My library charges a dollar for new releases. Really.
This board isn’t run on hamster power. It is run on brainpower. Free access to view and comment by as many brains as possible makes this board what it is. TSD added a socio-economic barrier and has damned this board to bourgeois elitism. It will become an isolated system of redundant ideas espoused by redundant self-important people. TSD has eliminated every possibility of interesting anomalies and incursions by new brains with new knowledge that is the lifeblood of SDMB.
SDMB has become a good “product” now and will take on the sameness and redundancy of a “marketable product”.
I go to a library because I can’t afford to go to a bookstore, same reason I come here. I believe in free contribution and dissemination of knowledge. I mistakenly thought that was the prime directive here as well, as evidenced by TSD creedo “Fighting ignorance since 1973.” -C’est la vie…
Charging for this board is a bad idea, because it is a restriction rather than an expansion in brainpower, which, when one strips it all down, is all that really makes SDMB unique and viable as a message board. Popularity and usefullness of this board is predicated on “The Teeming Millions” (not the “Paltry Hundreds”.) This new policy leaves many behind.
The new SDMB will become old very quickly.
Libertarian my quibble with this statement made by you is summed up by this paragraph.
Also, charity works aren’t condional, because charity is supposed to be given freely, with no expectations of payment. I already practice this philosphy. I understand, wanting to encourage people to pitch in, and help out. This is different from outright charity, and requires tact to carry out. Such an “arrangement” should be made privately so the person who is being “sponsored” isn’t embarassed. This is what I was trying to communicate. That you could have been more “delicate” in phrasing your offer, instead of insulting.
I don’t need to be “sponsored” or encouraged to do good works, I do them without prompting. I currently have a bunch of Easter chocolate that I bought, and intend to buy more, for a 12 year old child who just lost his mother. His mother is the one who bought him Easter stuff.
Guilting me over my refusal of your tactless offer is pretty low. I already do good works, which are most often charity. Sometimes I’ll make an arrangement with a person, that if I do A for them, they can come help this other person with B. Usually it’s because the person won’t accept charity, they want to “earn” the help they recieve. I most often do good works without expecting any kind of return even to society in general. I pitch in because I’m a member of society, and want to help.
I will be keeping an eye out for word of an alternativre payment method. I hope they make one available.
She’s not flying off the handle, nor is she blaming you for anything. What she is saying is that you should just lay off of her.
Snarky comments like the one above weren’t called for, especially considering that she and her husband’s view on banks isn’t a crazy one; many financially responsible folk distrust banks for one reason or another. Had I been in similar financial strait, and after having read your unnecessary “tinfoil hat” comment, I also would have rejected your offer of help as being arrogant. Good as your intentions may be, you came across rather badly.
I’m ok with paying $5 bucks for a membership. What I don’t want to happen is something that happened to me at SomethingAwful.com. I was lurking over there a little bit and really enjoyed the site, so I decided to pay the $10. As soon as I did that, I was in! But later found out I had to pay $5 for each service of the site (searching, PM’ing, etc…). So I posted a light hearted complaint about having to pay just to search after I already paid $10 to join. After 100 hits in less then a minute, I was banned, with no explaination. So fuck SA.com, I hope the SDMB doesn’t do that shit. But then again, we do have the Pit, so maybe complaints like that wouldn’t matter here.
Have you ever paid a cover charge to get into a nightclub, maybe to see a band?
Have you ever noticed that the club had bouncers?
Did you go up to those bouncers and demand a clearly stated, concise set of rules that you could follow in order to avoid getting tossed out on your ear?
There are plenty of social situations that you pay money to be in where you can be tossed for acting like a jerk – whether it’s at the movies, a play, a club, a restaurant, a bar, an amusement park, or wherever. I really don’t see why they need to elaborate the Don’t Be A Jerk rule.
If folks don’t like how they enforce it, folks are welcome not to join. Personally, I think they’ve been very good at enforcing it.
Daniel
Subscription is going to turn this board into more of an incest-fest than it already is. You’re going to lose the input of the occasional poster who is an expert at some subject, because they won’t feel like ponying up the $4.95/$14.95 to make a single, well-informed and useful post. You’re not going to deter trolls and, since you’re not charging to read posts, will server demand go down that much?
I love the SDMB, but I won’t pay to post the one or two times a month I do. And, since there will be a very small influx of fresh posters, I’ll eventually stop reading it as well since it will be the same people putting out the same posts over and over again.
Other posters have already commented on how being a paying member will demand some sort of clear definition of the rules and better enforcement of them. They’re right.
She said she didn’t have a credit card. I suggested she get one. Then she said she didn’t want to expose herself to debt, so I suggested a debit card. Then she said, not that she was having trouble with a bank, but rather,“I can’t find a bank that isn’t out to screw me over.” It was after twice being rejected and then encountering that rather bizarre assertion that I invoked the tinfoil hat. Despite that she responded with bristling indignation that spanned two threads, I offered to sign her up and let her give the money to somone who needed it.
