I’m all for you guys getting a new server. Until then it seems to me that closing all forums periodically (and completely: no reading, no posting) would tend to eliminate traffic. Posters seem to favor one forum. If I’m a GD guy and every Monday GD is down, I’m less likely to post or read. At a minimum I won’t be posting to GD. That’s what my first point addresses.
Right now I have two browser sessions open, both sited to SD, to the same thread as a matter of fact. I don’t typically do that, but why should I be able to do it at all?
Anthracite said:
As I said, I am not a DBA so you’ll have to explain why the ease of closing and opening forums leads to chaos when done periodically.
This is probably a stupid idea, but I just wnt to throw it out and hit someone in the head with it.
What if you limit the number of posts one can do in a month? For those who can buy a subscription, they can have unlimited posting abilities, but those who won’t/can’t pay (like sire SterlingN for example) gets like say 50 or 100 posts a month. That could conceivably free up resources so the board can run faster, and allow all to post. But that will probably take a lot of work such as keeping track of who’s posting what and how much and who gets special service.
Really, charging for the SDMB will essentially kill the SDMB. Yes, there are plenty of users who love it who will pay. But no one who is not already a member will subscribe. Nobody except stock-market and porn sites can charge for content on the internet.
The people who enjoy this site will pay…for a while. But what will the place be like when all the casual users are gone? Who’s going to ask the questions in general questions? Sure, the same old people will soldier on in GD, but after a few months they are going to get tired of talking to the same people…and they’ll drop the service. And you won’t be able to replace them, since the subscription SDMB won’t be the same place. Within a year there’ll be 5 people left.
The thing is, people would pay for the board if it could stay like it is now. But it won’t stay the same. People will drift away to other things.
Better just to admit defeat and close up shop cleanly. There might then be some way to transfer the community to some other site that wouldn’t be affiliated with the Reader.
As I noted, there is a chess site that charges $50, but I didn’t imply that is an apt fee for this board. I belong to other chess sites where donations are asked, but no fee charged. This may be an alternative. Those who wish to donate can do so.
I really can’t comprehend the posts that no poster can afford $20 a year. These people own computers and pay the monthly hook-up, but $20 a year is out of the question. There may be, I realize, a few who don’t own computers and use one at work or school. However, they have enough money to go out drinking every night, but $20 a year, less than $2 a month is out of the question.
I can’t see myself paying to witness or be subject to hostility. If a fee were levied, I would expect tighter moderation, otherwise I would feel that I was throwing money down the pipe. But tighter moderation would take away from the nature of the board. Therefore, I’m not supportive of fee for service, and instead I am willing to put up with both the level trash talk and the long waits.
I don’t find the waits to be much of a problem. If the board is busy but functioning, I select the threads I want, and by the time I am done making my selections, the first has usually arrived for me to read. If the board is so busy that it is not functional, I go do something else and come back another day, for it is just a message board and is not a priority in my life.
If those businesses you mention threw out too many people too often and without justifying it then they wouldn’t have that many customers left. Who wants to pay to go into an amusement park knowing that there is a reasonably good chance of being chucked out for ineffable reasons? If restaurants took your half-finished dinner away from you mid-bite would you go back there? Or would you warn off everybody you know? Would your friends go back there? Of course this board is run much more cleanly than such whimsy implies, but the guest whip still allows a lot more leeway than a customer whip would do.
Let me put this another way:
When pricing a product, one must consider either the maximum revenue that one can, or wishes to, obtain. In this case the SD would need to generate a certain income X to survive. In order to price correctly, the administration would have to estimate the function describing how many members would be willing to pay price x for the service - h(x), say. We need the minimum x such that h(x).x > X.
Problems arise however when customers are driven off by poor service that isn’t something allowed for in the initial estimation of h(x). In this case the revenue ceases to be sufficient and the price must be changed. But put it up too much and you may lose too many customers. Combine this with Lemur’s entirely believable doomsday scenario and you realise that unless you recognise your customers as customers and treat them with the due service thereof, the paying proposition cannot survive.
