Paid subscription plan?

Yes, the original intent of the BOI was to be a help to everyone. And I hope the rest of this site surrounding it is beneficial as well. Which highlights my worst fear: In trying to make this all more beneficial to me, will I make it less so to everyone else? Does it make me appear to be greedy to even think about charging for some of the access here? I am leaning more towards $10 per year for posting rights on the BOI, maybe the Classifieds, and maybe a few other selected forums. I don't think that would be much of a financial hurdle for anyone, yet it would certainly accomplish what I would hope by providing a bit more working capital for this site plus make it a substantial disincentive for people to bypass the suspensions just to be able to post their blather again. Heck, even for the entertainment value of the BOI, you would pay around that much just for a DVD to watch for entertainment. So I really can't see people griping all that much.

I will have another level of accessibility, which is already in place now, for those people listed as Contributors. As I find time to think about it, I will be gradually widening the gulf between regular registered members and those people who are Contributors here. Minor things like the number of retained private messages, size of avatars, maybe even the number of attachments for graphics in classified ads and the like... Things along that line.

There are a lot more things I want to do with this site, but to be honest, I am just not willing to go through all of the work, expense, and headaches, just to break even any longer.

I have not read more than a few of the other posts in this thread (the first by Rich Z and the last by him for example), I don't have to read more in order to give my opinion, and I don't want to have my opinion effected by others before I state it but, I will read the others sometime after I write this:

This is your site to do with as you please, and to charge for above and beyond any contributions you have received if you feel it necessary but, you asked for opinions so I will give mine. As to just having to pay in general: You can look at your site like television. It can be free, or it can be cable where people pay. Well if you go the 'cable route' then you had better expect other sites to do likewise, and you had better expect a level of competition that you don't get now. People who spend their money tend to spend it where they get the most bang for their bucks – just like your, and your competition’s, advertisers do. Is your FREE site at FC the number one herp site right now? If not then where do you think it will wind up in the ratings when people have to pay to use it? Sure you may get a bunch to pay the first year's dues (or however long is the pay period), but will you get them again next time? Sure your programming may be great, but for how long until the price needs to be raised? Cable promised all the best in television, now they sell a lot of junk shows with a lot of commercials unless you pay premiums atop the premiums you already pay! I would hate to see fc go that route, even on a small scale. I do not think paying is necessarily a bad thing but, I wonder if this site is ready to be converted and if it is ready to lose members? Will you wind up having made the conversion with even most of its users intact? As far as a membership dues goes, let me make one thing very clear though, I do think charging a fee for the BOI would be a very bad thing.

Of all of the things that should remain free on this site, the Board Of Inquiry ranks number one in that regard! It was placed here to weed out the scumbuckets, and dirtbags who screw others over in this hobby just to make a buck. If you charge a fee of $35.00 to use the BOI then only those in business are likely to afford it, and only those in the business will leave one another feedback, and one of the whole reasons to have a BOI has then been flushed down the crapper because you will not be exposing the bad guys to the general herp world but only to the ones who paid their dues to fauna Classifieds. Do you really think that someone who buys maybe three or four herps in a year will pay $35 to use this site and the BOI (the site's main draw right now - isn't it?)? I doubt it very much but, I'll bet there are a lot of users like that on this site. I don’t even think many of those same small time herpers would pay $10.00. People who want to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys would not necessarily find it worth $10 to find out - even if it actually was a cost effective thing to do. Then again, regardless of who will pay what, it seems that there will be a hint of impropriety (note I said hint of it – and that is exactly what I mean) surrounding the BOI, and my bet is it will be viewed more than it ever has been as a Good Old Boys Club kind of a thing. I wonder if that would be too far from the truth; you see the more you make it appear to be an exclusive clique the more, I think, it actually becomes one. Right now I understand that such is not the case, the BOI excludes virtually no one from joining initially and; it only winds up excluding dunder heads who have screwed up badly in their posts after the fact. Charging for the ability to use it will change all of that, especially when it will be the professionals who will likely be the ones to sign up. That isn’t right as I see it, and the BOI would become useless. So if you charge a fee for fauna Classifieds, why not just do away with the BOI or leave it free!

As to preventing jerks from using this site, or from registering after they have been banned, maybe $35.00 will do that but certainly not a $10.00 membership fee. Jerks would sign up at least monthly, maybe even weekly for $10 just for the opportunity to be jerks. If you charge a higher fee, like the $35.00 you had considered, then a jerk with lots of money will be able to keep registering. Then again, you will have had cut out a lot of jerks but, I am willing to bet you will have lost a lot of good people too. Instead, I would recommend dropping another one of your sites (a specific one with lots of shall I say less than respectful posts, you know the one), in order to save money that could then be used here at FC. I would also recommend a fund drive from contributors. I find it a bit difficult to believe that if you decided to charge a $10 membership dues, that such would put an end to you asking for donations. I am only guessing here but, I believe it would be a difficult stretch for the funds gathered from a membership fee of $10 per head to add up to what you get in contributions each year.

