SDMB Charging for Access - Comments

About This Message Board
61

Regarding the “new blood”/stagnation issue, which I consider more important in the long run than any individual poster who may leave (though I’ll miss 'em. :frowning: ), I think the idea that Chronos mentioned back on page one might be best, with a small modification: Leave the “Comments on Cecil’s Columns”, “Comments on Staff Reports” and “General Questions” (with a heavy hand on the “delete thread” button!) forum open to newbies for free. Those three seem to be, (IMHO) the starting point for many, many newbies and I can’t see GQ thriving without the influx of newbies. (I suspect that of all the forums GQ is most dependant on newbies and if it goes to pay-to-post, it’ll wither and die. Fast). Get 'em hooked there, and then at least some’ll join for the fun of posting to the other forums.

I can see some problems with this idea, but I can’t think of a way to keep new members coming in.

One other idea: New, first time members get a discount for signing up for their first year, similar to the “substatial discount” that we’re going to be getting.

Fenris

62

Mathematically, yes. However, one must remember that the days to work are not infinite. If one is already working 7 days a week to meet expenses, than one is already working 7 days a week. Unless it’s a leap year, it’s simply not possible to fit another day of work in.

63

I know pepper, I’ve been there. As, I’d imagine, have the majority of the membership. Thanks for helping me out.

64

Well, it certainly will be different.

I doubt if you’ll get the same people. I also doubt if the people now saying they’ll pay will stay more than a few months. Most will consider it a bad investment and leave. The only good sites are the free ones…really that’s true. I’ve been at message boards that have converted over from free to pay: NoWonder was a techie message board which about a year and a half ago went from free to pay. Now there is a whole different crew there and a whole different audience.

The SDMB is unique in that there are so many members with so many divergent views. One person said he had trouble keeping up with the posts. I agree, but that’s what makes it special. I think I’d rather ‘have trouble keeping up with posts’ than check back and find no one has replied.

Those with a need to vent, those extroverts, those windy blowhards will mostly be gone if there’s no answer to their vents. Also, will the Cecil Adams stuff still be free, how about the literary zine I forget what it’s called. The Teeming Millions, etc. Lots of things to be worked out.

I don’t know why, but it just ticks me off when a site wants to change to charging from being free before. I realize there’s a cost involved, but the internet has so many free sites, eventually those will rule. Salon started charging and I doubt if they will be around long.

65

The Chicago Reader should spin the boards off as an independent non-profit entity before trying to make them subscription. This avoids the problem with unpaid moderators (the IRS does not look askance at volunteer labor being provided to non-profits, but they are very suspicious of volunteer labor being provided to for-profits), makes it much easier to deal with donations, allows the idea of discounted or free subscriptions with a demonstration of financial hardship, and erases the spectre that the Chicago Reader is trying to make a buck off of the community.

66

I want to agree with those who have suggested making only the “fun” fora pay-to-play. Leave GQ and the Comments fora free, and I think we’ll still see newbies coming in and posting. But yeah, personally I never would have become hooked on the boards if every forum were on a pay-to-post basis. But if I’d been given free rein to post in GQ, and then started lurking around IMHO and MPSIMS, I might well have gone ahead and coughed up the fee.

67

I wouldn’t mind paying a modest sum. Even $50 a year is less than coffee money, when you think about it. Heck, I can feed my family of 4 at McDonald’s for about $20 or so. Money’s not so tight that I couldn’t afford something with as big a return as this Board.

But I do have a question re: membership packages. My daughter is also a member of the SDMB. Would there be a discount for two or more members who were in the same family?

68

OK, here’s another question about the mechanics of all this: Once you’ve paid up, would you be able to post from any computer with Internet access, or just from your own?

I’d be willing to pay, at least if the fee was toward the $20 end, but the computer I’m using at the moment is provided by my employer. I’ll be leaving this job in the next year and possibly also leaving the US for an extended period. If I can only post from the computer on which I originally registered, I’m screwed. (I suppose getting a laptop is one possible solution, but it’s probably beyond my means at the moment.)

69

Some thoughts:

  1. There should be a free trial period. I think a # of posts free (rather than a month free) would be better. Let people see how much fun participation is. I think people get hooked by participating, not by being around for a certain length of time. Obviously, we would have a problem with people opening new accounts all the time. But a poster who does that will never become known on the board. Some people don’t care, but a lot of people do care. I like being a “reg.”

  2. Obviously, payment options other than credit cards must be available. Is there any reason why the site can’t accept checks/money orders?

