No such thing as a free lunch..., ...or is there?

http://wp.bluescrap.com/2006/07/20/some-go...al-than-others/

So the plan today was to look at yesterday's post about the $4,172 price for a Gold community and do a table to compare prices and features of a phpBB forum and a vBulletin forum hosted with DreamHost with what “The Clayboard” had paid to use ezboard and were likely to pay when that board is migrated over to Yuku.

Now the reason I’d originally used the Clayboard as an example was that according to Big Boards, it was one of the largest ezboards. I’d followed the links to the other main ezboards listed and found that some of them had deserted ezboard - understandably so - or didn’t have a link showing through to their Community Chest details.

Then it occurred to me that if I manipulated the URL for the Clayboard’s Community Chest (or used elements from it), I could get the information I was after. Which was when I made some interesting discoveries…

Now a while back, on 24 March 2006, an ezboard employee made a categorical statement in reply to a suggestion that “one extremely large and popular board on ezboard was promised free gold for life”. ezMish replied that:

Another point to consider is that as I noted here, ezboard are now showing adverts on Trial Gold boards. Except that’s not the case in all situations…

Anyway, back to the Community Chest URLs. The first board I tried was the JJB board. Now, firstly, you should read this announcement from them, where they suggest that they are now considered a VIP board with R&D status and that that means they are no longer a typical Gold Community that has to pay to renew Gold status every year.

So that directly contradicts what ezMish wrote for starters.

Viewing their Community Chest contributions, it seems that JJB has $3,438 in its chest and is currently enjoying an ad-free Gold Trial for free since 24 July 2005.

Moving on to the NikeTalk board that Robert Labatt, ezboard, Inc.’s CEO, wrote about in glowing terms in his Yuku “blorum”. Here are their Community Chest stats.

Yes, there is a similar entry: 7/24/05 2:57:52 am Purchased “Gold Trial” for $0.00

They still have $2,333 in their chest despite an $1100 withdrawal by “Anonymous” on 12 January 2005.

I’ve left the best until last: Survivor Sucks. Here are their Community Chest stats.

Yet again, their last “purchase” was a Gold Trial for $0.00 on 24 July 2005. Of more interest is what’s left in the kitty: just $31. Why? Well because “-Anonymous-” withdrew $7,943 on 3 April 2006, just two days after their “Holy of Holies” started this thread entitled “How to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Yuku“.

Interesting stuff, eh? You draw your own conclusions from this; I already have. I’m sure there’s nothing untoward or underhand going on.