As for me personally, I have said this before, and will say it again: When a site like this starts charging a membership fee, you can probably count me out. I don’t care if it is $1.00, $10.00 or $35.00. You have advertisers paying fees to advertise, other advertisers as supporters (I guess paying higher fees), and contributors galore. If I did decide to pay the membership fee and stay, I would certainly never make another donation to the site. If it stays a free site, I will continue to make donations. There is a certain principal (or is it principle or is it both) involved.

If you need money why not ask for it as in the past. Have a contribution drive, raise your advertising fees, but please don’t expect users to subsidize your advertisers. You always seem to get lots of donations, well anyway that is when you ask for it yourself instead of having others facilitate things for you. So why not just go that route instead of the way of charging everyone a dues? Just my opinion as usual and; I say it again: It is your site to do with as you want but let me add, it is also your users’ money to do with as they please.

I just went to make another contribution to FC; however, when I did so I could not find the 'make A Contribution' icon. Then when I clicked on my "Contributing Member' icon I saw why. Well shame on me, or someone else, but when I contributed my last $25.00 to fauna classifieds it was a CONTRIBUTION and IT WAS NOT A SUBSCRIPTION FEE. There wa sno talk of which I was aware at that time of making it appear as if it were to be a subscription fee either!

Yet, if you click the Contributing Member icon, it certainly appears, at least to me, as if I ordered a subscriition rather than simply contributed. It also makes plain that any future contribution will be marked as a subscrition fee, that it will give elevated benefits, and will be good for one year. **** man, a contribution has no time limit. Contributions are, in essence, charity. Contributions are not and should not be membership or subscription fees! Nor should they ever been construed of as such! A contribution is a one time thing (each one is a one time thing although anyone can of course give as often as they like) and, someone who has contributed remains a contributor forever. Just because a year passes does not mean someone was not a past contributor - yet your sbscription plan seems to ignore this as fact by giving the icon and elevated status for a one year period. Then again, why do you have to give anything for contributions, we are giving for the good of the site, not to have a 'nifty' medallion appear next to our name. Sur I like the medallion, but it is not needed to get my contributions; never was and never will be. The quality of this site gets my money in the form of contributions and nothing but contributions!

To have taken a contribution from even one member and then to make it appear as if it actually was something else (a subscrition fee) seems very odd to me. Am I incorrect to think that is what was done? Or was it that you had planned all along to make it a subscription fee, and made ikt appear as if we were contributing not for a years dues, bit out of a desire to help your site as best we could afford?

Did I just miss all of the announcements you made about it back when I last donated. I sure remember that is was a contribution, and that it was initially handled like that. To now see that if I want to make another, my next would have to be viewed as a one year subscription is ludicrous to say the least, and insulting to say a bit more. Was it your intent to imply or say contributions were actually subscriptions because it looks hat way to me now! After now seeing you possible plan to start charging, well - it has me wondering was there an ulterior motive for you to possibly misrepresent my contribution as other than a simple contribution so you could attract others to paying for subscriptions! I must also wonder (and I do mean wonder as opposed to being accusatory) if you are trying to push your 'fee for membership plan' down our throats anyway you can? I will say outright, that at the very least, it seems to me to be a misrepresentation of how and why I gave my money to you! If such is the case and, if my contribution has somehow morphed into a subscription - that does not sit well with me. I will be reconsidering my future contributions so called subscription to this site if they can only be interpreted as a subscription and not as what they were meant to be: a contribution!

Glenn,

I'll just make this short and sweet, OK. Sometimes you can be a REAL ass.

I GAVE (as in FREE, NO EXTRA CHARGE, THANK YOU) people who recently donated money a FREE subscription membership. No one HAS to renew. I didn't HAVE to do that, now did I? I thought this would be a nice gesture on my part, but damn, I guess you just prove my point that NOTHING I EVER DO WILL BE APPRECIATED OR APPROVED OF BY EVERYONE.

OK, Glenn, I will withdraw your Contributors status. Give me the word and you can have your damned contribution back as well.

Over and out.

Sorry Glenn. I forgot that once I pulled the Contributor status that so offended you, you were no longer able to access the Steering Committee Meeting Room. Therefore, I am moving this out into the FaunaClassifieds Feedback Forum.

I've been meaning to open up this topic to the general membership anyway, so this is as good a time as any, I suppose.

As someone who freely recently (and will donate more later, since I was tapped out due to the holidays) donated $10, my two cents is that I would have no problem paying a yearly or even a one time registration fee.

I don't envy you for trying to figure out how to implement it, though. As has been mentioned it would indeed be a tricky thing to charge for the BOI. Not knowing the legalities of such a site, I hope that making the BOI a for fee or for profit site doesn't make it easier for people to try to sue you. Hopefully, somehow someone can think of a way for fees to be implemented, yet keep the actual BOI free so that it's usefulness doesn't change.

Yet, even if the fees are for advertizing/ extra privileges, or what have you, there is still the problem of how to control those trolls or bad guys who just keep reregistering.

Maybe we could do like the public service tv stations, and have a pledge drive once a year or something?
I don't know.

