Just a rant.
Cheers
Rich.

Richard

You don't even have to spend $100

A $25 Bronze membership will give you access to the testmating and data base

It beggars belief that people can spend up to $10,000 putting a litter on the ground and worry about a $25 Bronze membership to the most valuable Greyhound Data base in the world

A box of Beer or a bottle of Scotch or a packet of cigarettes costs more than the ability to get access to the unique work started by Gunnar & Holger many years ago and now carried on by Tony and his team

Sounds like it worked. Anyway as for the PM. it went to Forum Administrator with my phone number. Anyway it doesn't matter really as the funding approach has already been implemented.

At end of day I agree with you that it is nice to see folks supporting GD. I question the subscription model versus Go-Fund Me/Crowd-sourcing because one model is about pay for access (or as I said holding data to ransome) and the other is about supporting a cause to keep it maintained and operational (such as what Wikipedia does).

No I dont have it in for GD. I think from a legal intellectual property rights perspective it would be an interesting case. That said, I get access to plenty of the same data elsewhere so I won't be paying to access test-matings and thats cool too. Those that feel they need to pay will do so. Don't mistake my comments and observations about the approach taken to suggest GD isn't a valid resource. GD is (or was) an open community. Don't mistake that I don't agree with the approach taken. That's cool too. Feel free to berate my opposition to the decision if you like. I just think there were other options available to fund the site that were never discussed or consulted with any of us before the decision was made. That's a matter for the site owners and their perogative.

I wonder how many of the 220 new subscriptions will renew a year from now after they have test-mated themselves to the greatest extent possible because of the new access restrictions.

In the fullness of time we'll see if a subscription based model works to fund this site on an ongoing basis. Such is the way all things work on the Internet. At any rate I hope its a sustainable model despite my concerns about the approach.

the database information is freely available. From that "test mating" despite the interface here is not hard. Do two dog searches for pedigree (ancestory) download the data, run it through an excel macro. Aside from here, Fastrack among others is a source of pedigree info. There are heaps others. And if their generations show less depth than here, you can do pedigree on ancestors and still attain the required info go get the level of ancestory required.

Hope this helps - albeit I can't help you shooing Unicorns. If this sounds like gibberish ask someone who knows how to program Excel Macros.

Anyway - as I said those that see a value will pay for this. On a related matter - advertising - yeah well I have one up for sale now freely. It would be stupid of GD to charge for posting advertisements as they'll go to Facebook, and other sites. But maybe subscription if you want to charge like 5K plus for dogs and various items. Now you would be thinking different and outside of the box.

Crowdsourcing to get funds, subscriber only for classifieds above a certain asking price. There were so many options available to consider before this pricing-subscriber model came in.

Who knows maybe this approach will work..charge for testmating. Things that have value people will pay for. I just don't need to pay for what is being asked me to pay for. I've told you how to do it though since you asked.

GD is in a difficult place now because the model is in place. So now it really does come down to those that feel they need to pay for access will do so. I don't need the access so I won't. If you consider folks considering breeding options and possibilities on an annual ongoing basis, I suspect the uptake in subscribers will taper off significantly going forward because you can test mate all the conceivable combos now available and only re-subscribe when and if it matters. It's not in my view a way for Gd to maintain revenue and loyalty. It's just a shut off formerly free access mechanism to get some short term gains.

Would I have flipped them 20-40$ or whatever doing the wiki thing..yeah I probably would have because I think GD in general has heap of merit and validity still. But I won't pay for my data and contributions to be held to ransom for fee (subscriptions).

(This is my last posting about it.. it's about principles and who contributed the data in the first place.. and yeah I resent being charged to testmate my contributions to that database - and for that matter others being charged for data that I added to this breeding database freely and in good faith assuming that others would see perhaps those lines in their dogs later on).

There may be a silver lining anyway to all of this approach - some great outcrosses and new combinations of chasers because less emphasis gets placed on testmating and line breeding anyway. Could be a blessing in disguise. My bit was purely about losing sight of the contributors to the data.

Get some perspective, you will be a new man

Cheers

Thanks for supporting Greyhound-Data.