hurt feelings and helpers?

How does one deal with "volunteer helpers"?

The new website http://www.firstgens.com/ is fantastic. Lots of fun to do, and lots of fun having all my friends from other websites, mostly Team Camaro, all coming over to say "Hello"! We're up to 158 members now!

And as far as the software stuff, I'm so far over my head it isn't even funny. I can handle some simple stuff, but nothing complicated.

A  number of guys have stepped up, asking to do some things, artwork mostly, to help out. The thing with volunteers is you can't push them, cause they owe you nothing. They are after all, taking their time to help out. All you can do is appreciate them.

but what do you do when 2 guys take up the same project? How do you decide which to use? How do you deal with the one that didn't get chosen? How do you handle hurt feelings and bruised egos?

And that's just small stuff. As we speak, a really good professional web designer is putting together a first class software package for the site. I've seen his work, and it's fabulous. While it is absolutely my intention to compensate those who help out with the site, when and if the site starts generating cash flow, there is no cash flow now, other than a slow trickle out. But even in my wildest dreams for this site,  2 or 3 years down the road even, I really doubt my ability to fairly compensate Jan for the work he's doing.

And I just can't wait for it to be done. And I can do nothing but wait quietly. So I cheated. He'd setup a dummy site so I could see what kind of stuff he was talking about. Taking a chance, I dug out the pm and clicked on the link. Sure enough, it was there. Very raw, not close to finished, but at least there. Two problems. It's gonna be weeks or more before it's done. I can't push a freebie, so I need to move forward with other things on the current site. I need to put the new banner in place. And I need to figure out something to generate keywords within the forum. Right now, the database is a black hole to the search engines, the only metatags are on the frontpage, and they never change. I "know" that the phpbb builds an html page out of the style and the database fields on the fly with every click. There are applications that can run with the database and "collect" keywords out of the fields, also on the fly. If I "view source" on other forums, I see code from a "generator" which is putting metatags into the html. We need this for the search engines to find us, and we need it right now.

The novelty of JimM, moderator at Team Camaro starting his own forum will wear off, heck, all ready is wearing off. We need newbies. Guys with questions. Guys who'll give us something to talk about. Now.

And Jan, I know you know this, but the site you have out there now is way to wide. 1024 pixels (the width of most laptop screens) has to fit the full page. Also, the forum that's in there now is not "variable width" As you shrink it (shrink it hell, I can display it on my laptop, I'm about 300 pixels short!) it grows scroll bars, the middle column doesn't change width, the right columns vanish. I know, it's not done. and you know this. And you'll fix it. And you have a job, a family, a life, many things that are more important than this website. So I'm patient.... really. Ask anyone who knows me, I do patient very well... (not)
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