This got discussed somewhere. You could require a credit card up front. This way, a person would need multiple valid credit cards, all with different names, to be able to re-register. (Don’t actually charge the card until after the first 50 posts.)
Frankly, I didn’t get from the various teenager Doper’s posts that they didn’t have any money. They said they didn’t have credit cards.
Starting from age 11, I had money. Plenty of it, for a kid my age. I babysat, a lot. At age 17, I also started selling my artwork, and had money from that. I always had money. (Hence, my killer LP collection, which I treasure to this day.) But I didn’t have a credit card, and my parents didn’t believe in them either. Trying to do something like, say, rent a video, was huge ordeal, and nigh onto impossible. If I had wanted to order something, I’d have to go to my dad (who controlled the finances) and ask him if I could get him to send off some money for this, or that. And then he’d give me a lecture about how I was spending my money. Nothing was ever private. It was a huge pain in the ass.
That’s what I see is going on with the teenaged Dopers. That’s why I think offering the alternative of money orders is a great idea.
And, to sum up (like I did in the closed thread) some of the best ideas I’ve seen so far:
$20 a year.
Try to offer a “student rate”, for the truly impoverished students. (Like, say $10 a year?)
PayPal options. This will alieviate any fears of lack of security, and the fear that your credit card number is not secure. Also, money order options, for those without credit cards.
A trial posting period, of maybe 50 free posts. Yes, I know that many people would just keep on signing up if they are too cheap to pay the fee. But I think most people, if they really got hooked on the boards, would want to establish an identity and build relationships on the board. And you can’t do that if you have a new identity every 50 posts. Many people will pop for the membership fee when they get truly hooked. They’ll want to continue to be themselves, and post freely. It’ll become worth it to them to fork over the (relatively small amount of) money.
Payments in smaller incriments. $5 every 3 months, or something like that.
I think if you can get new people hooked, they’ll pay to stay. And making it easier for them to stay will help keep this board alive.
Ah, I never thought of that… makes sense.
The two ideas I like so far are this one- if it can work- and the banner ads up the ass unless you pay a fee to have it stop.
And in both cases, I think something like fifteen bucks a year, per family, makes sense. The fifty dollars a year thing sounds awfully damn expensive… and profiteering on the part of the Reader.
It’d be nice (I hate the word ‘nice’… wouldn’t it be nice… oh well). It’d be cool with me if the reader made some money of this site, but fifty bucks a poster per year sounds excessive. Fifteen bucks a year adds up fast when you take into account more people will be able to dismiss that amount and would be more willing to spend it, compared to fifty.
And that, to me, when it all boils down to it, is the issue that will either keep me here or lose me- if people stay, I’m here. If people leave, I’m gone.
The big trick is finding a way that keeps as many as possible. The mentality that says, ‘See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya’ if mass numbers leave, is frightening to me- this place will crumble if it isn’t diverse, and expansive (relatively speaking).
This’d help: try optimizing/shrinking/both the top banner. Optimizing by itself saves a second of d/l time, I checked. You can shrink the top banner a little too, its really excessive.
Optimizing the top = less bytes = less bandwidth used = less cost
I’d imagine that the banner image is cached on 99% of dopers machines, so it really isn’t “downloading” every page view.
Also, I think the money issue is a bit more of a problem than that. Just a guess, though.
Well, I’m sure (I hope! ) that the Reader actually wants to make money, or at the very least cover the costs. And I think it’s becoming obvious that anything over $20 is going to lose them so many posters that the place would die.
It’s going to be a delicate balance between charging enough to pay for itself, but not so much that you kill it.
stoid
You know, my first response was to tell you to “get stuffed”.
Then I thought it. And I tried optimizing it with SuperGIF.
Before: 6951 bytes
After: 6718 bytes
So, you were correct, it saves about 233 bytes. And looks identical to the one currently in use. I’ll be happy to mail it in, if anyone cares.
The thing is, as posted, that the banner should be cached by most browsers anyways. So I don’t know that it will make any difference.
Couldn’t hurt though, and it takes no effort.
BTW, I got it down to around 5000b with NetMechanic. Still not much, but it couldn’t hurt.
That is my problem. I did see something about the possible idea of money orders at 7-11 stores, but there none around the area that I live. There is always the post office, but then I would have to think up an excuse to go there. Anywhwre else do money orders? (I know this was just a possible idea, not something they were going to do)
Mudshark, around where I live all grocery stores, convinence stores, Wal-Mart, the post office and banks all sell money orders.
