Suggestion: Let us guests search the massive SDMB database

About This Message Board
1

I’ve been reading here off and on for a while (a friend of mine in the office is a regular) and finally decided to register to ask a couple of questions I had on my mind. I’ve spent a majority of my time in General Questions which I find very interesting and entertaining.

However, I’d love to be able to search in there to see if discussions have happened before about whatever topics come to mind. I assumed you just had to register to be able to do this, but after reading up I see that I have to subscribe.

With all respect, that doesn’t strike me as a particularly good deal. While $14.95 isn’t an inordinate amount, it’s enough that I want to know what I’m getting in return. I’m not a messageboard person, so I won’t be chatting up people about my weekend or whatever, discussing who got booted off American Idol, or whatever. In fact I think I’ve been coming here for at least six months to a year and I only recently had a question that made me bother signing up to post.

I would, however, be doing searches in General Questions about topics that interest me, but that’s the problem I have with the current system. I can’t take the database for a test drive, so to speak. To me it’s like buying one of those mystery boxes off eBay that could contain anything from a new Kitchenaid mixer to a tanned rat pelt. If I pay up and discover that searching is a pointless endeavor I’ll just wander off 15 bucks poorer for no reason.

Anyway, just thought I’d make the suggestion. Thanks.

2

Geez, if you had bothered to run a search, you would have found that I raised this precise point when I was a guest, here.

Just be careful: After I raised it, I fell unconscious, apparently the victim of a clubbing to the back of the head. I awoke to a burning sensation in my rectum and a bank account containing $14.95 less than before.

I’m just sayin. Be careful out there.

3

Ask members to search a few topics of interest for you, and post appropriate links to threads. That’ll give you the flavor.

I signed up for the GQ back in 2000. I stay for the interest in other topics and fora, too. It’d be worth it for me at twice the price.

4

In which forum should Energy Turtle do this?

5

[QUOTE=Gadarene]
In which forum should Energy Turtle do this?
[/QUOTE]

Presumably in General Questions, where the interest lies. :slight_smile:

6

We generally allow a bit of searching like this but if it looks excessive we’ll ask the members to refrain.

Yes, the ability to search is one of the goodies of membership. We want to make it worth your while to be a subscribing member and that’s one of the ways we do it.

What are we asking for from you? About three cents a day. If you don’t think that’s a good deal on the face of it I dunno how we can convince you otherwise.

You do sound like you do not intend to be a subscriber – but you’d like to have the benefits of one. Sorry.

7

[QUOTE=TubaDiva]
We generally allow a bit of searching like this but if it looks excessive we’ll ask the members to refrain.

Yes, the ability to search is one of the goodies of membership. We want to make it worth your while to be a subscribing member and that’s one of the ways we do it.

What are we asking for from you? About three cents a day. If you don’t think that’s a good deal on the face of it I dunno how we can convince you otherwise.

You do sound like you do not intend to be a subscriber – but you’d like to have the benefits of one. Sorry.
[/QUOTE]

lol… Ok, whatever. It’s apparent that you don’t have interest in me being a subscriber. I was merely making a suggestion, and you respond as if I’m trying to get away with something.

I know that it’s not a lot of money (as I posted originally), but that’s not the point. If you send me $14.95 I’ll send you a hilarious email forward every day for the next year. It’s only three cents a day, so why not? The answer is that you don’t know what you’ll be getting, and there’s a chance you won’t want what I’m offering once you find out what it is. I wasn’t sure that’d I’d be getting my money’s worth, so I made the suggestion. You’re certainly under no obligation to consider it. And of course, you may feel free to insult me in the process - it’s your site.

Thanks to everyone else who responded.

8

It’s not the same as searching, but if you haven’t already realized it, you can change the dropdown boxes at the bottom of each forum page in order to go back even further and to sort by title, number of replies, and so on. While this wouldn’t necessarily work to find posts about specific topics, it would let you get a broader overview of the sorts of things we talk about.

9

[QUOTE=Energy Turtle]
lol… Ok, whatever. It’s apparent that you don’t have interest in me being a subscriber. I was merely making a suggestion, and you respond as if I’m trying to get away with something.

I know that it’s not a lot of money (as I posted originally), but that’s not the point. If you send me $14.95 I’ll send you a hilarious email forward every day for the next year. It’s only three cents a day, so why not? The answer is that you don’t know what you’ll be getting, and there’s a chance you won’t want what I’m offering once you find out what it is. I wasn’t sure that’d I’d be getting my money’s worth, so I made the suggestion. You’re certainly under no obligation to consider it. And of course, you may feel free to insult me in the process - it’s your site.

