The SDMB is switching to paid subscriptions

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421

Well, I have privacy & security concerns with using Paypal with anything but eBay (and I am not real happy about that, either, but I have a dedicated CC with a low limit just for them, and I watch it like a hawk). OTOH, I have already shared a lot of personal data with eBay- but not with the Chicago reader. Dudes here get NUTS about issues, and I could see some idiot hacking in and start sending me death threats or worse. :frowning:

So- I’d be happy to mail Ed a MO. I’d even be OK with making it a bit larger to handle any problems assoc with that- after all, it is my choice.

If Ed still says NO, and that’s his right, then let’s someone start another thread here of dudes who are willing to get a check/cash/MO in the mail from us “paranoids” :wink: , and then Paypal/CC the $$ to Ed/SDMB/CR. I’ll pick one. No offense, but I don’t want to go back over 8 pages of this to find one, then find out he posted in haste and has now changed his mind.

OK?

422

I think its an okay idea, I most likely will stick around for the next year.
I’d like so say that its really nice that for the original members to get a 1/2 off on all annual payments, thats quite generous!

Forgive me if this has been asked already…(I read 6 pages, and almost passed out)

But!

Does Cecil Pay for a subscription? How about the mods?

423

  1. We never HAVE guaranteed accuracy, not even from Cecil. Cecil has a high rate of accuracy, but even he is human, and has made a mistake or two.

  2. You will not be paying for accuracy. You will be paying to support a forum which you supposedly enjoy participating in.

  3. This is NOT Great Debates, and we do not need Devil’s advocates even there. You are perilously close to trolling, and getting banned NOW.

Lynn
For the Straight Dope

424

Whoa- wait a minute- you mean the ONLY way for me to pay is to: A- Give up my privacy and Paypal the SD/CR/Ed;

Or- Send another member my $5 and the only way they can pay for me is by getting my password and logging on as me?? I don’t like this either. Even if this other member is going to pay the $5 for me.

Or am i wrong, and will a member be able to Paypal say “ten memberships @$5 ea., consisting of DrDeth, RalphtheWonderDog, etc, etc”??? And not have to log on as those users???

If my choice is between the first two, I am sorry and the only way I can pay is by sending Ed that MO. OTOH, I am willing to pay that buck for a MO so that there isn’t any worry about bouncing checks, etc.

Let’s not be silly with these requests for 100% accuracy or that the CR owes us this .

425

I apologize, 12parsecs, that was for SwingWing. Your two posts were back to back and I mistakenly attributed his comment to you.

What the hell does this have to do with the point? If you’re unhappy that there will be a fee for the SDMB, vent it in the BBQ Pit. I’ll understand. I’m not sure what your argument here is. I never said people should be denied the right to sue. Are you saying that because the SDMB can’t guarantee accuracy that the site should be made free again?

426

In regards to the whole banning thing that seems to be a rather hot topic now, why not make the banning a temporary ban, like, say 2 weeks? Why does it have to be a permanent ban?

I know of a couple other boards that follow this model, and it seems to work well. Then, there could even be some kind of 3 strike rule (three 2-week bans over the course of a one-year sub), where that would equal a perma-ban.

Or (this is a little far fetched, but…) taking it a step further, have that banned person pay $9.95 or some fee to unban themselves (if they didn’t want to wait the full 2 weeks).

And, of course, these rules would clearly be stated in the agreement before registration.

427

If you have a problem with the policies of the SDMB, address it in the Pit. ATMB is not the place for it. You are very close to trolling here. Consider yourself warned, another trolling post and you’ll be out of here.

Lynn
For the Straight Dope

428

Sorry, I’d hate to be banned from SDMB with only few hours remaining on my membership :frowning:

429

Maybe.

Originally, I’d objected to paying for a service that took full copyright of my posts. It’s too close to vanity publishing for my ego (and it was ego-based). Somewhere along the line, the copyright notice changed into something non-objectionable.

