The simple fact is, the costs for operating the Forums have increased significantly in the last 12 months.
If you keep tabs on the forum stats down at the bottom of the forum home page you will see that the "most members ever online" record that was last broken in 2005 (during the last major upgrade) has been broken almost on a monthly basis since the beginning of the year. and the ave. number of members & guests online at any give time has almost doubled to the point where the server has crashed a few times in the last 3 months.
With all of the work that has been going on in the back ground the cost to run the forums is now in the multiple of thousands per year, and whilst I can't say what is generated by the advertising on the forums, I can say it goes along way to assisting the Club cover the costs of running the forums.
The Advertising itself is in a trial state, and will be refined on a monthly basis to achieve a balance between effectiveness and user experience, that being said, some form of advertising is going to be used on the forums to keep the forums running and advancing.
Cheers
Simon
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