Announcement! Future of Cigar-Review

[joncaputo]

Hi everyone.

As you know I have recently purchased Cigar-Review.com. As promised Kevin, myself, and all of the moderators/admins here would like to, in an effort of full disclosure, clue you in to the future Cigar-Review. I am honored to point out that all of the mods/admins for Cigar-Review are onboard with this game plan and will be coming along for the ride and retaining their mod/admin powers. For clarity reasons I have put together the follow FAQ which hopefully will answer many of the questions you may have. And any questions it does not answer we will respond to as soon as possible but first I would like to share my vision with you.

I love cigars. It is a passion of mine and has been for over 5 years. Cigars help me relax, cigars help me think, cigars and friends and football make me happy. Cigars allow me to ensure long spousal conversations that I might not normally be able to endure. I see this as an opportunity to do what I love, do what has never been done before, and hopefully make it into a successful business as well.

If we are able to be part of the largest cigar social site on the planet it will enable us to do things that apart would not be achievable. For instance - create an annual charity poker tournament. Perhaps we can partner with a couple of cigar companies to sponsor a herf in Iraq or Afghanistan for our troops. Being able to build a singular voice may enable us to receive membership discounts on cigar product from various vendors. We may be able to do an annual cigar members conference. In addition to all of that a number of members have mentioned to me the ability to start a cigar advocacy group whose voice can be heard and respected. I believe we will have the ability to do all of those things and more if we can come together in a strong, powerful, and coordinated way and everyone will win.

Below is a list of Q/A I put together. If there are any questions you have that are not covered below (and I am betting there will be!) please post them and I would ask for your patience as it is my intention to respond to each and every question.

Q: I heard you recently bought a bunch of sites. Which sites did you buy?

A: This is true. I have purchased Cigar-Review.com, ClubStogie.com, CigarLive.com, Top25cigar.com

Q: I thought you also purchased Cigarsmokers.com. Did you?

A: I had initial intensions of purchasing Cigarsmokers - however the deal has fallen apart. As a result I do NOT own Cigarsmokers.com and will not own Cigarsmokers.com

Q: So what exactly are your plans?

A: We are starting a new consolidated network of cigar sites under one name calling it PUFF.COM. On the home page of Puff.com we will be putting together a compilation of the best off all of the sites. We will have cigar reviews, video, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, a top25 section, a lifestyle section, interviews, and anything else that makes sense and is interesting. We are also open to any ideas you may have. We will also have a central location called forums.puff.com where all of the above mentioned forums will be merged.

Q: But what about all my posts, my post count, my friend network, my awards, my settings, etc

A: We are going to do our best to bring over ALL of that data so NONE of it will be lost.

Q: What about my name? What if someone has the same name on one of the other forums?

A: In an effort of fairness -any- duplicate names will be changed to reflect the board from which you came IE the handle MRCIGAR exists on all 3 forums. Each person would have their name changed to MRCIGAR-CR (cigar review) MRCIGAR-CS (club stogie) MRCIGAR-CL (cigar live) - this will happen automagically.

Q: But I don’t want to be merged into a big forum. I like things the way they are and do not want any change! I like the friends and relationships on have on THIS board and don’t want to be forced to interact with others.

A: I understand and can appreciate your concerns. As a result here is what we will be doing. We will have our general cigar topics on forums.puff.com - all posts will be moved there. BUT we will be creating a 'clubhouse' for each individual forum. ONLY people who have come from that forum will have permission to see/post in the clubhouse. Existing mods/admins from each forum will continue to mod/admin their respective clubhouses as well as Puff.com. View the clubhouse as a sanctuary and more like a mini forum. You will gain access to the clubhouse by visiting the main page of forums.puff.com and you will see a forum called CIGAR REVIEW CLUBHOUSE.

Q: What kind of topics will we have in our clubhouse?

A: Whatever you want. We want to avoid a lot of duplication - for instance if the main forums.puff.com has a section called Cigar Reviews we would want all of the posts dealing with cigar reviews to go there and not in 4 different places. However if you wanted a special HERF section for your clubhouse/board, a general place to discuss anything general cigar related, sports, whatever all of those are fine and we will set them up for you.

Q: What if I don’t want to be involved in the Puff.com community at all? Do I have to?

A: No. You don’t. You can simply participate in your clubhouse from your forum and if you decide to venture outside of that forum you can do that on your own terms.

Q: Who will the moderator/admins be for the new forums.puff.com?

A: All existing mods/admins of Cigar-Review, Clubstogie, and CigarLive have agreed to continue in their roles as mods/admins. It will be a joint collaborative effort.

Q: When is all of this happening?

A: Most likely before the year is out - could be in a month or two. We have plenty of technical issues we need to address in order to make it happen and to ensure everything works smooth out of the box.

Q: Will there be a PAID member area of the forum?

A: The entire forum will be open and free to everyone. We may have a paid membership section for things like special
discounts from vendors, sponsors, discounts on conferences and magazines and such but that would be the extent of it. If you have already paid for membership on Cigar-Review that paid membership will move over to Puff.com

Q: What about forum rules? We have different rules here than the other forums do.

A: Mod teams from all forums will be getting together to discuss a combination of all of the rules from all 3 forums. It is my greatest hope that we will be able to take what makes each forum great and combine all of those strengths. It will take a collaborative effort on the part of the mods/admins/ and most importantly YOU for this to succeed.

OK guys this is really most of what I can think of. I will try to answer questions as much as possible. Please understand this is a fluid situation and not everything is etched into stone!