However, I’m seriously pissed off at the general behavior of the PtB - They sit and discuss various revenue streams, and then don’t try them out because they might fail. Purely a mental decision, with no attempt to compare the theory to reality. Totally amaturish. Sure, they might have failed, maybe even probably failed. At least we’d know, and have made at least some money to defray costs. How does that compare to the subscription model they’re about to leap into? It also hasn’t been tried here. Will it work? Maybe. It might also fail miserably. The difference here is that if this fails, the SDMB is dead. If donations or selling classified ads had failed, the board would still have been the vibrant place it was before.

So - Rather than try low-risk options before, that would still have brought in at least some money, the PtB wait, collect no money, then go with an all-or-nothing change.

That’s flat out stupid.

I don’t like giving my money to stupid people. However, again - I have very much enjoyed this place, though I post infrequently these days, so - Maybe.

The sad thing is, had the PtB been willing to accept donations during the last time this came up for debate, I had a US$100 check already written out and ready to mail. It’s long ago been turned to confetti.

430

Actually, I’m not sure that airlines are the best analogy. See, as I understand things, the rights of airline passengers are controlled by a document known as a “tariff,” which is filed by the airline in Washington and has the force of federal law. The upshot is that consumers rights are often “preempted” by the tariff and the consumer is usually screwed in court.

However, if the passenger has paid by credit card, they have a more friendly forum available. They can initiate a chargeback against the airline which is often very effective. A couple years ago, Mrs. Lucwarm was screwed by an airline. I checked the tariff, and she probably would have lost in court. However, she disputed the credit card charge for her airline ticket and had a complete victory.

Similarly, I think that the SDMB is vulnerable to such chargebacks. As another poster pointed out, banks are not gonna be very warm to “Don’t be a jerk.”

431

Tranq, I don’t think it’s a “stupidity” issue so much as it’s a “disinterest” issue. Lynn said earlier somewhere that basically the Reader is finally at the point where they’re not going to underwrite the MB any more, so bottom line is that the MB now has to pay its own way. For TPTB at the Reader (and I’m explicitly EXCLUDING all admins and mods, because this wasn’t their decision) the MB has always been way, way down the list of “Important Things For Us To Think About”, it’s always been a marginal, fringe operation. So now the budgetary shit is hitting the fan, and it’s time for the folks who use the MB to pony up if they want to keep it. If TPTB at the Reader had really wanted to, they could have, and would have, figured out a way to make at least one of the previous fund-raising suggestions over the last 4+ years work. I hang out at other MBs who have gone through similar budget crunches, and in each case a way was found, because the board’s owners, whoever they were, cared enough to find a way.

But the Reader didn’t care, apparently. So to me, that says that they basically are just shrugging and waiting to see what happens. If the board has to close because not enough people paid, then they’ll go, “Huh”, and get on with their lives.

So, anyway, it does seem abrupt, I agree, but I don’t think it was “stupidity”, just “disinterest”. The SDMB was always comfortably and obscurely lurking in the background at the Reader, and now suddenly for fiscal reasons (always a vital reason to TPTB) it’s in the hot seat and is being required to justify its existence.

432

Gosh! I gave up on page 5 of trying to read this entire thread (which I found accidently, thank you very much (I guess the problem with stickies is I get used to the same ones always being there that they have the opposite effect than desired – I ignore them; how long’s this thread been here by the way?).

So, I’ll echo this sentinment: Gift subscriptions.
I’ll echo this one, two (if neccessary, modify the dang code to allow it): allow lurkers and non subscribed to do searches of 5 letters words and larger or whatnot. Yeah, this slows the server and causes more DB connections, but a newbie needs to know if he wants to be hear. Increasing to 5 or more letters will reduce the load a little, won’t it? Or permit searching of only certain forums!

For subscribers, PLEASE let us search for three letter words! It’s frustrating not being able to do so, and it probably causes more bandwidth consumption from new posts than letting us search for it in the first place (e.g., “car tax ibm now”).

How about multi-year subscriptions? Or LIFETIME subscriptions? Our loss if you fail.

I’ll be here… but I hope enough people are in a year to keep the place interesting.

Oh, and for bandwidth, switch to a slash-like moderation system. Hey! I’ll pay double for moderator points! Yeah, the software probably doesn’t allow it, but we all know that the moderators are overworked and that there’s a LOT of crap on a lot of threads. But making at least GQ (for example) user-moderable, we can filter out the trolls, jerks, and so on, leaving the good stuff available.