Or to put it another way - you need your customers. If you had a million people a year wanting to get through the door, you could afford to be picky. Since the userbase is relatively very small indeed, you can’t.
Er, this former waitress who has dealt with plenty of a-holes in her time, and who has heard managers tell her, “The customer is always right” more times than she cares to remember, would like to point out that the customer is always right only if there’s plenty of competition out there for the customer’s dollar. (Is that a seller’s market or a buyer’s market? I can never keep them straight.)
Anyway, as long as Joe A-hole can threaten to take his Surf 'N Turf dollars down the street to some other, more fortunate steak house, he can kick up as much fuss as he likes about how overcooked his french fries are. But if Lillian’s Bar & Grill is the only eatery in town, he’d better shut his piehole, or Lillian’ll put him on the street.
And the other regulars will be only too happy to give her a hand.
But that’s rather the point, Duckie. At the moment, as a free service, the SDMB is to my mind the only eaterie in the county, let alone the town.
As a paying proposition however competition starts to be felt. In particular competition with free services. And in particular those free services that have a larget ex-pat SDMB contingent. Especially if you’ve lost your SDMB friend due to a banning.
Then the Lemur Chain Of Events (LCOE) starts to kick in. You have a feedback loop. Before you know it, there is no eaterie left.
Hence in the case of this board, I think that if it became subscription based, far more lip-service would have to be made towards the customer.
But then you have Muffin’s point that
So the change in the spirit of the boards would hasten. That SDMB that you know and love at the moment Goose-o would not be the SDMB that you would subscribe to in one year.
And I really really love the board the way it is.
I just can’t see it working. There has to be better alternatives.
It is true that not everyone has a credit card. But it is also true that those who don’t experience greater difficulty in obtaining a host of services, from renting a car to reserving a hotel room to getting concert tickets to ordering things over the Net. It would be nice if the SDMB offered a host of payment options (assuming we go to pay-to-play) and they have indicated they intend to try to do so, but the fact that some people don’t have a credit card due to principle/bad credit/age strikes me as not the Board’s problem. With all due respect and sympathy, the same goes for those who live in other locales with disadvantageous exchange rates. If the decision is made to go to pay-to-play, it will be due to necessity – i.e., the Board is no longer sustainable as a “free” board – and all the sympathy in the world won’t change the fact that we all will be expected to pony up. To me, it would be like getting a magazine for free that then you find out you must pay to subscribe to – if you truly can’t afford the subscription, then you must do without the magazine. There are lots of entertainment options I don’t take advantage of regularly simply because I can’t afford to. I’m sure the admins are well-aware that if they go to pay-to-play, they are running the risk that a lot of the players will walk. They have to decide if that’s a risk that’s worth taking and, if it’s not, how else can they address the money problem?
I think it is pie-in-the-sky optimism to think that people who have posted to say they cannot or will not subscribe to this site would nevertheless voluntarily pony up a significant sum (and by “significant” I’m thinking anything more than, say, five bucks, one time) as a “gift” to keep the site going. Passing the hat is a almost always a singularly bad way to raise money. Everybody thinks everybody else is giving so they, individually, don’t have to. Everybody knows that it’s anonymous, so they know no one will criticize them for failing to give and still sucking the Board teat, so they don’t give. And it gives people the expectation of ownership that I assume the Board would seek to avoid – i.e., “I gave you money out of the goodness of my heart to keep this place running, so you shouldn’t ban me/censor me/do things I don’t approve of.” This is IMO much less of a problem with just selling a service (by subscription) – if you don’t like it, or how it’s run, cancel your subscription. And in opposition to those who say they would not sign up for a subscription due to principle, but would send a donation, you must weigh others (like me) who would subscribe but most likely would not send a donation – since I have no control over what, if anything, a donation would get me and since I am not willing, as a general proposition, to subsidize those who cannot (or, more likely IMO, simply will not) pay for themselves.
“Not everyone wants to pay for something they can get for free elsewhere” – obviously true. But many might belive that they cannot get what they get here for free anywhere else – and that we’ve been damn lucky to get it for free this long. I would subscribe if we went to pay-to-play, precisely because this Board offers a level of intellectual challenge, wit, and, yes, creative insult, that I have not found anywhere else. I pay to download the NYT crossword everyday ($20.00 a year), and this is way more fun than that.
