Thanks for stopping by this new forum,
www.modelenginemaker.com! If you are interested in building engines, then you're in the right place.
Our plan is to allow this forum to build into a high-quality community for its members, new and old, sharing information, techniques, builds, etc. Anyone is welcome to join, of any experience level, from the greenest greenhorn to the time served machinist.
With recent events in a certain well known model engine forum, we're obviously hoping to get a bit of a kick-start in numbers of members who are well known across the model engine and machining forums. And, hopefully, we'll be able to build a decent body of knowledge, and a decent community spirit, in a very short time.
In order to hopefully settle a few questions before they are asked, I would like to share my plan for this forum...
Initially, there will be a period of much change and flux, as boards are created, moved around, renamed, repurposed and generally fiddled with until they seem to be about right. I want to try to strike a sensible balance between covering all of the engine making subjects, but not having pages and pages of boards and sub-boards and sub-sub-boards.... well, you get the idea.
Fairly soon, I would like to choose a small number of people - about 5 I am thinking - who will become fellow Admins. Initially, the Admins will be able to handle all aspects of forum and post management, but as we grow (I hope!) it will become necessary to have moderators, etc.
Although I - the original admin - have personally purchased the domain name, and am hosting it on a server I personally pay for, I should point out that the TOTAL annual cost of running this forum is, for the moment, in the order of ?60/year. I don't anticipate that changing until we have many thousands of members, and even then, the price is only likely to double... I say this, to reassure you that there will be no immediate requests for cash. I reckon you've got 5 years before it even becomes a concern...
Second, the reason for choosing a selection of Admins, is to "spread the ownership". I hope, that by doing this, it will become impossible to sell the forum. That way, you're not relying on my word alone.
But anyway, that's all for the future. In the meantime, in the here and now, let's try to get this place off the ground and singing