Thanks to everyone else who responded.
[/QUOTE]

I’m with you, although my argument was also rejected in the thread I started. I have a feeling that, to the extent any effect could be measured, allowing guests to search would increase rather than decrease membership.

For me, I realized (before anyone had even responded to my question) that this was a community that was very appealing to me, and I paid up. I mean, after all, it’s only $0.000028 per minute!

10

[QUOTE=Energy Turtle]
lol… Ok, whatever. It’s apparent that you don’t have interest in me being a subscriber. I was merely making a suggestion, and you respond as if I’m trying to get away with something.

I know that it’s not a lot of money (as I posted originally), but that’s not the point. If you send me $14.95 I’ll send you a hilarious email forward every day for the next year. It’s only three cents a day, so why not? The answer is that you don’t know what you’ll be getting, and there’s a chance you won’t want what I’m offering once you find out what it is. I wasn’t sure that’d I’d be getting my money’s worth, so I made the suggestion. You’re certainly under no obligation to consider it. And of course, you may feel free to insult me in the process - it’s your site.

Thanks to everyone else who responded.
[/QUOTE]
Of course we’re interested in you as a subscriber; we want lots of people to come here and dig what we’re doing and sign up and pay up and have fun and learn stuff and be, you know, a community.

The point I was making – that you didn’t understand, apparently – is that we do offer a good deal here. The community is great, the ideas are free-flowing, it’s worth your time to hang here, it’s smart and funny and interesting. However, if you can’t see that on the face of it I don’t know what else I can do to convince you otherwise and I’m sorry about that, truly I am. The whole idea about the 30 day free trial is that you see what we have to offer, you check it out, and hopefully you’ll like it enough to step up.

We do not curently offer a plan for people who don’t care much one way or the other and might want to participate a little but don’t feel full membership is the way to go. We do ask for a commitment of sorts, it’s a business, we got hamsters to feed, servers don’t just drop out of the sky, etc.

No insult was intended – it’s not personal at all except that you asked and I answered – we want to attract people, of course we do. All I did was explain to you why we do what we do and why we can’t give you what you want. Obviously you’re not pleased by that and I’m damned if I know what else to tell you.

There’s a lot of message boards and etc in cyberspace. We’re not everybody’s cup of tea. We’d like to think we offer something people appreciate. If you don’t think our deal is worthwhile all we can do say “oh well” and wish you the best.

11

Trying to ameliorate TubaDiva’s intrinsic brusqueness here: it’s purely marketing. You get certain bonuses for paying. Otherwise, the Chicago Reader doesn’t make any bennys. One of the bonuses is you don’t get shown the door after 30 days, and the other is that you can search.

I am pretty sure, Energy Turtle that you won’t regret the $14.95 if you do decide to stay (where I’m from, that’s only slightly more than one pack of cigarettes, and the SDMB lasts a year and doesn’t give you cancer, so everyone wins).

12

“Intrinsic brusqueness?”

No one likes to hear “no, we can’t/won’t do that.” I’m sorry if he took offense because I said that. I’m sorry I can’t give him what he wants. I’d like to make everybody happy to be here but the choices are not always such that I can. I don’t know what else to say.

13

Like that, but politer?

14

Tuba, I agree with everything you’ve said heretofore in this thread; but the brusqueness comment is not about what you say, it’s how you say it.

Your response to my comment was also brusque as anything. However, I’m used to your manner and forgive it - but most visitors aren’t, and from observation of their reactions over the years, you can appear intimidating to them. Tone, dear girl, tone.

Failing that, just say what you normally say, and put a smiley on the end of it. :wink:

15

Y’know, it’s possible to read “Good morning” as a nasty dismissal. Actually, in the early days of emails, I had someone respond to my “Thank you” as if it were a mortal insult.

Brusqueness, methinks, is a usually a matter of tone of voice, which doesn’t adhere to a Message Board. I’m sure TubaDiva did not intend any brusqueness in her tone (she has said so.)

There are two points raised in the OP, seems to me:

(1) the suggestion that we offer search to guests, which we aren’t going to do (isn’t that exactly the situation of asking for the benefits of membership without paying for it?)
(2) the question of what advantages there are to membership. I note that Energy Turtle says he/she has been lingering and lurking on and off for a while.If he/she doesn’t know the advantages of membership, it’s not clear what we can say at this point to convince her/him. The ability to search GQ would seem to be the relevant answer, and it’s provided in the OP. ::: shrug :::