Am I a thief?

[Dobber]

I\'ve been regularly getting hate mail or angry mail for the past year or so now. That\'s the price of having thousands of different minds (and opinions) read you every day instead of hundreds. So every few weeks I\'ll have someone rip into me via email. Here\'s the latest one. Thought I\'d share, because I wonder if others feel this way. I\'ll hide his name and contact info because I\'m nice:

Subject: Dobber you THIEF!
From: **********

Buy your playoff hockey pics (sic) and based on my thoughts who will go on through the rounds, your software then tells me who to draft??...wow, you are so smart!!! What the hell is that??!! Where\'s your insight?, where\'s your all-god like knowledge?? That service should be free you THIEF, because you aint doing a damn thing to earn any money!

[Dobber]

I will share my reply to him with you, so you can all understand why I charge what I do and why I sell what I sell. I threw in a couple of birthday references to get the extra guilt in on him - because in my books, everybody gets one day where even their enemies shouldn\'t be negative towards them. :lol:


\"
Haha - don\'t you mean \"Happy Birthday Dobber!\"

****** (name) - I have written ramblings every day for 1200 straight days. That includes Christmas, Saturdays, Sundays, my birthday (today), the summer...EVERY day...and I don\'t get paid. I don\'t charge people to come to my site and advertising only pays for the hosting and maintenance of the site. If I didn\'t ask for nine dollar donations every few months from my readers, then I would have to go back to my office job. Then DobberHockey would shut down - no rankings, articles, ramblings or forum. DobberHockey is free, thanks to these sales.

So I do. I ask for a nine dollar donation to run this site. As a \'bonus\', I will give you a fantasy guide for that nine dollars. Or in this case, a draft list. Is that not fair? I am open to suggestions. I am also open to a suggestion on how to better word the ad - since it got you all riled up, I can only imagine some of the other people who didn\'t bother to write in.

Attached is last year\'s draft list - have a look, and tell me if that information and the statistical calculations that go into the projection aren\'t worth nine bucks.

Dobber
\"


Forget the spirit of the emails - does anyone else feel that, based on the wording of the ad, I am adding no value for the nine bucks? And does this explanation help them understand the cost? And if so - any thoughts on how the wording of the ad could be changed?

Thanks gang

B)


*To be clear - I\'m not after praise (for me) or slagging this guy. I\'m genuinely curious if some people feel this way and if this explanation helps - and if I should somehow make it part of my ad.

[metaldude26]

Wow, that\'s a pretty shameless e-mail. Correct me if I\'m wrong but isn\'t the software based on your ratings of players? So we input the teams we like and how far they go and based on your ratings it tells us who will put up the most points? Also since you are providing the software, it shouldn\'t be free, unless you decide it should be.

I kinda understand where this guy is coming from, but it\'s not a great place, LOL. Seems he\'d rather you give us a list based on how far YOU think each team will go and then he can just be an autonomous being and follow the list.

That\'s my take on the situation. Hope you don\'t beat yourself up about it though, I think the software idea is cool as hell and cannot wait to try it out.

[Dobber]

My picks will be right here on the site. If anyone wants MY picks and MY list, they can just take what I pick on the site and enter it into their spreadsheet that they got from me, click \"go\" and bam they have my player list. That\'s one thing I need to clarify, I guess. Thanks Metaldude.

[Dutch]

thats a funny email... I would laugh at it more than anything. I have to admit, some of the advise I have gotten, has gotten my team worse rather than better. HOWEVER, at the end of the day I choose what moves I make, and I choose to listen to advise. If I don\'t want it, I shouldn\'t be here.

What a loser that guy

[Crazynuck]

At the end of the day everyone needs to eat.

I buy the total package at the start of the year as my fee to use the site the entire season.

If you don\'t think u should pay then don\'t buy the guide and use the website for free.

Don\'t forget though that a few bucks from everyone keeps this thing going.

[ReeferCowboy81]

Dobbs, anyone questioning the value of this site or any the materials you \"sell\" is not taking a look at the big picture. Nine bucks? That\'s the price of a fantasy outlook magazine off the shelves in August. The amount of free info and insight offered on this site everyday through the ramblings, articles, and the forum is staggering. To complain about a nine dollar piece of supplemental info is well.... I\'m going to keep this civil. DobberHockey is more valuable than all those magazines combined, and as far as I\'m concerned, is being given away for free when it shouldn\'t be. When this \"recession\" subsides, I really think that there should be a paying membership on this site, so that only members would have access to the forum, or articles, something like that for a nominal fee. I\'m sure I\'m not the only one who hates the fact that far less dedicated fantasy hockey minds than myself can come and pick the brains of everyone once or twice a year at draft time, and use it to compete when they couldn\'t otherwise. I\'m starting to rant, but I would love to pay 10 or 20 bucks a year to get some exclusive info and analysis. And by the way, tell that fruitcake from the email to come on the forum and talk about it. We\'ll get TequilaMonster, Dutch, and NorthAmericanPride to deal with him. Ha!

