SDMB Charging for Access - Comments

I’m afraid I don’t understand…?

I certainly hope that ** Mr. Lanahan ** and Co. are listening.

One thing I didn’t see in this thread, but I did see in one of the others, was mention of what Something Awful does, selling unique titles (a la ** Unca Cecil’s ** “Perfect Master” - Hey ** Cecil ** , can I be your Imperfect Mistress? ** Pump Action Gerbil ** okayed you for my List). I’m not suggesting this in lieu of anything else, but as an extra way of making a buck off us narcissists who need to be different and are willing to pay for the privilege. (Considering how many of us there are, you’d probably make more money on those than on straight subscriptions)

stoid

Before we let this thread continue…

If y’all want to thank me for luring Cecil out into the open, I’ll accept donations through my email address; you all know how to Paypal! And I’m expecting double from you Doc Cathode since he mentioned you by name.

I only sample read this thread but I do have a comment.
STMB is a kind of sounding board. It gives the editors of TSD an idea of public interest in different subjects. That information IMHO would be invaluable to anyone publishing an alternative newspaper. Take away the public(free) part and you will end up with a lot of very opinionated posters that don’t show the publics point of view.

FWIW I’ll not pay.

What leads you to this conclusion? I don’t sense any correlation between willingness-to-pay and opinionated-posters-who-don’t-show-the-public’s-point-of-view.

Or conversely, poster A says “this board is full of arguments and confusing threads, so I’ll be damned if I join it.” Sorry, I don’t like your “anonymous” posting idea.

So by that statement you are saying that only the opinions of those that think they speak for the public and wish to pay for it should be heard???
With 53 posts maybe you haven’t noticed that some here have opinions that are ,to say the least,astounding.

Well, I don’t like it either. The board is better the way it is now. However, that’s no longer an option. The question is, is paying for an identity better than going directly to straight PTP? Everyone seems to be in agreement now that straight PTP will choke off the supply of new members and kill the SDMB as it has killed so many others. Anonymous posting is an intermediate step, if it doesn’t work out, you can always move on to implement straight PTP.

It’s like going to the doctor. Whenever possible, you want to try the least-invasive cure first, even if it only has a relatively small chance of success. You only move on to major surgery when you’ve exhausted your other options.

BTW - Maybe we should move this discussion to the PTP: Defining and Refining the Options thread.

Instead of charging a membership fee, how about selling shares in the board?

This may be a dumb idea, as I know nothing about corporations, shares, stocks, etc. - maybe it’s illegal or something. But offer to sell members a non-voting ‘share’ of the board - print up some fancy certificates like those ‘Name a Star’ thingies. Include a congratulatory letter from Cecil about contributing to the ‘fight against ignorance.’ Make them cheap enough that we can buy scads of them for Christmas, B’day, etc., presents. The main page of the message board could have a nice little ‘advertisement’ at the top saying ‘This message board sponsored by the Teeming Millions shareholders’ or some such, with a link to a page where shares can be bought.

Since there is money involved, maybe Cecil could be persuaded to write a short message once a month or so just for the shareholders. They could either sign up to receive it in e-mail or it could be placed on a special ‘members only’ page here at the board. Not a regular question-answering column that would require a lot of research, just some sort of commentary on any topic Cecil wanted to address, or side remarks (snide remarks?) on something interesting that was discovered while researching a column that wasn’t pertinent enough to be included in the regular columns . . . whatever, any and all words from Cecil are golden!

Shareholders would be strictly anonymous on the board - no special ‘titles’, no list, and the admins/mods shouldn’t know which user names are also shareholders so there can be no accusations of favoritism. Make sure there is no connection between share ownership and posting privileges to avoid legal problems if a shareholder is banned - the only ‘privilege’ would be the bonus Cecil message that would still be available either on the ‘members’ page or through e-mail.

And maybe we could come up with a few more incentives to buying shares - how about a discount on Cecil stuff (books, mugs, etc.) for shareholders? Depending on how expensive the shares are, maybe the discount could be larger for those who own more shares - I’ll use dollar amounts since I have no idea what the shares would cost - something like a 2% discount until you buy $50 worth of shares, 5% for $50 to $100, 10% when you buy over $100 worth of shares (someone else would have to figure out what is affordable!).

Might throw in a ‘freebie’ for certain numbers of shares bought, also - something like a free coffee mug when you buy $50 worth, a free T-shirt when you buy $100 worth, a free book when you buy $200 worth, etc. Both of the above options encourage people to continue buying shares whenever they have a few extra bucks - if shares are $5 each, for example, it might take me 6 months or a year to buy $100 worth, but I’ll keep sending $5 here and there until I earn that free T-shirt!

How about offering shareholders the opportunity to pre-order a ‘limited edition’ version of new SD books? Allow two weeks or 30 days to reserve a ‘special edition’, accept no new orders after than, and your production is limited to the number of orders received. I don’t know what would be practical for making them ‘limited editions’ - Cecil’s autograph? A different cover? Or instead of doing anything to the book, include a small, framable print of one of Slug’s illustrations?

It seems like this would be a fairly inexpensive idea to try out, since you’re going to have to set up payment options, membership crap, etc. anyway for the subscriptions - you wouldn’t even have to print the ‘shares’ until people actually bought them!