  3. I like the idea of our members sponsoring other members who are on very tight budgets, but it must be a one-on-one thing. I would object to any “board of dopers” deciding who is “worthy.” Rather, those people who can’t afford it can make their needs known, and if anyone wants to sponsor them, they can communicate via email. I, for example, wouldn’t pay an extra $20 towards some fund, but I’d be happy to pay Nacho’s fee or pepper’s fee.

  4. To all those people who say “I won’t pay just to post on a message board.” That’s fine. Goodbye. I’ll miss some of you. But this is more than a message board to me. It’s a community. I pay taxes to my town. If I have to pay taxes to the board, well, that’s okay with me.

70

Most credit cards are Visa or MasterCard; I don’t think this would be a problem.

71

I’d like to second Sofa King and Fenris; General Questions should be kept free. It’s the forum that most benefits from the contributions of a diverse posting population. If I ask a question about astrophysics and a lurking astrophysicist happens to see the post, I’d like him to be able to answer my question without paying $20 for the privilege, especially if he has little intention of becoming a regular member.

72

No, I won’t pay to play. Nuthin’. Nada. Zilch.

I’ll go back to lurking, just as I did for more than a year before I registered. All the perks, no money. Why?

I sporadically hit this site, sometimes for several hours a day, several days in a row, then RL intrudes and I don’t get back for days, even weeks.

When I’m here, I read way, way more than I post. Many people cover the subjects I find most interesting and if my point is covered, I hate to see, and absolutely refuse to “Me, too”. And for all the intriguing topics covered, there are an equally number of wasted ones. Do I really care about so-and-so’s “Wish me a Happy Birthday”, or whositz’ “Look at me! It’s My Some Hundredth/Thousandth Post!”, or numbnutz’ “F*** You God!”, or…need I go on? Fighting Ignorance is side by side with demonstrations of inherent ignorance; no, it’s not worth paying a cover charge to rub elbows with the narcissists and the whiners and the paranoiacs and the obsessive-compulsives in order to get to the core of the party when Scylla is doing battle with Stoid, or Esprix is singlehandedly taking apart another rogue poster, or checking out the buffet courtesy of Zenster and others.

Next biggest reason? Life has become endlessly expensive. Think of the “necessities” these days. Internet access, DSL(if you have it), phone line(s), cell phones, pagers, and all this to keep in touch with the world just outside your door. Add my stinkin’ cable bill, which is damn near $80 now and ATT announces a minimum 5.5% increase on Jan 1, and I can’t afford this stuff anymore. So I’m dropping out. Something has to give, and in my case, several somethings.

So. Lurking works for me. And if I can’t post as a result of some fee, I’ll lurk even less.

Thanks anyway.

73

I’m more of a “reader” on this board than a “writer”, but I’m still very saddened by the new reality which faces us.

I know that the administration here has let us know many times before that The Chicago Reader was operating this site at a loss; but I think that Ed Zotti’s post was a real wake up call. We need to take this seriously.

And with all the great minds on the SDMD, I bet we could collectively come up with some alternatives to charging a subscription fee. I’m not really “established” here enough to feel comfortable opening a thread on this–but it would be great if someone started a brainstorming thread collecting alternative money-raising ideas. I don’t know if it’s possible for Cecil to allow us to look at the financial “books” regarding the site. If we had an idea of how much it costs annually, we might be able to figure something out.

A couple ideas that have been mentioned:
[ul]
[li]I know that donations have been shot down numerous times, but maybe we can take one more look at it. The idea of operating the SDMB as a non-profit org might have some merit.[/li]
[li] The SDMB should enroll in as many affiliate programs as possible. Seeing as the membership is pretty wired, and probably already does quite a bit of online shopping, it would be great if the Board could get a cut. I’ve noticed that many times when a book is mentioned in a thread, the title is linked to the Amazon website. I’d be happy to redirect all my book buying to Amazon knowing it would help out the SDMB. And with the holidays approaching, now would be a great time to look into it.[/li]
[li]I know that this may have a ton of problems with it, but is there some way the SDMB could make money off the many DOPEFESTS? I know that these get-togethers are really popular, perhaps there could be a $25 entrance fee? Merchandise could be made available at these events, and there might be a way the Board could get a cut from the revenue at the venue.[/li][li] This has been mentioned too many times, but once again: Advertising. It would be nice to see one more big push towards getting more ads on this board. Banners, pop-ups, whatever it takes. I know with the advertising market in a slump this won’t solve all our problems, but maybe it could make a dent…[/li][/ul]
Yes, these ideas aren’t perfect; but I’m sure with the collective brainpower on this Board, I’ll bet we could come up with some even better ones. One thing that needs to be said, however, is how impressed I am with the way this matter is being handled here. The administrators could have just announced: “Starting Monday, the SDMB will be subscription only”. But instead of just springing it on us, they actually wanted our opinion! They’re taking this slowly and carefully, and that is greatly appreciated. It’s generated a lot of good dialog, and I have no doubt that “the powers that be” are listening…

