Commercial or non-commercial, that is the question!

Once upon a time CureZone.com was a small site, 100% non-commercial.  It's name was dot com, simply cause it sounded good.  A good domain name should be easy to remember.  That is what curezone.com was.
The Cost of having the site online was $100 per year, in hosting expenses. 

People were asking questions inside forums, and other people were answering, without any commercial gain from any side involved.  Some people were more dedicated then the others in answering questions, and many of them were offered moderator privileges.  Some of them accepted. Some of them were offered private forums (Ask Agnes and Bob)    They were volunteers, all they were doing was profit-free.

As the site was growing, those same people got tired of answering the same questions, and their enthusiasm and energy was going down. New people were there answering questions, but there was too many questions, and too few answers.  There were also conflicts between moderators, conflicts that resulted in some moderators leaving.  

Dr Schulze was invited to help answering questions, while his web site and his books were already promoted on CureZone. Unfortunately, county Sheriff  warned Dr Schulze that he will have to choose: "support people" or "sell herbs", but not both at the same time or jail if he disobey. Considering that he wasn't making any money from "supporting people", he has chosen to sell herbs, and his forum was left to Bob and other followers.

That was the first time someone making money was in the same time answering questions on CureZone. Everybody were happy to be able to read his answers, nobody cared if he was making money or not.

Considering that CureZone was already promoting books written by Andreas Moritz, I invited him to have his own forum where he could promote his web site and his books.  In return, he would be answering questions from CureZone members.

That time it was clear to me that CureZone is not any more what it was, 100% non-profit, cause we invited a person who was making his living from consultations and book sale. But, everyone was happy that Andreas was answering questions free of charge (his consultations were far more expensive), and nobody cared that he was also making money by selling books and products on his web site.  Or at least, majority didn't care, or didn't raise concerns.

His forum was very popular, and the only forum that later raised above his forum was Ask Shelley.
There were a few other attempts to create some new "ASK the expert" popular forums:
http://curezone.com/forums/?v=200&o=1&q=0
but most of those forums either didn't have many people interested in asking questions, or those who were suppose to answer questions gave up.

Shelley was a classic CureZone member with some extra energy, knowledge and skills.
One of her skills was ability to type messages fast. Another was ability to answer questions of all kinds. But, her personal experience was of greatest value, and also her energy. She had a lot of energy.   She was invited to have her own forum, and her forum quickly become the most popular forum on CureZone. She was donating a lot of time and energy to CureZone visitors, and sometimes posting up to 50 messages (answers) a day, inside 5-10 different forums. Shelley was doing it not-for profit. That time, she didn't have a web site, and products she was promoting, she wasn't an affiliate. When Shelley left CureZone because of the conflict with some moderators, there was a kind of vacuum.  People felt like they lost a leader, and many people needed someone to lead them.

At the same time MH started answering questions across many forums, and after a short time, he got many followers on CureZone, many people were searching for his answers.

His followers, long time CureZone members, not he himself, asked if I could make a forum for him. At that time, his messages were mostly non-commercial, but he was not hiding that he is producing herbal remedies, and it was clear to me that his 108 pages booklet that he was sending free of charge was promoting his remedies.

I knew that he is producing herbs, and I knew that if I make a forum for him, that forum would be used as a vehicle for selling his products. But, as long as there were people willing to read his answers, I didn't have any problems with him making money. In the end, it is him donating hours every day to answer questions, and if he would be doing it without any financial gain, he wouldn't last very long.  People without financial interest last less then 2 years on CureZone (at least when it comes to running their own forum).  After that, they are usually too tired to answer questions.

Right now,  Ask Barefoot Herbalist is the most popular forum, on CureZone. (Popularity measured by the number of people posting on a monthly bases, and the number of people reading the forum.)

That says it all about what people on CureZone want. Majority is less concerned about him making money, and is more interested in the fact that if they post a message, they can count with getting an answer. What CureZone visitors are happy with, I am also happy with. In the end, that is what CureZone is all about: A place where people can find or get an answer for their question.

Some people suggested that CureZone Experts are donating money to CureZone, and so that is the reason why they are allowed to run business inside forums.  That is wrong. No single CureZone Expert was ever asked for money by me or by anybody else.