If nothing else, we’ve established that teenagers have plenty of options for paying, provided they have the money to begin with.
How about an “anything goes” room ($1,000.00 a year)where it is impossible to get banned. I would pay just to READ some of those posts. This room could subsidize the rest of the site.
Or charge 10 cents a post. This would shut up some of the compulsive posters or at least we would know that they are paying for all their bullshit.
And 5 dollars a word for signatures.
God, I get sick of seeing those over and over and over…
oh…and weirddave gets to post for free because of that “osama the lover” post. I still laugh when I think of that post.
it would get pointless… just pointless.
After yesterday’s flail-exe, I’ve been a little busy today, and missed the end of the other thread. Let me try and address the points made to me:
Stoid: I get it, but you’re not reading me. I rarely stand on pride, but on this issue, I will. Call it foolish if you wish, but there it is.
Hombre: Thank you. I never figured or planned on being popular. That anyone finds my posts other than boring tripe is a surprise to me.
samclem: Eh.
Everyone: It would take a very small change for me to reconsider my stance. All the Reader would have to do would be to make a small change to the Terms and Conditions, as found posted at the bottom of each page. Currently they grant the Reader full rights to the posts. While the board is free, I’ve no problem with that. Truth be told, I doubt the Reader is making any money off anyone’s posts, much less mine. When (if) the boards go pay, the Reader will be in the position to be making money off the content, even if it’s only because other posters will be subscribing for the priviledge to respond to that content. I don’t have much of a problem with that, either, save that per the T&Cs, the Reader will further have the full free use content for any other purpose they desire, and may sell it at will, should they desire. I would have to pay for the privildege of allowing others the free use of my words. Chances are, they won’t use my words, but they will have the right to do so, should they so desire.
So, what would it take to change my attitude?
A simple change to the T&Cs. Some small consideration to the poster, should the Reader wish to use the poster’s words outside the SDMB. It need not be large: A weeks extention to a poster’s subscription per use? Even a day’s exetention? That would be enough.
This is not about money to me, and I could easily afford to pay, be it $20, or be it $50. This is an issue of pride, and it is one I will not back down on, even be it foolish.
Should the T&Cs change I’d gladly pony-up, though I fear the ‘pay’ version of the SDMB would be a much poorer place.
As I understand it, when that happpened, the SDMB was hacked/cracked by a script using megaputz. Some microcephalic, dickless vandal loser, creating havoc just for the fun of it.
Jerry the Tech God, Lynn–Lord High Executioner, and TubaDiva would know much more about it than i.
From the perspective of business school, I’d say that the SDMB administrators are ignoring the importance of network externalities on this board and underestimating their elasticity of demand. Of course, they are facing “the tragedy of the commons”, but what are you going to do?
Which is a biz-speak way of saying that I’d pay for what the SDMB is now, but as soon as the pay plan kicks in, the SDMB will change into something much less valuable to me, 'cause people will go elsewhere in droves. But there’s not much that the SDMB can do about it. Too bad. SDMB, RIP.
Anyone for a round of “the beer game”?
I have been witness to two other boards I frequented, going “pay-to-post”. Both went from active, useful sites to virtual wastelands.
One still functions at a level I’d estimate as roughly a quarter its pre-pay level, and hasn’t gained a new subscriber in four months. The other still exists only until the paid members’ allotment is up.
In the first example, shortly after it went to pay, a functionally and topically similar site gained a great deal of additional traffic.
Nothing against the Reader and the admin team, but a pay-subscription message board has so far proven itself to be a self-defeating enterprise. New membership will be a small fraction of the current level, current membership will be halved at least, and overall interest will drop sharply.
No, I don’t have the answer, I’m just giving my point of view. I can, however, suggest cutting MIPSIMS, Cafe Society and IMHO. These are somewhat off-topic from the GQ and GD intent of Ignorance Eradication, and other off-site sources fill similar niche adequately. Further, consolidate the two “Comments” forums, and finally, as mentioned a ways above, how about disallowing signatures altogether? Some are okay, but more than a few get pretty damned elaborate.
stoid - You are, of course, correct. The only distinction I’d draw is that The Well doesn’t have the corporate paper/books/syndication of The Reader and Cecil. This board is an arm of a commercial operation, maybe that is new ?
Interesting ** Doc Nickel**, could you post your links ?
Besides that is not as if they would be storing our CC #s – I imagine that they would either have to do paypal or else get a secure https payment page in place. There’s a pretty big difference on the security scale between passwords to a MB and handling credit card information, and I am confident they are aware of this.