I’m reminded of a scene from West Wing. Josh is complaining that there are thousands of male employees and only a handful of female employees, and yet it is the females who have fresh towels in the bathroom. CJ blinks incredulously and points out the irony of his complaining about the towels when what is really wrong is that there are so few female employees. Here, Zabali has copped an attitude that I am arrogant and mean and whatnot and thus is unwilling to accept my offer to help her all the while holding herself to be above any conditions. It wasn’t a condition. It was just a way for her to pay, which is what she wanted.
So, whatever. […shrug…]
Incorrect. In this thread I was polite to the point of being concilatory. You persisted in being arrogant and tactless, and you got told off. End of story.
5 dollars I can see. I can’t see people paying 14 something to join this board. Hell, I LOVE the SDMB, and I wouldn’t pay 14 to join. 5 and 7 something,yes.
Libertarian Also, I posted to this thread that I also didn’t have a credit card, or checking account immediately after someone else did. You then posted I could use a debit card. I further explained my financial situation, after which you made a snarky comment. I then posted in the tread commenting about how hostile the boards are asking you to “ease up” in a concilatory tone, and posted a reply in an offended tone in this thread. You then arrogantly and tactlessly made an offer, which is when I took the “bristling indignant” tone. There was another poster that said they didn’t have a credit card before me, so you are mistaken on the order of events as well.
Well, misunderstandings happen. They’re called disputes because people see things different ways. If you’re willing to start with a clean slate, I’m still willing to offer to sign you up if you will use the money to feed someone who is hungry and cannot afford to buy the food.
I’m an admin on another BB where in 2002, with 6000 members (4000 active) and a huge bandwidth charge, we started to charge members to join up. Pretty mush the same system as here. 30-days free access then you had to cough up some cash (anything from $5 accepted). What happened was what was explained above. The board didn’t attract any more newbies and the board died due to the same people saying the same thing over and over again.
I’ll happily pay my $5 but in knowing that the SMDB that I love won’t be the same.
I’m still kind of taken aback, about this whole subscription deal. I know that The Chicago Reader has been providing this service free-of-charge, and thus eating a (probably) pretty hefty bill, but I think a change like this is going to affect the mindset of the SDMB (Collective Unconscious anyone?) more than many people are expecting.
Personally, yeah- I can afford to pay $5 ($10 for both my wife and I) to subscribe to the SDMB. A lot of people can, but there certainly are some out there who can’t. I (and I hope we all) value an opinion from a poster in the former group just as much as I value an opinion from a poster in the latter group. Unfortunately, we won’t see several of those opinions after this change fully takes effect.
The same applies to people who can pay the subscription fee, but refuse to. I am still debating whether or not I am fallling into this group.
One thing I still can’t say I fully understand, though, is why the Chicago Reader refused to accept any donations from many SDMB members over the years…? I believe that someone once made an analogy, that insisted people would think certain posters (those who donated) would receive some kind of special treatment or preferrence over other posters (who hadn’t donated). This is the only explanation I had heard regarding the “donation refusals” (I may have missed other ones, though, which is why I am asking this in the first place). Seriously, though, I think it would be pretty hard… nay, impossible… to defend some kind of special treatment that the analogy suggests, because of the way an open forum behaves. Several people would notice Poster A receiving some kind of special treatment, bring it into view for everyone else, and a shitstorm materializes.
Lastly, I just wanted to comment on this:
I know that Ed basically beats around the bush, without actually coming out and promising a faster SDMB, but I think promises and guarantees should be made about this. After all, that is what we would be paying for.
Thanks for hearing me out,
LilShieste
At any rate, Lib, I just read the referenced thread, and I want to say that auntie em and I both wish you good health. I hope all turns out well for you, and we wish you all of the best luck!
Thank you both! 
I’ll shell out for the first year and see how it goes. I’m not all that contributive a member, but I can imagine how I would feel being limited only to reading.
I think the people worried about the board becoming an incestuous circle-jerk have a very valid worry. I’ll evaluate that next year. Who knows, maybe I’ll be banned by then. Or dead. Or maybe the horse will learn to sing.
I’d just like to say Holy Crap! I can understand why you are thinking twice about paying $5 for a non-essential.
MrVisible, I wish you’d reconsider, because I think your logic is flawed, and because your posts are valuable. Once you posted something that moved me to tears. I’d gladly pay $5 for reading that post, but even when the boards change, I’ll be able to read that post for free.
My $5 is a contribution to people like you, and the hundreds of others whose posts have touched me. It’s a way to show my gratitude. And I don’t have to pay it. I can continue to lurk, and be touched, and educated, and all I’ve lost is the ability to spout worthless drivel of my own. I lurked for years before I subscribed, others will be able to do the same.
But I’m going to pay anyway, to express with example how important it is that others keep posting. I think Lib’s point is the same, that he’d gladly fork over $5 so that a fellow board member can keep posting, so he can keep reading. It’s not charity, we’re not doing it for you, it’s utter, desparate selfishness.
Since someone can post for 30 days without payingwe can still have our “single, well-informed, useful” posts.