Are we still operating under subscription?

[John_Mace]

So what’s the deal with switching to free posting? I had to pay for a year of posting today before I could reply to a thread. In the past, there was always some notice about having to renew memberships-- did I miss it this time? All I see is a notice that we’re switching back to free membership, which is kinda confusing…

[don_t_ask]

Color me John Mace too. I couldn’t search because my “guest subscription” had expired. WTF!!!

[Fiver]

And I just got an email telling me my subscription will expire soon and I must pony up another $7.48 to retain my posting privileges. True? I thought pay-to-post was going away.

[Omega_Glory]

IIRC, the free service won’t be up for a couple of months.

FYI for the people in charge, I haven’t paid, but the board is still letting me post this. Might want to check that out.

[NineToTheSky]

I read somewhere that members (Charter Members?) were getting an extension. Being a lowly member I thought I couldn’t risk it, so I meekly paid up.

I know my place.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@don't ask

Color me John Mace too. I couldn’t search because my “guest subscription” had expired. WTF!!!

I got the subscription expiration notice e-mail at 10:30 this morning. Came here to see what was up, saw this thread and tried to reply. Then got a page that said “Your guest membership has expired. Please fork over some cash if you know what’s good for you”.

I’m paraphrasing that a little bit. But it did say that my guest membership had expired.

It would be nice if we could get the expiration warning a few days before the subscription expires, rather than afterwards.

So anyway I renewed so I could post this earlier - about an hour ago. Just now coming back to this thread and don’t see my earlier post so here I am, typing it out once again. Hope it sticks this time.

[Marley23]

@NineToTheSky

I read somewhere that members (Charter Members?) were getting an extension. Being a lowly member I thought I couldn’t risk it, so I meekly paid up.

There was a ten-day extension from (for most people) the end of April through May 10 because of the board outages and search restrictions.

[TubaDiva]

There is some confusion because Ed originally said this:

Improving the SDMB

@Ed Zotti

I’m a charter member but ads don’t bug me. I’m going to let my subscription lapse. Will free posting begin by April 30?

We can’t guarantee that. If it seems like we’re close, we’ll probably just extend everyone’s subscription a week or two.

And then Ed said:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9717853&postcount=26

@Ed Zotti

I don’t have much to add to what I said earlier. As of now a subscription is still required to post, and most charter member subscriptions expire around May 10. It’s highly unlikely we’ll be ready to switch to free posting by then - June or July is more like it. While dropping the fee is simply a matter of changing a software setting or two, we need to have an alternative revenue stream in place before we do so, and getting that set up is proving to be more complicated than I thought. So if you wish to keep posting once your subscription expires, you need to re-up, knowing that free posting may start within a month or two. If you’d rather let your subscription lapse and wait for free posting, that’s up to you. I remind you that free posting means you’ll see display ads, whereas subscribing means you won’t. I’m sorry I can’t be more definite, but felt it was better to give you what little information I have than simply surprise you.

So yes, for the time being – until they get the free posting window open – it’s still a subscription board.

[John_Mace]

OK. It was only $7 to re-up, so not a big deal. I was just more curious than anything else.

[Leaper]

OK, so I re-upped, just because I was kind of confused (oh, and I couldn’t post anyway).

But had I not, would I have lost my username?

[Gfactor]

@Leaper

But had I not, would I have lost my username?

No.