This way, people could still enjoy the board to a large extent, therefore leaving a large userbase to answer any question. If you take away the base of users allowed to reply to a general question, you GREATLY diminish the value of the board.
However, if you give thread-starting rights only to paid users, people will still have an incentive to fork over the money.
Has this been considered? what about other ‘extras’ for paying members?
I believe it is vital to this board, especially GQ, that you allow the largest userbase possible to respond to a post.
I, for one, think I will go back to using the straight dope newsgroup if I can’t get my questions answered here.
I think that would lead to massive hijacking, as all of MPSIMS is condensed into 7 all-encompassing threads that the seven people who aren’t cheapskates started, and each thread runs to several thousand posts.
That kind of thread could easily be locked or deleted by moderators.
and don’t call me a cheapskate for not paying up willingly. I can budget 20 bucks a month to use the internet, I can budget the computer payment, but I can’t budget paying for every website that I visit that decides to charge a fee. On the other hand, I understand the business decision, and have subscribed to other websites.
One of my points here is that the value of this board will be greatly diminished as soon as the charging starts. not as big a userbase to answer questions, equals not as big a reason to come to this site. plain and simple. no reason to pay, either, if the content is reduced by that much.
I think charging per OP would just make me reluctant to post certain questions, but I don’t think that means the questions aren’t worth asking (i.e. I think it would encourage ignorance).
I never said charge per OP. what I mean to say is let the great unpaid masses reply to any post, but not make any new OP’s. You want to be able to make OP’s, you buy the subscription.
Oops, I see it now; sorry - anyway, in that case I think waterj is right on the money about the potential hijacking problem, sure, the mods could lock or delete (it’s not like they have much work to do at the moment or anything ), but wouldn’t it get rather annoying to keep having your threads locked before the discussion has made real progress?
However…
GQ thrives on newbies posting questions in the first place. Things would get boring in a hurry if it were just the same old veterans starting threads.
), but wouldn’t it get rather annoying to keep having your threads locked before the discussion has made real progress?