“The guest whip still allows a lot more leeway than a customer whip would do.” I disagree. If the service you are paying for is the right to participate on the Board under substantially the same rules that apply now, then you would be expected to continue to follow those rules. I don’t see a problem because you would have no greater “rights” as a payer than you currently have for free – you’d just have fewer rights if you chose not to pay (i.e., you could read but not participate). I would expect the same level of basic courtesy and rational governance (for lack of a better term) whether I was in a restaurant or in someone’s house. Again, if you don’t like the decisions that are made regarding moderating or how things are run, you could leave – just as you can leave now. It is true that customers can be driven off by poor service, but so can guests – and in any event, there’s no reason to anticipate poor service. It hasn’t, IMO, been a problem so far – except for speed, which is precisely the problem they are trying to solve.
“The spirit of the Board would change.” Obviously. There’d be a lot fewer of us, and we’d lose several valuable posters who decide they can’t or won’t pay for the privilege of sticking around. But I see no way to avoid that, except by leaving the Board exactly as it is, which brings us right back around to the start: “Exactly as it is” is increasingly not okay, speaking not in terms of “spirit” but in terms of practicalities – moderating, speed of service, the rate at which threads are born and die, and cost cost cost. I’m not thrilled about having to pay for something I now get for free, but frankly I don’t see another practicable alternative.
I’ve had experience with databases, and know that when the database files get large the performance slows dramatically. And from some of the error messages I get, I can see SDMB is basically a database.
You need to at least try archiving old messages, say those over a year old, and purging them from the main boards. See how the boards act. You need to at least try this before you start charging for access. Backup the database first, if you’re concerned about restoring the old messages.
I know that the old messages are an asset to SDMB. So archive them in some sort of searchable format on some other server. You should be able to find someone willing to donate the storage and bandwidth for an archive.
Well, I have experience with databases, and I run my own Board using the same software as the SDMB. The SDMB is a set of hypertext scripts which uses SQL queries to store and retrieve data. The primary problem the SDMB has is bandwidth and CPU required to handle the GET requests. Pure and simple. There is no rocket science required to see that it runs lightning-fast at 1:00 am, and cannot even load the main page at noon. This is not because the database access has changed significantly from one time to another, it is because everyone and their grandma is online trying to read it.
Now true, the Search functions eat up huge amounts of CPU time, and Search would benefit from database shrinkage. But most people are not online Searching at any one time, they are reading.
It’s not just the posting that taxes the server - the mere reading taxes it. Far moreso than the posting, since many more pages are read than posts made. See how many bytes make up a typical thread view, and multiply this by the number of hits per day the SDMB likely gets. On my Board, the byte ratio for read/post is somewhere near 25:1. Maybe that’s because people aren’t talking much, but I can’t help but think it is the same ratio here.
So, if the SDMB goes subscription-only to reduce bandwidth, it seems that the free reading will have to be eliminated to truly lower the bandwidth - not just the free posting.
As far as voluntary donations are concerned, ETV and PBS do it. If they could not get the contributions, they could not survive. I heard once that only 10% of the listeners and viewers contribute, a sad commentary on the human nature. I contribute, probably less than I should but more than I would have to if more people would.
There’s a chess website that asks for a $30 a year donation. I don’t donate because I don’t use it.
So donation is the way that some are going, and I can’t see the logic in saying that you will pay an annual due but won’t pay an annual contribution.
Jodi - the point is that whilst subscription is free there will always be a ready supply of new people to replace the old. Hence members can be banned or choose to leave and the board goes on.
However, under a paying scenario how would we persuade people to subscribe? Supply of new members would be drastically reduced - if you’re a newbie with no ties you’re far more likely to join a free board than a pay one. In this case losing members becomes a much bigger deal - once you get down to a certain minimum* number of members you can’t afford to lose any more members faster than you’re bringing them in. At this point you have to treat your paying customers with far more of a kid gloves-attitude.
pan
*economically and socially, this minimum exists.