How about newbies getting the same $4.95 the first year, to get 'em hooked. Or instead of 30 days, maybe 2 posts and 15 replies.

As for cost, if you have a computer, you can afford it. Otherwise sell your computer, you pob! Okay, that’s mean, and I’m willing to pay for a gift if I like you and I think you really, really need it.

433

I’m looking for an answer on the money order issue, too. I don’t even use PayPal or CCs with Ebay - I always use MOs for that.
I’ve had several offers of Dopers willing to pay by CC for me, with me reimbursing them, as well as several offers of Dopers willing to flat-out pay for me, but what about following years? I really want to pay for myself (although I really, really appreciate the offers! You guys are too kind! :slight_smile: ), but I’m also hoping that we can be allowed to snail-mail in money order payments.

Lynn, I understand if it takes a couple of days to figure it out, but it would really be a help for some of us.

434

I’ll second that. I only discovered this as a post on G’Dope.
By the way, I’m in. Well worth $5 - less than a UK gallon of petrol (OK, Gas) :smiley:

435

You’re just so wrong it’s sad. This is just a discussion board attached to the official website for a newspaper column with the title “The Straight Dope”. The board itself has never claimed to BE “The Straight Dope”. The COLUMN is. Please read that a few times over. There is nothing stated that says that Cecil will answer your question in one of his columns.

Uh… since it isn’t an information service at all–paid or otherwise–why should that be relevant?

436

Chewed up by a flying pig, no doubt.
:slight_smile:

437

Great! I’d describe it in a different way and get banned for life … well 32 hours anyway :slight_smile:

438

A second thought - email the Teeming Minions and advise us.
Would’t work with me of course, as I don’t use that email address anymore as it’s a spam pit, and will be closing soon anyway.

I originaly posted as Myglaren, but there was a problem signing on and I couldn’t use my primary email address anymore, or that name as ‘it was already in use’?

Even worse, I’ve now ‘upgraded’ to broadband and have even more problems getting in, and tha braodband account has insisted on a new email address.

maybe I should just reregister as a new user?

Problem, problems.

MODS - any chance of recovering the ‘Myglaren’ ID under a different email address - I did request this info but never received a reply?

Also, the Slashdot approach to modertion certainly has appeal, as sugggested by a previous poster, sorry, name dissapeared in the general haze and I’m on dial up at the minute, would take an hour to relocate that post.

439

Don’t be so sure that we’d have made at least some money. Every potential revenue stream has costs associated with it. Ads would increase bandwidth, which is a cost. Merchandice must be made before it can be sold. Donations would require the Reader to spin off a non-profit arm, which would need its own management. If nothing else, you have the cost of your tech team’s time, in setting up whatever your plan is. So it’s possible that some of those schemes would have lost money, rather than gaining it. And for all of the other schemes discussed thus far, the Powers that Be have decided that it’s not worth the risk.

Meanwhile, I do agree that paid subscriptions could potentially kill the board, but I’m not too worried about that. If they do, it’ll be slowly, and I trust that the administration here is smart enough to keep an eye on things, and make changes if necessary (reducing or eliminating the fee, extending the trial period, etc. Whatever it takes).

440

I used it first, and for some time afterward, with a great deal of trepidation.

However, it has always worked quickly, accurately and painlessly. Never had the slightest problem with it.
The only thing to watch out for, as far as I am aware, is not to respond to the dubious emails asking for account deatails verification and such.

I generaly bin them as soon as they land, but out of curioasity I did open one then sent it to paypals ‘spoofmail’ service. They responded very quickly and verified that it was indeed a ‘phishing’ expedition and contained a malicious worm - had I been using Windows it would have replicated itself and sent a copy to god knows how many other people.

They stress that they will NEVER ask for this kind of information and any exchange of these type of details will only be processed by logging in to your secure account and verified by you.

I have in fact just updated my credit card details in order to pay my subscription to this board.

I have only positive experiences of PayPal. YMMV.