I can appreciate the fact that this is all conceptual at this point and once we launch Puff.com there will be a lot of additional concerns/questions. I give you my word we will work hard to not only address them but take all feedback into consideration. This is a joint effort - we will have the best combined mod/admin team for cigars in the world. And I am positive we will have the best cigar community as well. I intend to be super active in the forums and on the site - I will have a column on Puff.com and if any of you would like to participate beyond the forums (reviews, editorial, writing, blog, whatever!) please shoot me a PM.

Looking forward to meeting you guys for a smoke sometime real soon. We are shooting for a January/February Puff.com launch party where everyone will be invited. Drinks on me

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts - Thanks!

jon

[Acesfull]

Thanks for the clarification! Sounds like a good plan, especially the clubhouse.

Just make sure you put a shoutbox on the new forum

[anton]

I hope it works out, because I don't really want to be a part of a larger community. We have a fairly small group here and it works well. We bomb, we make cigar bets, birthday clubs... all these work well in a small group.

Can we put a padlock on our clubhouse?

[Acesfull]

yeah i think that is the point of the clubhouse, but the problem with a clubhouse is no one else could join.. ya know. Say this merge happened two weeks ago then people like BigD wouldnt be in our group. Plus the big forum could turn out like something from Gangs of New York or something with all the new new guys like wtf is going on here.

[HRPuffinStuff-cr]

As a cigar nooby, I was most comfortable within the framework of a small group of avid cigar enthusiasts. Being thrust into something called "Puff.com".....I don't know.

Not like I have any choice in the matter.

I like the "clubhouse" concept.

I don't think I'd venture much outside of the CR Clubhouse, tho......

[HRPuffinStuff-cr]

PS: I guess if the new site was called "HRPuffinStuff.com" I'd be more "down with it".

[Darwin]

Thanks for posting the plan. Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you. All the best Jon!

[CRider]

Originally Posted by Acesfull

yeah i think that is the point of the clubhouse, but the problem with a clubhouse is no one else could join.. ya know. Say this merge happened two weeks ago then people like BigD wouldnt be in our group.

This right here is a concern for me as well. I really like the clubhouse idea...if we're going to merge and there's nothing I can do about it, at least we'll still have our own lil clubhouse. I'm sure the guys on the other boards feel the same way for similar reasons. Suggestion, could it be a feature that someone new could be brought into the clubhouse if given an invitation by a current member? Or maybe go through some sort of vetting process through the mods, or something? I think there should be some way for new people to be brought into the clubhouse...

[andrew_will1]

I know I'm relatively new here too (I can only imagine how you guys that have been here forever feel), I personally do not like the idea of a massive forum at all (although I do not rule out the "clubhouse" idea yet). I like the many things we do here as a small group (bombs, bdays, bets, sports pools, etc) and I do not think that this will be as fun or even possible with 50,000 members on the same board. Not to mention reading through all the post from people who are not part of "our" community. Yeah we have our debates and arguments but it is all in good fun and everyone is respectful of each other. I have seen the message boards on c-bid and I am not interested in the least. When there are massive amount of people in the same place it's easier to be the "anonymous dickhead" (which I'm sure no one wants). I am confident that Jon does care about our feelings which is a great start so for now I put my trust in him to enable us to keep what makes us keep coming back to CR.

[JAX]

Thanks for the updates!

It's alot to take in right now, but it definately sounds like it's gonna kick @ss!

I like the idea that we can venture to the main board if we decide too and will be able to maintain our own little mini-board. As others have mentioned we are a small group and know each other pretty well; some on a more personal level than others. We are alot more relaxed than others and generally go with the flow of "life". I don't think you'll get alot of kick back from this group. Maybe constructive feedback though.

I'd like to recommend removing the word "Conferance" from an annual get together. Let's call it...umm...I don't know....maybe a herf?

I'm sure I'll have more comments and thoughts as I take this in. I'm very interested in seeing this roll out. I'm onboard with it and will do what I can to support this endeavor.

PM sent.

[markk96-cr]

well crap, and I really liked this site to.

[dartstothesea]

yeah, im on board for the "clubhouse" idea as well.

[Python]

Hey guys, from my understanding we will still be able have new members sign up under the Cigar-Review club house. I might be mistaken, but I think that is how it will be.

Also remember that, we will still have our 'clubhouse' where it will just be us CR members. We will still have the sports, bombs, Herfs, etc. sections that will be only for CR members. It will be like our neighborhood (CR) within the town (puff.com).

You/we don't HAVE to post in the larger part of the board unless you want to, but it is there in case you/we want to check it out.

[riverdog-cr]

Clubhouse idea sounds do-able. Good, good group here...... and hell, worse comes to worse Nick has all our addresses anyway......

[JAX]

A couple of questions that I may of missed in the intial post:

1. What happens with the information we provided when we signed up for CR?
- I don't want any of my information (email for example) sold or provided to any third party for marketing purposes unless I specifically authroize it. Along those lines, our addresses, phone numbers are frequently exchanged....will those still be secure within our little group?

2. Can the general population "lurk" within our neighborhood?
- There may be some $hit talking amoungs ourselves and would just like to know if "Snobby cigar man who really doesn't know a thing about cigars" from the other hood may read it.

3. Puff.com...will it still include pipes?
- I know CS has a huge pipe section and we've recently developed our own..would like to see that maintained.


That's about all I've got at the moment....standing by to support.