Wow really confused

I just joined this board and I’m confused.

You’re saying that after 30 days you have to PAY to be a member of this board?

If someone can please explain that to me, I’d appreciate it.

Ta da!

No thank you then, delete my account. Asking for people’s money, almost 15 bucks a friggin PERSON is pretty sad. I know that running a message board like this is nothing. Depending on your bandwidth, thats all you guys should be worried about. My forum and hosting plan is only 36 bucks a year, which compared to this is nothing. You guys should have more than enough money to pay your bills.

A message board is a community. What kind of community are you willing to have if the members have to pay to post?

Sorry but it seems like you’re just after the money to me.

If I offended anyone here, sorry.

To sum up: You can always read the board, even if you’re not a member at all. After joining, you can post for 30 days for free. After that time is up, you can still read for free. If you want to be able to post after that time, though, you need to pay. This really is a good board, and the price isn’t too high, in the scheme of things (fifteen bucks a year), so we do hope that you’ll decide that it’s worth it. Once you pay, you can then post as much as you like for a year, at which time you would have to renew (pay again) for another year.

Konstantine, why don’t you hang around for your 30 days, and check the place out? SDMB is an extremely popular board with a limited budget. They went pay last year to help fund new, faster servers and better connectivity. SDMB is associated with the Chicago Reader, a weekly paper. We’re not talking about message boards associated with The New York Times here.

You’re welcome to stay around for 30 days. Then, if you decide this isn’t the place for you, then we wish you well.

This community has over 4000 members who have paid to post. It’s really a wonderful and diverse community. Stick around for a month and see if you still feel the same way then.

I can assure you that even the cheapest hosting that would meet the requirements of this board would cost significantly more than $36/month, much less per year.

Does your forum have 7,000 active members (not counting regular lurkers)? That’s how many people posted here before the board instituted the paid subscriptions. The bandwidth costs for that many subscribers is a little more intimidating than $36 a year. I don’t think $14.95 a year is too much to pay for this place, and 4,000+ of my friends agree with me.

–Cliffy

As I post this, your forum has 4661 posts and three people online. We have individual threads here with more traffic than that.

The SDMB has over 5.6 million posts, and averages 500-700 users online, peaking at 1600. You can’t host that kind of load for $36 a year.

People here really aren’t as mean as you’re making them out to be. If you honestly cannot afford to pay the fee, then go here. If you’re just being stingy, however, I can’t help you there.

Is this the largest message board around then?

According to Big Boards, the SDMB is 49th in size. I don’t know how accurate that is.

GAIA Online claims to be the biggest. I personally haven’t seen anything bigger. They’ve had 24861 people online at a time, so yeah. Pretty big.

That means you guys make somewhat around the margin of say what, 40,000 dollars a year?

I honestly can’t afford to pay 15 bucks. I’m not going to blab about my family’s financial situation online because it’s private but money isn’t something we have right now.

When the boards first when to a pay system, members were given some time to sign up at $4.95 for the first year, and 50% off the going rate after that. The board doesn’t have 4000+ members that paid $14.95.

If you would like to join but don’t have the money, I would suggest posting a request in this thread that Spongemom linked to earlier.

It’s a fun board, stick around and give it a try.

Here’s my suggestion…hang around for your free month. This really is an excellent board with many intelligent and witty people. By the end of your trial you might discover that it’s worth scraping up the money to become a member, or, if you make an impact, someone may very well offer to pay for your subscription (it’s happened many, many times - there are some extremely generous types here). If you’re not impressed you can always read the boards for free.

I hope you stick around, and not just because we’re almost the same age and you happen to be female. :wink:

What?

If the site was free it would shut down overnight. In the four years it was free, out host, The Chicago Reader, subsidised us to the tune of over $100,000. They didn’t want to continue throwing away money.

Hi. I balked initially, too, just because I have never paid to participate in a message board before. But the more I read, the more I realized I wanted to retain my right to post… even if I wasn’t sure I’d post often. I’m pretty broke, too, so I can sympathize that $15 is a lot of bread and milk. But like others have pointed out, there is a thread for sponsors.

I think it is worth the fee for the moderators alone.

They are pretty vigalinate and I think they are fair.

The other boards I’ve been on are like the wild wild west.
But hey, if I was joining right now, I don’t think I’d have the 15 bucks to spare, so I know what that is like.

So post for 30 days, lurk for a while. If you think it is worth it. Join.

Hey! We may be vigalinate, but we still keep our eyes open. You betcha.

Konstantine, before this board went pay, we were having server outages and lag time like you wouldn’t believe. Trust me, the pay to post was needed.

And it’s not like this is the only place to charge. Something Awful has a subscription fee, doesn’t it? (Good god, I can’t imagine what their bandwidth and server fees are like!)