I didn't answer my own question, I gave what would be a possible answer. And there is no problem, the only problem here is you guys making one. Your response in the other thread was about what I was looking for. Maybe not exactly an amount of what you make, but an idea of how money is used. Whether there was something I was missing in the fee.
I'm not saying you don't deserve to be paid. If you read above I asked if this was a full time job, or just side work.
Thanks for the response.

Xviper~
Wasn't saying there was a quota, I was giving recognition that the admin still gets why the site is here. Thus why they do have the guest option.

Answer to question noted.

 

The information on this site is open and freely available to everyone with an internet connection and, as happens several times a week, anyone with a phone who calls me and asks a question. The "member only" forums are that way because they are volatile subjects prone to trolls and retards of all sorts. Making them member-only prevents them from being indexed in public search engines and prevents punks from ruining it for legitimate friends of the community.

The information posted here belongs to the people who write it. I don't answer the questions or post the howtos or post amusing photos that make people spray coffee out of their nose. The membership, yes even the Guests do. It's not my place to claim that as mine and charge admission. That's not what this is about.

What I/we do is manage the site. We make sure there are enough servers to serve the pages to you, we make sure there is enough disk space to store them all and we make sure that we've got a solid group of moderators to keep it clean and fun for everyone. We also do the books, answer the phone, fix bugs, update software, keep the servers secure and fix problems when they arise. When the database server crashes (as computers are known to do) at 2AM my cell phone goes berserk and I get up and fix it. I watch the logs for suspicious activity. I monitor all of the software we use and when there are security alerts I patch them. We help all of those who forget their passwords, who can't login, who can't upload photos, who want to change their username.

What we do is look after and take responsibility for all the dirty details so that when you want to participate in the community, chat with friends, make new ones, find out what that annoying squeak is you can just type in https://www.s2ki.com to your browser and there it is.

s2ki is a highly dynamic site. There are ALWAYS hundreds of people using it at any one time. When you ask a question you can measure the response time in minutes not hours or days. Having something that alive and that dynamic means a lot of bandwidth, a lot of labor and a lot of management headaches you would never see on a smaller site. It's an inherent quality of a large site that people like. We are also a community, a family if you like. There is a very close bond we all share and when you are chatting back and forth with another S2000 owner or enthusiast you get a real sense of knowing that person even if you've never actually met. I talk to hundreds of people all day everyday and most of them I've never met. HondaGal, one of the owners of S2KI, my business partner and the lead forum administrator (I've moved on to building the Home content) I've not only never met but never seen a picture of nor ever spoken to on the phone. There is a real grassroots connection between the members all over the world who share if nothing else a single common passion. A connection which defies the shear size of it all.

Each community of owners, be it by region or by interest, has their own section of the site which they control, they moderate and which we don't meddle with. We help if asked but otherwise they do their own thing. We require only that they operate within the terms of our Terms of Service which basically means the posting rules except, and this may surprise you, they are free to have their own sponsors and set their own rules for commercial posting. We also have a system we developed to allow them to grace their members with community "badges" to show their colors if you like throughout the site. This is an original s2ki feature which I'm proud to say I invented and which has been mimicked by many other sites. You will see these small badges, some official and some not, in peoples signatures throughout the forums.

Making all of this happen is very expensive, very time consuming and unfortunately very, very mundane at times. It's a full time job and a half and the sad part is that being severely limited by available man-power means I'll never get to do half of the things I'd like to. I love the job even if it sucks sometimes.

To make ends meet both covering the site's expenses and my own and to have a little something left over to return a little on the owners investment we have sponsorships for those who with to market goods to S2000 owners (and which S2000 owners want to buy), memberships for those who enjoy the site and want to help contribute to the operating costs and 3rd party ads which are a direct revenue source.

The 3rd party ads are graduated. Those making a larger contribution see less of them. It's a balance between all three sources because none of them on their own covers the whole thing. All of the ads are contextual so they should be, in general if not specifically, applicable to S2000 owners. This will offer some value I hope.

I hope this offers some insight.