Johannes,
I'm not a nitpicker but to answer your question about why we put all the effort we do into Javaranch here's my two pennies worth!
As you may or may not know I manage
The Bunkhouse and also wrote the FAQs. I ahve also moderated at some time or another quite a few forums. I would say I spend on average 3 hours a day on the Ranch, either moderating or working on a project. Why do I do it? Well I joined the ranch a little under a year ago, I was initially attracted by the Rules Round-up since I was a Java/Programming beginner and it was nice to have a fun game to
test my knowledge. I then discovered the saloon and began to post. I realised there was this group of people (the moderators) who were incredibly giving and helpful, they wanted to share their knowledge. Unlike a lot of dicussion forums, there was no competitivenss... no question was too stupid ... everyone wanted to help. I thought .. this is my kind of place. I don't belive people should be "precious" about things that they have learned .. the best way to learn is from other people and I found that very quickly my knowledge of
java was growing. I progressed very quickly from Ranchhand to Bartender ... i got lucky .. there was a shortage of Bartenders at the time
Once I infultrated the ranks of these people i had seen in the forums being selfless and helpful .. I realised that ultimately that really was their aim .. there was no money involved at all (in fact for a long time Javaranch ran in the red) and people did really just want to share their knowledg and experience. There is such and amazing mix of people too from realitive beginners like me to people who have been coding Java since it's birth. After taking on the relativly small project of getting the FAQ pages togther I was given the opportunity to look after the Bunkhouse and it was too tempting an offer, to have a whole section of the site (and one of the few sections that actually produced income for Javaranch) was a great honour, and also a great way for me to show off what I'm capable of, try new things that I'd never get the chance to at work and use some of my creativity in the design. the Bunkhouse has really grown and soon you'll see an even bigger version and now I'm a Sheriff I get to "Manage" a team of Bartenders who have taken on some of the individual tasks. I still do most of the page design stuff though.
I enjoy moderating the forums too but don't get as much time to do that any more ... I'm no expert on anything Java related and even though I'm a moderator I still learn something new every single day ... that's another reason I keep coming back.
The main reason I love working for Javaranch so much though is that it's lives up to it's "tagline" ..."A FRIENDLY place for Java Greenhorns" ... everyone works very hard to keep it that way, we don't tolerate any mis-behaviour but we also don't patronise beginners, despite it' "fun" theme we aim to keep the atmosphere "professional". I look forward to my visits to Javaranch and enjoy doing work for the site.
I'm really looking forward to re-launching The bunkhouse .. (hopefully next week if all goes well) because that has taken a LOT of time and effort from a lot of people here and hopefully will not only make it a better resource for visitors to Javaranch but also a better source of income for the site!