Of course, this doesn’t affect the sockpuppet/troll problem, but I thought I’d toss the idea out for consideration. I’m probably overlooking all kinds of problems and expenses, plus, of course, the CR may just think it is a lousy idea! But it keeps posting privileges free, and so maintains the influx of new posters to the board, as well as allowing those with limited funds to continue to post. Individuals who so desire can contribute the amount they can afford or are willing to spend - it’s more like making donations, except that the CR is providing value for the money so wouldn’t have the legal problems associated with REAL donations.

[suggestion only partially in jest:]
How about pay to get faster access to the boards?
[/suggestion]

A question I haven’t seen come up in these many discussions (though I haven’t been able to read them all!)

I understand the Reader’s reluctance to take monetary donations… but the mods are donating their time. Of course money isn’t involved, but if the mods didn’t volunteer, the Reader would have to pay someone (several someones) to do it.

Are donating money and donating time so different legally for a for-profit? Lawyers?

The problem with shares as it doesn’t really address the heart of the problem: A solid revenue stream.

It would be great for one-time income, but the stock would run out soon. The reader can’t have an infinite amount of stock to sell.

What happens when the stock is gone? no more stock-selling revenue, and the same budget shortfalls as you had before.

[sub]Dammit. Had this all writen out this afternoon, then crash. Dammit.[/sub]

[Blinking] Ummmm…yes, that’s what I meant. I’m afraid I don’t understand. [Nervously] That is what “whoosh” means, right? “I got whooshed” means “I don’t get it”. Right? Right???

I suppose I should be more clear. Supposing we move to SDMB subscription, I still think that the anonymous posting is a bad idea.

Sorry for the delay in addressing your questions justwannano. I’ve been busy at work… (sucks to be me).

Ummmmm… no.

Let me re-phrase… this is what I thought I heard you initially say…
“If people are forced to pay to post,
then we’ll only be left with opinionated posters that don’t reflect the public’s point of view.”

My response was to try to understand how you came to that conclusion. I was attempting to explain that I don’t believe that paying to post has anything to do with either the strength of one’s opinions or one’s point of view. I want to hear everyone’s opinion, for good or bad. I just don’t think they’re opinions are biased based on whether or not they’re willing to pay for the privilege to post. Maybe I don’t understand what you meant by “public’s point of view”… do you mean the point of view of people who are unwilling to pay to post? If so, then I guess I have no quarrel. An answer to my follow-up question about what leads you to your conclusion would’ve perhaps explained that.

Wow. The first insult I’ve received, and I’m not even in the Pit. ~grin~
This is what I hear you say…
“If someone only has 53 posts,
then they must be stupid.”

Needless to say, I also disagree with this conclusion. I am continually astounded by the depth, knowledge, passion, creativity, and wit exhibited in the SDMB… that’s why I joined as a member after lurking for a couple of years… but I also believe these attributes are present in the posts of old-timers, newbies, willing-to-pay, unwilling-to-pay, Boomers, GenXers, males, females, … or any other demographic you’d like to slice the Teeming Millions into.

More to the point of the OP… while I confess that I have no previous experience with other boards that have gone belly-up after a change to pay-to-post, IMHO assuming this board survives the change (if it indeed occurs) I don’t believe implementing a pay-to-post process will have any effect on the positive attributes I described above.

It’s just an inside joke; it has no cultural meaning. I used it over on the UB, when I did the Spice Girls Poll in ATMB.

I’m letting y’all know that I really can’t afford to pay more than $25.

Let me first say that I am not a student or other low wage earner. But I am in debt up the ying-yang so I don’t think I could swing the fee.

In Canadian that $50 US equals abt $78(includs bank/crdtcrd fees for converting). Even at the lower rate of $20 US I’m not sure I can justify it in my budget. The house needs major renov.

I don’t dispute the Readers need to have this pay for itself. Running this thing has got to take some major effort on their part.

I am new to this great SDMB community and am happy that I found it. Quite by chance too as it came up on a google search for something. If/when it goes PTP I will miss it greatly.

d

Another economic angle that occured to me the other day: The main way that the Reader makes money off of the Straight Dope is by licensing the column to other papers, right? Well, everything on this board makes the Dope a more valuable commodity to those other papers. A column with searchable archives, and to which readers can respond, is more valuable than a column without such features. Now, I’m not sure that any papers would drop the Dope just because there’s no interactive element, but it is something to consider.

Another thought, by the way: All of us living in cities which don’t publish the Straight Dope should, perhaps, consider trying to persuade our local alternative papers to start carrying it. If we can convince even one more paper to buy the column, I suspect that that would in itself make the board profitable for the Reader.

I like the idea of a ‘premium’ membership, that gets you access to the archives and the search functions, and gets you a premium member label by your name. I imagine that searches eat up a fair amount of resources so it makes sense to make them pay only anyway.

Couple that with some Amazon click-through selling and banner ads, and see where that gets you, income-wise. That lets you get your feet wet in managing paying accounts, and will give you a better idea of how many people will be willing to shell out some dough for this place.

Not sure that searching should be a premium feature - we’re always encouraging people to search before they post a question in case it’s already been answered. Taking that away could add to the problem, when we keep seeing the same questions over and over again…