

Dindraug wrote:

No, the Tolkien estate got there money out of those years ago.

Including the album(s) by the hippie rock band "The Hobbits"? That's the sort of thing I meant...

-Kushana

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it was a real stretch to figure out about torc. Torc is run by jon and ted. jon owns enthusiast. enthusiast is a web design firm that also has software and such. Maybe I am just more interested in these things than others but I dont understand why some of this is coming as a shock. its on torc, all you have to do is look for it. I don't think its fair to act like J&T were hiding things from people with the PM's and such. Ok so jon owns enthusiast. so what. even if the money does go to enthusiast instead of torc directly, how is that any different. its still jon paying right?

I swear its getting to the point here that any excuse will do to take a shot at them or torc..

gimli_axe_wielder wrote:

so what. even if the money does go to enthusiast instead of torc directly, how is that any different. its still jon paying right?

I was just pointing this out, not taking a shot at them. Though I do think Jon isn't being totally honest when he says TORC and Enthusiast are separate. Really, I don't care but I do think he should be fully honest.

Jnyusa wrote:

If it were, they would be demanding a cut, not destruction of the product.

(K. awaits the chiseling of noses off of statues)

Quote:

[on the internet]... there is no peer review process they can refer to for evaluation.

And none of the additional filters of an editor, bookstore buyer, or librarian. None of those should function as censors, but they do serve as a kind of quality control.

-Kushana

gimli_axe_weilder wrote:

I swear its getting to the point here that any excuse will do to take a shot at them or torc..

Yes, some of us (such as me) are still feeling stomped on and unappreciated by a certain nameless female administrator and her cohorts on a certain nameless website that is currently being looked at by JRRT's estate. A sincere apology would have gone a long ways to obviate the need for this thread. But it didn't happen. And we really are trying to keep our grumbling to one thread, rather than distressing people all over the boards.

I noticed quite a while ago that Jon's hobby and his need to be solvent came through the same vehicle - TORC. Most hobby-related businesses start out as a way to fund the owner's out-of-control habit. But most hobby-related businesses don't make their businesses look like a democratic, non-profit, fan club that is trying to raise money internally (that is, by everyone giving their little bit via PM) in order to stay alive. There was, for a while, the veiled threat that the owners of the website would not be able to continue this worthy cause without all of us pitching in. When advertising came to blight the website, it was explained as the lesser of two evils: advertising or no website. We were encouraged to click and do our part for our board. This is the part that I always saw through, and always felt irritated about. But this is the first time I have been able to talk about it with others.

I am not even going to get into this arguement for the 500999588 time. Just for once it would be nice to discuss the place with out it going back into that all over again though... and no my post wasnt directed at either of you actually.

I do wonder why i come back to this site at all though. seems like every time I do i end up in the same agruement with people. Guess its time for me to find a new place..

Eru,

There's a difference between being unrelated in real life and being unrelated from an accounting point of view.

If TORC merely buys services from Enthusiast, then they are separate entities. There's nothing nefarious about that. It's irrelevant that the same person owns them both.

And it might be that I am totally wrong thinking that Enthusiast was incorporated as a non-profit, which is quite a different thing from 'not making a profit.' I thought I had read that they were non-prof but I might simply misremember this. When I have a free moment I'll go back and look at the financial page again.

TORC could have been organized as a commercial subsidiary of a non-profit corp. Nothing wrong with that either.

I just find it confusing that Jonathan says they are unrelated (meaning from an accounting point of view) but that payments are made to Enthusiast for services provided by TORC. Normally it would go the other way - it would go into TORCs books first and then be transferred to Enthusiast, i.e. to pay for the software lease. When I wrote my first check to Enthusiast, I thought it was a billing company owned by someone else. It might in fact be leasing not only software but also accounting services to TORC. But then the waters become a bit more muddy if one of them is involved in a lawsuit ... same ownership of both companies, money moving in both directions ... one scrutinizes arrangements like that more carefully.
It does not imply dishonesty on Jonathan's part - just acknolwedgement that what one organization is experiencing might spill over onto the other.

Jn

gimli_axe_wielder wrote:

Just for once it would be nice to discuss the place with out it going back into that all over again though..

You could always start a positive thread about TORC here, and ask people to post only positive things. I'll stay out of it, I promise.

Unfortunately, newspapers don't sell when they have only good news. People have a taste for the morbid. Not sure why. I suppose that could be yet another thread.