[blackaces]

Am I a thief?

In a word- NO!

[Maaaasquito]

He is so lucky that you blanked out his contact info, or I woulda ripped him a new one...

He\'s getting everything for FREE already, you aren\'t earning any money from operating the site and you only get paid through the pre-season, the mid-season, the prospects and the playoff guides. And even then those guides are up to the user to purchase. They don\'t need to buy those guides in order to read the quality info that\'s available daily for free on the website.

So if you were here everyday of the fantasy season(203 days), and you paid for the full package it works out to be 14 cents per day. Pretty damn cheap don\'t you think? I\'d be willing to bet my house, that not everyone pays for the ultimate package, you might just get the season/mid-season guide, which works out to be 10 cents a day. With that price you get daily ramblings, give or take 6-7 articles per week.

If you are a cheapskate while not supporting the site and not even getting any of the guides, you\'re basically getting all of those articles, daily ramblings and forum use for absolutely free.

This isn\'t a pay site, you have the option of paying for certain things to help support the site, while getting plenty of quality free advice on the main site.

And don\'t give me none of that well there\'s ads on the site that pays Dobber argument... that argument is weak as piss. It\'s one thing for you to use your credit card to shell out money and sign up for a fantasy website, it\'s another for them to have ads for you to click on optionally. We\'re not making you click on the dancing monkey 17 times before you can view the articles, or insert 25 cents to continue reading the article.

If you are into fantasy hockey asking for 9 bucks for a key playoff pool tool isn\'t too much. Think of it as paying back some of the writers or Dobber about the amount of info and time that\'d they\'ve spent helping you this season. Paying $8.95 over the course of the fantasy season works out to be roughly 4 cents per day. I know we\'re in an economic crisis but really 9 bucks, and you want it for free considering all the things the website has done for you? Are you really trying to convince Dobber that all the info on the website throughout the fantasy season is not worth at maximum of 14 cents a day? and that you\'re not willing to pay an extra 9 bucks to support the site?

If you really want to be economically sound, go and get the ultimate package it gives you this season\'s playoff pack plus next season\'s guide + mid-season guide.

[Chicleteur]

I know it\'s hard, but don\'t take these kind of emails personally.

I can\'t agree more with Crazy and ReeferCowboy on this one. You have to eat and even the full package ($30) isn\'t that expensive. You get premium thoughts, tips and advice and you make sure that this site lives forever!

[blackaces]

By the way- you should place a warning on the home page-

\"Beware, you may become addicted to this site!\"

I know I have.

[metaldude26]

blackaces wrote:

By the way- you should place a warning on the home page-

\"Beware, you may become addicted to this site!\"

I know I have.

HAHAHAHA, I hear you.

Overwhelming support for Dobber on this one. I\'m not surprised, the work that goes on this website is top notch. I was kind of hoping someone with a differing opinion would rear their ugly head, but since that complaint was without any substance I doubt we\'ll see anything like that.

[jlucas09]

With how close the NHL is now for playoffs, It is almost impossible to not have different opinions on who will make it further. Which I\'m sure you\'d have to defend if lets say you predicted Detroit to go all the way and they lose first round. Then you have 200 angry people who followed your playoff prediction like the bible.


I think this is another one of those guys who post on the forum asking what prospects upsides are because he is too cheap to buy the dobber guide.

Like you said you take donations for keeping this site going and give away your guides basically.

Honestly with how much the forums help I would pay what i pay for the yearly guides just for the forum.

The only suggestion I would like to make, I\'d love to see an update to the prospect guide mid-way through the season, I would pay more for the yearly guide for it.

With half a season prospects can shoot up or plummet in the eyes of fantasy GMs and i\'d love to see if there upsides change at all.

Keep up the great work dobber, don\'t let these people make you doubt the great service you give us.

[noglovenolove]

Hahaha dobber this threads gotta be pumpin your tires more than the birthday one!

I could not agree more with all of the comments in here, this site is amazing. Not only for all the great fantasy insight from you, your team and the members, but also how strong of a hockey site it is. I dont think there\'s a site out there with more hockey information than this one, not that I read anyways.

Don\'t let stupid hot heads ruin your day.

Now go crush some brews, its your ****in birthday.

[Chuk]

Maybe your new banner should be you doing your posting on your birthday, on Christmas, on Easter, during the birth of your child (my own addition), summers, weekends, etc....

Maybe that will make him feel better. I truly do not think that is even a factor though.

The only thing I do not understand is why there is ever an expectation that things are free? Where do these people live because I seriously want to move there.

The reality is that you do not have to pay anything for it because you do not have to use it.

People are free to sell whatever they want for whatever they want (see E-Bay). If you don\'t like it, don\'t buy it.