AspFriends 12/1 Closing FAQ
Many people have written me to ask why we are closing and many incorrect rumors have circulated so here are the straight facts.
Why did you start AspFriends? To make money?
No I started AspFriends (originally namd Asplists) because there were very few ASP lists and topics like database specifics, crashing servers and hundreds of specialized topics just were not getting answered on what few lists there were or the MS newsgroups. And the MS newgroups are and were crowded with pornography, so I spent countless thousands of $$$ and thousands of hours inventing tools so we could hand moderate and manage the lists (see http://www.aspfriends.com/aspfriends/moderatehow.asp). For 1.5 years I moderated alone and then Felipe Coury and dozens of others (see the Level 2 AspElite at http://www.AspElite.com) stepped forward and helped me hand moderate the lists 24 x 7. The growth from 3 lists and several hundred messages to 900 lists and 12 million messages a month kept forcing me on an emergency basis to dip into my LearnAsp.com and AspTraining profits ( $200,000 ouch!) to ensure we could keep going 24 x 7 and compensate the volunteers (they were paid for some of their efforts). So it lost money but helped a lot of people (see http://www.aspfriends.com/aspfriends/success/) and if had not had a rough year in late 2001 - 2002 teaching Beta1 and Beta2 Asp.net I would have supported it forever and not needed any help. By June of 2003 the current trend in my training profits means I could support it again but $3,000/month is a lot for a 1 person company like myself.
We only moved 4 million messages a month in Classic ASP but at bequest of ASP.net team we added ASP.net lists and became 12 million messages per month within 3 months of starting our first ASP.net lists. Those 12 million messages meant I got an angry phone call from my ISP tripling my rates retroactively so I was suddenly confronted with an unexpected $8,000 additional expense thanks to supporting ASP.net. So I asked for Microsoft help to avoid closing down the ASP.net Beta1 lists. I could afford the Classic Lists but not ASP.net lists alone.
Are you anti-Microsoft?
Nah I worship their products. See:
http://www.aspfriends.com/search/a.asp?SearchType=simple&sortby=2&direction=1&list=debatejavavsnet&LangList=English&limit=1000
for an example of my fanatical respect for MS products.
....as the messages I posted @
http://www.aspfriends.com/search/a.asp?SearchType=simple&sortby=1&direction=1&list=debateunixnt&LangList=English&limit=400
also support my total devotion and defense to MS products.
Heck I even started Fanclubs to MS employees and
vital community participants see:
http://www.aspfriends.com/aspfriendshome/fanclubs.aspx
http://www.aspfriends.com/aspfriends/toplists-fanclubs.aspx
However worshipping their products (I am huge VB6 advocate and ASP Classic was my life since it's beta) does not mean I can turn a blind eye to when they abuse their customer or community's trust. "Friends don't let friends drive drunk" I I won't be silent when MS mistreats a huge community even if it carries great penalties to me. Doing the right thing and letting Ms know when its own employees hurt it's reputation is vital.
Why is AspFriends closing on 12/1?
Very simply AspFriends has always relied on donations. Charles Carroll donated about $200,000 cash from 1998 to mid 2001. Starting Feb 2001 Microsoft generously begin donating $1,000/month to the tune of $6,000 over 6 months and Charles donated exactly the same amount a matching $1,000. As of August MS begin donating $3,000/month (and Charles continued to donate time and about $5,000 for various misc. AspFriends expenses. In Feb 2002 Microsoft agreed to fund AspFriends from June 2002 to June 2003 to avoid it being closed down to the tune of $36,000. However on 11/10/2002 Charles Carroll received a 11 page legal contract and was told to sign it to ensure that funding continued from Dec 2002 - June 2003. The contract was never mentioned before and introduced many pages of restrictions on the 73,000 members and myself including absurd clauses like the one where Microsoft gets to own ASPFRIENDS if I make any mistakes in the 6 months they fund it for example:
9.1 Microsoft may terminate this agreement FOR ANY REASON upon thirty (30) days written notice. Except in cases for of termination for cause as specified in section 9.4, Microsoft shall pay company for it's performance under this agreement up until the date of receipt of such termination notice. In the event that Microsoft terminates this agreement for cause, company hereby agrees that it will assign all right, title and interest in ASPFRIENDS mailing list to Microsoft.
