Andy R

On 6/29/2021 at 9:59 PM, GR "Scott" Cundiff said:

Let me mention to you why I stopped posting reviews on campgroundreviews.  I posted many reviews over the years.  Then, I went to your big iRV2 forum and got involved in a few discussions there.  One of your moderators told me I couldn't include a link to my RV blog in my posts because there was a link there to books I have written.  My 99 cent books made, in his opinion, my blog "commercial."  I decided that I was making you money by posting my reviews on your site for free but your forum was worried I might make a few cents on a book I was basically giving away.  

So, I stopped posting my reviews there and haven't posted any since.

Sorry you had that experience.  Each forum community and Campground Reviews are managed by different teams made up of RVers from those particular communities.  So each one has slightly different tolerances for what they allow (or not).  You would be surprised at how many people join just to hawk their wares.  So some teams have taken a more aggressive approach and others are more relaxed.

Their intent is simply to foster a community free from commercial influence.  Did the pendulum swing too far, possibly.  We are always looking to improve and I have some ideas on how we can be better based on your feedback. 

On 6/30/2021 at 12:29 AM, rynosback said:

I post things to help other campers know what they are in for not for money. It’s about helping out your fellow person. If everyone did that and did it just to be helpful, this world would be a special place 

Thank you so much for being kind and sharing.  I agree 100% that we can build better communities by participating and sharing our knowledge.

On 6/30/2021 at 6:34 AM, Kirk W said:

Welcome to the forums. I hope that you stick around to contribute to these forums. I have 2 questions if you would be so kind?  Is RV Life now the new name for the former site socialknowledge.com, (Social Knowledge, LLC)? Second question, will you be participating in the 2021 Escapade?

I started Social Knowledge way back before Facebook.  I got the name from seeing the rallies being planned and friendships made (social) and all the knowledge being shared.  For over a decade our focus was on managing forums.

We actually listen to our users and roll out features based on their needs.  So for rally planning we added an RSVP system to the Rally Calendar.  They were buying and selling RVs so we added a classified.  They were asking about where to camp so we added campground reviews.

The problem was that any one forum didn't have the scale to get reviews for 20,000+ campgrounds.  Lots of members mentioned RVParkReviews.com as a place they found trusted reviews.  After years of chatting with the owner he decided to pass the torch to me.  At this point we evolved from just forums to having to manage custom built software.

We later bought and integrated RV Trip Wizard then we launched the RV GPS App.  We were morphing from an online publisher into a software company.

I often go to industry events and would have to introduce myself as "I'm Andy from Social Knowledge, we run a bunch of RV websites." instead it's easier to say "I'm Andy from RV LIFE".  So RV LIFE is not the new name of Social Knowledge, it's what I call our RV websites collectively.

We now have RV LIFE Pro which is a collection of all our RV tools.

As for the 60th Escapade, unfortunately I won't be attending.  I have met Travis, Melanie and Shawn at events in the past but I have yet to attend the big Escapade.  Maybe next year...

18 hours ago, rynosback said:

Thanks for the resource. I use it all the time. 

Awesome, glad to hear that.  It's always nice to hear about real world stories.  

Hey y'all.. I'm an Escapee's member and the founder of what is now called RV LIFE.  One of my colleagues linked me to this discussion and I thought I'd say hello.

agesilaus, 99 reviews, that's amazing.  I know the little thank you we sent out said it was for two years but before the two years expires we'll launch a system that will reward folks for contributing with the intent of making sure it stays free for folks who contribute like you.

We had to find a business model that would afford us resources to keep building better tools (translation = if we don't make money, we can't pay programmers to improve the tools).  We understand that there are tons of free resources so our hope is that people who don't want to pay can simply contribute to the community will be rewarded with full access to all the tools.

Thanks again for being part of Campground Reviews community.  It's amazing to see what has been accomplished together since it was launched.  We should all be proud of what we have built together.