Me, too. I don’t see a number of SDMB “expats” going over to another MB in a state of high dudgeon at being charged admission to the “real” SMDB, and being able to start up another MB group with the SD’s same ambiance. This is a real peculiar group of whiny, argumentative people we’ve got here, (peculiar in the sense of “unique”, not “weird”), a real once-in-a-lifetime impossible to reproduce conjunction of planets. Think “Beatles”. Even if the administration did start charging for admission here, I don’t think it would break up the band. It would change it, sure. The Beatles broke up when they decided to break up, not when the wholesale price of vinyl went up.
For one thing, we’d all have to be a little more polite to each other. But I don’t think it would mean the end of the Straight Dope Message Board. People would leave, yes, but there would still be enough of the peculiarly whiny, argumentative people left (and more would find us, the way cockroaches always seem to find the spilled spaghetti sauce), so I don’t think that overall it would be that much different, a year from now.
Except that probably we’d have a desperate shortage of sock puppets.
Me, too. If the choice is between paying $20 a year for the SDMB and not having it at all–hey, where’s my checkbook?
P.S. For those folks without credit cards, I’m sure money orders are acceptable.
That’s about the best reason I’ve seen for making this a pay service! A person would have to be truly pathetic and desperately craving attention to pay to register more than one name.
It’s quite simple. I do not “donate” to my entertainment, I pay for it. I am willing to make contributions to causes I believe in, and that I believe make a positive social contribution, and that support goals I believe in – that are, in other words, more than merely “fun.” That includes NPR and PBS. I am not willing to contribute to a fund for cable television that is intended to underwrite the watching habits of others who cannot or will not pay for cable themselves. For all it’s vital work fighting ignorance, the SDMB is, to me, entertainment. Also, I personally hate the annual pledge drives of PBS/NPR (though I see the necessity for them) and I can’t think of anything that would drive me away faster than repeated dings for dollars. Pay-to-play just makes more sense to me.
KABBES –
You would probably have to market the Board, just like most other entertainment or service is marketed. I mean, we’ve grown to 15,000+ members without any marketing whatsoever. I just don’t see the Board dying off if subscriptions are required. Even if only one-tenth of that number stick around, that’s a pretty vital community. And new members who read for awhile and want to participate would come along, so long as the fee is not too high. The Board just has to keep the rate of new subscribers at par with the rate of attrition. I don’t see that as a huge problem, provided the Board continues to entertain.
Again, I disagree. I do not expect to be treated with a “kid-gloves attitude,” I expect only to be treated with a minimum amout of respect from the admins and mods. As I am, and always have been. If it gets to the point where asses must be kissed to keep the shop open and running, then it’s time to close it down anyway.
Again, I am not advocating pay-for-play; I prefer it to be free – who doesn’t? But I HATE having to wait nine years for pages to load or links to come up, and that in the end is far more likely to drive me away than a request to pay a reasonable fee. In other words, I would rather actively participate and pay for the privilege, than have it be free and not be able to participate at all because I can’t get on the Board, or I don’t have to time to wait for it to load, or I get too frustrated and log off. And that’s where I’m at now.
Any chances of getting some sort of sponsorship from the folks that make vbulletin? I see that SDMB is proudly featured as one of the “web’s top community forums” powered by vbulletin. Perhaps they don’t realize that clicking on the link in the middle of the day doesn’t make such a good impression (after all, the user doesn’t know why it’s slow – for all they know, it could be the software).
Also, if Anthracite is correct in his assessment of the slowdown, the solution might be to distribute the load of the front-end (the php scripts that make up the vbulletin UI) across several machines (as opposed to buying beefier database machines, etc). The vbulletin documentation didn’t mention how to do this last time I checked, but maybe someone at vbulletin can help.
When I lived in Chgo, I attended off-Broadway plays. The admission was free, but donations were appreciated. The Art Institute of Chgo used to be free, but asked for a donation of $x (I don’t remember the amount, perhaps $2). So there are many places that offer entertainment but don’t mandate a fee, but merely ask for any donations or a specific donation.
As for the PBS/NPR/ETV pledge drives, I too get sick of it.