74

jarbabyj said:

Indeed. My position has always been that the admins and mods had every right to run this board as they found necessary and proper. I’ve said that many times, sometimes quite forcefully to the intentionally obtuse. I have never bashed a mod–when there have been things done I disagreed with, I have simply remained silent. I am a guest, and I don’t have any business complaining about my host’s way of doing things.

But if I was paying to be here I wouldn’t have the same attitude–I would no longer regard myself as a guest, I would regard myself as a customer. As a customer, I would feel free to comment on and protest about anything and everything. And as a customer, I wouldn’t be willing to put up with rules as vague as “don’t be a jerk”–there would have to be a set of rules that both posters and admins/mods would have to follow. Ed’s “we run everything the same while you pay” wouldn’t cut it.

Fortunately for everyone, I won’t be paying, so this won’t be an issue.

Anthracite said:

The time I took a look at your board I got the impression you’d already closed registration, or at least were discouraging new signups. Maybe I was the only one who thought that, or maybe not.

There seems to be a number of different reasons people will not (or, in some cases, cannot) pay a fee for this board. I certainly don’t “object” in the sense of thinking it’s not perfectly within their rights to charge, and it may well be necessary to do so–it may be that or nothing. (Not that I think this board will survive if it’s not free, but that’s another matter.) My position is simply that there is tons of stuff I can waste my time on that won’t cost a dime which wouldn’t be spent anyway.

What you say makes sense for those who actually would have dozens of people wishing them happy birthday, who make friends on the board, who posters would notice if they went away and never came back. But that doesn’t describe me, nor does it describe the vast majority of members here.

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.
It looks like it’s time for goodbye again.
(Billy Joel)

75

…But I don’t want to hear the “throwing out of a party” argument for someone being banned, nor do I want to hear that it’s anybody’s house. It’ll be all our house, and arguments of that type will not be so ironclad.

76

I agree with Green Bean about one-on-one sbsidizing of those posters we enjoy reading who can’t afford it. I said when this topic came up before that I would pay for Guinastasia, because I like to read what she says, though I don’t always agree with her. Maybe some of the rest of you guys that can afford it might consider helping out the students and starving artists/writers.

77

“Why now with the economy the way it is must they ask for funds?”
“I think you answered your own question.”
“My thoughts exactly.”

Not my thoughts becuz:

  1. assumption is a dangerous thing
  2. Reader is a FREE paper. (hey, why don’t they charge for it instead of us?)

“I heard somewhere that the Encyclopedia Britannica is thinking of charging for access, too”

My library computers have subscriptions to things like that so it’s still free. Dumb is they wrote the username & PW on the computer monitor. sigh

78

No, I closed unassisted registration. You see, there are a few people that are trying to hack my Board, and a few people that are trying to load it up with sockpuppets. And, there were a couple IRL people who I was potentially having some serious trouble with back in August (who are not on any Board I know of - yet) who I didn’t want to come over and register.

Then, after discussing it with many members, I received nearly 100% support to keep the Board “assisted invitation only”, as it acted as a screening process. So, that is how it has gone.

Your post does not surprise me, as several people have misinterpreted the text on the the form under “Register” on my Board, which says very simply:

And yet…I’ve had about 5 people tell me in the last few weeks that my Board was “permanently closed”. Of course, one person said it was “demeaning” to ask an Admin for registration. Well…shoot, if that’s their opinion, I’m sorry.

My little speech was meant to try to convince people who were not willing to pay a fee based on various personal choices. Obviously, it does not convince you. That is most unfortunate. If you say you are going if this comes into play, well, that is really sad, and I will honestly miss you.

79

Excellent idea.

Best combo of options I can think of: GQ always free, first 25 posts in other forums free. After that, ya pays up. Gotta HOOK em. That is SO important, and I hope the Reader gets that… It’s like drugs, nobody’s gonna pay for them til they find out they like em.

Free samples, baby, works every time!

stoid

80

Why not? It’ll probably still be listed in the registration that they reserve the right to ban someone for any reason. Do you know that if you pay for a ticket to an amusement park or a theater or a movie or a concert, etc. they can kick you out for breaking rules and, depending on what their policy is (which will be stated on the ticket), they don’t necessarily give you a refund, either.