Some of them have donated $100 or max $250 altogether during the last several years, but I have never asked money from any one of them. We have a clear agreement. They answer question, in return, they are free to promote their products or web sites. No money involved.
If they choose to donate any money to CureZone, that is great, but that is not why they are allowed to promote products. Money is NOT the reason why they are allowed to sell or push products on their forums. Visitors don't mind them doing it.

DOT Com / DOT Org split, January 2006

Some people suggested that CureZone was split into dot COM and dot ORG cause www.CureZone.com  is going commercial, and www.CureZone.org  is not good for business.

The truth is, CureZone was already as commercial as it will be, and split com/org has nothing to do with commercialization.  CureZone sponsors are promoted on every single page, dot com and dot org. No difference.

The only reason why one site has dot com and another has dot org extension is cause I needed 2 different domain names in order to split the web site, and I happened to have those 2 names already from before, so that was the easiest thing to do.

If I had domain CureZone.net, I would have used that name, but I don't owe that name.

Why is CureZone promoting sponsors on every page?

2005 was a special year. CureZone entered 2005 with a lot of money accumulated from donations during the year 2004.  But, 2005 started with Tsunami disaster, and CureZone could hardly compete with Tsunami when it comes to donations. Then, there was the earthquake in Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina, and then Hurricane Rita.  I just didn't feel good about asking people to donate money to CureZone, when in the same time people in Asia and in USA have no roof above their head, and have no food.  CureZone could not compete with large scale disasters.  Donations completely stopped during the 2005, and already until October 2005, the CureZone money bag that was full when we entered the year, was empty, and it didn't look like anyone is going to donate money.  In the same time I was making plans for purchasing new software and new hardware.  Some donators that were contacted, told us that they prefer to donate money to Katrina/Rita/Tsunami victims.

I had an email box where I collected emails from businesses asking to advertise on CureZone. I decided to contact them and ask them to Sponsor CureZone.  In return, we would let CureZone visitors know that they are sponsors.

Some of them accepted, sent sponsorship, and CureZone is again with full money bag. CureZone entered year 2006 with enough money for the whole year. Donations are still extremely low, less then $250 per month.  But, the good thing is, CureZone doesn't depend on donations any more.

What about blogs? Are people allowed to promote their business on CureZone blogs?

No, blogs can not be compared to an "Ask The Expert" forum.

In "Ask The Expert" forum, a person is donating his/her free time and is answering questions. Sometimes, it can take hours to write an answer.  Sometimes, it can take hours to write several answers.  Doing it day after day ... that is a job and someone has to pay for that work, and I am not ready to do so.   One day, when CureZone gets big sponsors, we will have enough money to pay experts to answer questions on CureZone. Until that day, we have to let the experts make the money the way they can. Books, products, consultations ... whatever is possible.

Blogs were never intended to be a place for support.  Blogs are web journals. Free web space.
Since blogs were created, hundreds of people attempted to create a commercial blog. All those blogs were deleted.

So, The Enchanted Gardner must follow the rules, and remove those messages that are advertisements.

What about a link to his own web site?

When designing blogs, I understood that there will be people with web sites, who would also want to create a blog. I think it is OK for those people to promote their web site through their blog, cause they will most likely promote their blog on their web site.
Link exchange is always good.  CureZone blogs are a fairly new feature, (one year old), and need promotion.

So, it is OK to have simple text links to your own web site on every blog page. Even if site is a commercial web site.
The link is there, you don't have to click on it if you don't want.

It is NOT  OK to have blog entries created with only purpose of business promotion.
Promoting products in blog messages is not OK.

If you want to promote a book, use Book Zone ( http://curezone.com/books )
If you want to promote a business, use CureZone directory:  ( http://dir.curezone.com/  )
Or a Market Forum

So, The Enchanted Gardner does not need to remove links to his web site, that is perfectly OK, that is why I made that option,  but he should not use blog pages for the promotion of his business.
 

Having a link with your signature, like this:

Spirit
http://curezone.com
is different then having a whole blog entry (showing on the curezone front page) created with only purpose of  promoting new business.

Spirit