The Microsoft Obligations in the contract are one paragraph long. AspFriends obligations are many pages long including:
2.8 Performance Levels (blah blah blah) (ii) Response times from the receipt at the server hosting the ASPLISTS website of a request until commencement of the responsive transmission shall not be longer than one-half to one second. (blah, blah, blah)
3.1 (blah blah blah) WORK FOR HIRE (blah blah blah)
(they basically own all messages and content as a "work for hire")
7.1.a.(v) (blah blah blah) Company will not post any defamatory remarks about Microsoft or its employees on the ASPLISTS website or in email responses (this does not mean that Company may not be critical of Microsoft technology r be prohibited from objective commentary) (blah blah blah)
A-1
(blah blah blah)
The ASPFRIENDS Mailing Lists will during the terms of this agreement remain a front end to the ASPLISTS detailed below. ASPFRIENDS Maililng Lists format and focus will not be changed to promote other businesses or activities (with the exception of advertisements) during the term of this agreement
Of course I am not willing to sign away the FREE Speech of the 73,000 participants and am not willing to risk the acquisition of AspFriends to Microsoft which the contract clearly allows.
How much money per month does AspFriends costs to run?
Is Microsoft paying Charles Carroll to run AspFriends.com?
No! Any money donated to AspFriends was paid directly to Innerhost.
The minute the ASP.net team invented the ASP.net Forums for examples the name AspFriends disappeared from the ASP.net site
Did Microsoft Support AspFriends beyond the money?
Au Contraire. The minute they invented the ASP.net Forums for examples the name AspFriends disappeared from the ASP.net site (try to find ASPfriends.com list references anywhere on the site) and most of the ASP.net team themselves began answering hundreds of questions immediately in those forums to build interest and quit posting and answering on our lists. Then in typical Micrososft fashion they got overcommited and don't even post much in their own forums leaving 70% of the questions unanswered.
The MVP Program and the MSDN site barely
acknowledges we exist and continues to make dozens of links to MS newgroups and
their teams post mostly there. Only 2 Microsoft employees ever made our top
posting list see
topmembers.aspx (Susan Warren and Scott Guthrie) and they are the only ones.
MS still pirmarily lives in their newsgroups and ASP.net and gotdotnet forums
and developmentor lists, not ours and others.
Notice on the forums that members are noted as
having say "MVP status" for example:
http://www.asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&PostID=86209
I have 2 comments about that:
* The private forums are a bit of a joke. The Xbox threads get 18 replies while serious technical issues raised only the ASP.net team can address get ZERO replies. I quit visiting them as they were created as an afterthought and serious inquiries go unanswered for months.
If people 600 peopled donated $5 a month for example and you raised $3,000 would you continue to run it?
The short answer is no. mostly because i couldn't count on that every month and some months I might have to pay most of it.
If someone was willing to buy it and continue it would you sell it?
The short answer is no. Since most companies that acquire AspFriends is likely to make changes to commercialize it or to make it a much worse place to get support. Because I created it in 1998 and ran it through 2002 most people would blame me for it's demise. I would rather have it close a winner now, than get acquired, ruined and then die a looser a few years later.
Once getting to know the bureaucracy and encountering the lack of common sense and money wasting among most MS employees I do not want to be a community leader promoting that Microsoft are "great" people. Great products yes. Skilled Programmers. Yes! Helpful to the community and responsible in their dealings with the ASP and ASP.net community - absolutely not.
Could AspFriends pay for itself every month via a regular newsletter and ads?
The short answer is yes. It could break even and make a little money. The plans for that were underway to happen well before June so after MS stops donating in June we can support ourselves. But I cannot afford to fund this until June and to be honest lost all interest in making MS community successful. I have no interest in donating the TIME required to run AspFriends since the primary beneficiaries (Microsoft Customers) might get the false impression that MS is helping build strong communities. Prior to meeting the MVP team and MSDN folks and ASP.net team I only know MS through their products which I like. Once getting to know the bureaucracy and encountering the lack of common sense and money wasting among most MS employees I do not want to be a community leader promoting that they are "great" people.
Great products yes. Skilled Programmers. Yes! Helpful to the community and responsible in their dealings with the ASP and ASP.net community - absolutely not. I believe in moderated listservers and intend to run quite a few small ones devoted to ideas I believe in - books, child raising, the [aspelite], etc. But I will not mislead the public that MS is a great company who "got" community spirit and treated the many web sites and lists and small training companies that appeared well. They treated all of carelessly, ignored our emails and threw money into senseless ventures.
Great products and ideas yes. Good people. I only encountered a handful out of the hundreds I met. That is too low a ratio out of 50,000 employees.
The component gallery at ASP.net just destroys a site like 411asp.net. Their idea of community is inventing their own community (GotDotNet.com, ASP.net Forums, Codewise) and then linking to a few communities (while forgettting most and ignoring new ones) but emphasizing their own.
What "communities" besides Codewise require multi-page contracts to join? Codewise still ignore two dozen great communities like XMLFORASP.net, LearnMobile.net, etc. and no amount of emails from me ever corrects that.
Does Microsoft Support Communities as Steve Ballmer's Internal Memos encourage?
They do not support existing community websites very well unless the websites visit the teams, become their yes men, and volunteer massive time supporting MS mho already makes substantial profits so hardly needs volunteers!