$5 a month, and i do not care exactly where is goes.
I have a couple of $5/mth Patreon subs to people who just do good work, and who I may check up on once every 3 months. $5, $10 is more than fine for the SDMB.
Add me to the annual subscription list, please. Up to $10 is fine.
I’m broke. I hope this is optional. Paying to get a member flair is one thing, that’s fine. Paying to post would be something else altogether, and would lose the perspective of those members on these boards who are at the lower end of the income scale. Bear in mind that this is not the only site asking us to do this.
The data seems to be pretty much going one way. How much is needed to keep the board running? If more than that is raised, where would it go?
To the SDMB as it currently is? Not a cent.
To the SDMB with certain changes to its moderation policy around bigotry? Up to $10/month.
Hundred bucks a year seems about right. One-time payment, with a gentle reminder to re-up next year.
The last time we tried that it did not end well. I am not involved in the financial side of this place in any way shape or form, but I don’t think that pay to post is even being considered at this point.
Good to see that.
As I said, I’ve got no problem with paying for flair, or tshirts, or whatever. If I find myself solvent again at some point, I’d probably even pitch in something.
I definitely prefer a one-time payment, not a monthly subscription .
About $120 is fine…I get more than $10 enjoyment per month from this site.
But I’m confused about the complaints over “pay-to-post.”
What is pay to post,(which is apparently a bad idea)---- and how is it different than paying an annual fee (which is apparently a good idea)?
In any case, I would suggest allowing access for unlimited reading of the boards for free–to attract newcomers. And allow a new user to make 50 posts for free, to feel welcome as they become part of our community, before charging them money.
Otherwise, we will scare away every newcomer, and that will just speed up the death of this site.
F that. Pay to post is exactly that; you cannot post unless you pay. That will be the death of this site. Offer a membership fee if you like that will give you some other benefit, but if you actually charge just to post, I guarantee other than a select few die-hards, no one will pay, no one new will join, and most people will just stop posting altogether.
It seems like the most flexible plugin would be to have a variety of price points along with a blank where people can fill in whatever they want. Also have a buttons where they can say if it’s a one-time, monthly, or yearly contribution.
I personally would like a way to make an anonymous donation not tied to my account. I don’t want visible member addons or bonuses. But this isn’t a deal breaker. Just a preference.
Note that this is all preliminary brainstorming, it would need to be approved by the Powers That Be, but Discourse does have the ability to collect payments directly from community members toward defraying hosting costs – and offering the “subscriber/member” title, if you want it, on your account.
And yes, all of this would of course be 100% optional, as a way to support an independent community you enjoy.
If it’s optional, then why not just try pledge drives? Trying to extract $5/mo out of everyone might not return as much money as simply having a quarterly pledge drive. There may be some well-heeled folks here who would give a significant amount of money if you tried it, and the people who do 't want to pay don’t have to.
If the pledge drive doesn’t yield enough money, tell the users and then consider memberships afterwards.
I think part of the reason they don’t do things like pledge drives is that we don’t really have admins or people who’s job it is to maintain the site. There’s no one to manage something like a pledge drive. But a Discourse plugin would be something where the contributions go towards Discourse and it’s all managed through Discourse. No one from the Sun-Times is needed to manage the money or campaigns.
Quoting myself to clarify (because SDMB is by far my favorite place on the Web):
Like ThelmaLou I’d gladly pay more than $10. Supporting my disabled younger sister would be the only factor limiting me.
I’d prefer an annual subscription of $60. I could probably go as high as $120.
Very, very much prefer annual to monthly, but I could do monthly if I absolutely had to.
Would will still have a paypal option?
If we are going to raise money, by whatever technique, I’d really like some of it to be used to hire an active admin. Or better yet two, in case one of them’s unable to act.
Ed is the admin and has been since Tuba passed. Are you talking about a tech admin? ECG already does a bunch of that, no reason other mods can’t be added in. It’s just a matter if they (the mods) want to do it or not. They don’t have to learn the inner workings of the site, they just need to know how to do a few things that are already built in to Discourse.
Pay to post is the main reason the board is like it is now. Everybody that wanted to post anything had to pay. That split the board into three different boards that it has never really recovered from. There’s more but not really appropriate for this thread. Incidentally, I did pay to post, but never posted the whole time. I did it because I wanted to support the board.
So, please, be gentle. I’m spitballing here…
Pay to OP
(Assumes the software can do this, meaning assumes facts not in evidence.)
Registration is free. You can respond to your 
’s content, a free registration allows you to create up to 3 topics.
Once you use your free topics, in order to create more, you pay a small fee. $2/mth. $5/yr. Whatever.
(And as I’m typing this, I am coming up with the same objections you are, but in a session like this, the goal is to get the ideas on the table, not say ‘THIS is what we MUST do’.)
So, I’m thinking membership tiers:
Charter Members - keep those for us who have the title, remove the charge, unless the CM opts for the…
Contributor plan. Free (except for CM’s, who still pay their current CM charge), this gives 3 OP’s and PM access (limited? Ideas?). No avatars, no signatures.
Creator plan. Contributor plan + 15 OP’s, unlimited PM’s, $5/year
(You can buy more OP’s if you want to, I guess. $5 for 15 more topics, $10 for 40, why not?)
Doper plan. $5-10/mth, unlimited OP’s, unlimited PM’s, Avatars, signatures, the ability to imbed images (can that be limited by user?), the whole gamut of functionality.
Again, just spitballing here. I don’t care if the middle tier plan has more or fewer OP’s, or if Avatars are tier 1, 2, or 3, or whatever. I don’t even know if the OP idea can even work. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
But the SDMB shouldn’t limit itself to one plan. You don’t want to lose new users (hence giving them 3 OP’s, given that many people register here specifically to ask a question), and you don’t want to lose the current members, and you want to give new members a reason to level up on the tiers.
Tiered pricing, which has the above as the goal, is going to be the best way to do this.
I could list a dozen reasons that pay to OP would not work, but since this is not being considered, I won’t go into it.
I just want others to know that both codinghorror and engineer_comp_geek are not suggesting any pay scheme that makes payment a requirement to post.