BikerBecca
Contributor
Thanks for the thread. We appreciate everyone here on SB, whether they contribute or not. The funds do support me living in cave country as well as ongoing server bills, site upgrades and more. I don't live in a mansion. I don't have an extravagant life style. I'll never make a million bucks. Yet, I am lucky beyond belief. No, not because I'm the owner, but because I get to meet and dive with SBers and call it work. I get to see, and even instigate a lot of the posts before they go up.
While I do own the domain, no one could ever own the community. Because of that, I have separated the business side from the community side. I won't let the tail wag the doll. Volunteers run the community and we do in a way that honors what the community wants. The mods, aka mods, are real heros in making and keeping our site nice. They don't vet for accuracy, only tenor.
But without our users (content contributors), we wouldn't have much of a community. Less than %5 of the people who come here post. They read and read and cogitate and read some more. You're like the peeps that write those editors to the editor and we love to hear from you. We love to hear about the dives you organized here, the classes you've been inspired to take and yes, we want to see the cool gear someone here has turned you on to. Pictures are truly worth a thousand words and videos are worth more like a bazillion.
Don't get me wrong: I would love to see many more people "go red". We could always use the funds. I would also love our users to reward our advertisers too. Tell 'em where you saw their ad when you buy. Reward the instructors who post here as well. Their insight and anecdotes are priceless. Even more important, reward them by posting your class reviews. Tell us what you learned, how you were challenged and why you choose this particular instructor. Like those posts you find amusing or helpful. If you want to support our awesome mods, BE NICE. Report when others aren't being nice so they can make SB even nicer. There are certainly a lot of ways to contribute to our community. Thanks for even thinking about it.
Well, that just closed the deal. I'm gonna be a supporting member when I get paid next week.
Thanks for this site and all you do for the dive community.
~Rebecca