Ever since DAY 1 when I set up the original BOI, this problem has plagued me. How do you keep people from setting up false accounts? How many people set up accounts like this to falsely give themselves public pats on the back to raise their reputation and status? How many others have false accounts to post negative things about a person to make it look like there are more people then is real that have had a problem with that person?

And for those people who have basically worn out their welcome, what good is it to suspend them, and take away the benefits of the information provided by the BOI, if they can just come back on as someone else in a heart beat?

This problem alone is difficult to address and come up with a suitable solution. And that is not even approaching the issue of what it takes, in money, time, and effort, just running this site.

As long as the donations and people paying for the extra bells and whistles I have set up give me the pocket change to do what I need to do with all of this, paying the bills as they come in, then I don't have a problem from the financial angle. But I have to admit that traffic here is growing all of the time, and sooner or later I am probably going to outgrow pretty quickly even the new server I have set up now that we will be moving to sometime next week. I have seen some REALLY huge vBulletin sites on the net, so maybe I need to do some investigation to see what sort of hardware is needed to run those sites. I guess I had better have a ball park figure in case we continue growing as fast we have been in the past. Maybe the people running those sites are just independently wealthy...

Heck, we are adding an average of 20 to 25 new members every day here. On January 5th, we had 51 new registrations on that day alone! This is unreal. We are getting over 50,000 raw hits PER DAY lately on this site. That's 1.5 MILLION raw hits per month. In December of 2004, FaunaClassifieds transferred 137 Gigabytes of data that month. Every month ALL of these statistics are growing!

Yeah this all sounds like a good thing, because YAY! the site is growing like a weed, but it's darn scary when the costs for all of this have to come out of my own pocket, if the optional charges I have set up just flop on me. Quite frankly, if it weren't for the advertisers, hosting, and donations, I just wouldn't be able to justify pulling the money to run this site from my REAL business. I just hope that this all can stay ahead of the curve as my expenses increase as traffic increases.

Rich,

Take the money and buy yourself a chill pill or, better yet buy a respect pill that makes you maintain respect for others. No one called you an ass, no one accused you of anything, I gave my opinion, and I asked what was going on, and I stated I did not like what I saw so far, but I expected a reply with some intelligence from you, of all people. I certainly did not expect crude and rude disrespectful remarks that I would expect from users over at your Arms locker site. other site.

You have some nerve calling any supporter an ass for staing their opinion. You do not need to like my opinion about how I think my money or my contributions are being represented, but I can still have my opinion and freely state it. Sure you can also have an opinion about me, but I note that when you asked for money:

I gave it at least a few times and, well I was not an ass then was I?

When you asked me to be on the original steeriong committee I was
not an ass then either, but a trusted person to help with ideas.

Nor was I an ass when you asked me and then assigngned me to be a
moderator on Arms Locker.

I was not an as either when I picked the name for Arms Locker and you
decided to use it.

It seems I am only an ass when my opinion differs from your, and I state it plainly. Maybe you should put yourself in jmy shoes. I did not ask for anything extra for my money. I did not expect anything extra for my money. When I make a donation or contribution I am making just that. I do not need anyone changing the status of how or why I gave my money after the fact and, that goes even when you believe that you are doing me some sort of a favor by giving me some sort of an elevated status. That is my belief about this, and if you do ot like it that is your opinion, and that is fine by me BUT; there was no reason to call me by anything else than my name.

Respectfully,
Glenn Bartley

Glenn, sugar, it sounds like you have done many good things. I hope in the future you will choose to do many more.

From time to time, men talk, tempers flare, and people have different opinions.
I am asking, please, as a favor to me personally, to withhold any escalation.
I will not speak for others, and I cannot step between y'all, but I can ask from me to you, that you and I talk. IM me.

Please.

Lucille,

First of all, I did not post anything to blow my horn about doing good, I was making a point about how wonderful I was in the eyes of Rich Z so long as I dished out my money, or my assistance but, then when our opinions differed as they will, suddenly I was labelled as an ass!

Second, you do not see anywhere in my post an indication of my temper flaring as it did not.

Third, you do not see anywhere in my post insulting debasing language to refer to Rich Z.

Fourth there is no escalation as you call it coming from me.

I came here to read the issue and then to discuss in like manner as had many others. In doing so I expressed my opinion, to which I believe I am entitled and; I did so in a respectful manner. Finally, the reply made by Rich Z to address the issues I raised in my first two posts in this thread was a reply that lacked respect. That is not an escalation, that is an observation of fact. If someone called you an ass in a post, would you leave it at that or would you defend your own honor. I made my defense and I have left it at that.

By the way, if you did not want this discussed further (is that what you meant by escalation?) then why did you bother posting more. I had not intended to write another word here, and you can check with Rich Z to confirm this - just before I made this current post I had turned of my sunscription to this thread. Right after doing that, I checked my email and, I saw I had already received an email notifying me of a new post (I guess while I was unsuscribing from this thread). I looked out of curiosity and saw your post and; I replied only because it was directed to me specifically. I would guess I will not be receiving any further notices about additional posts because I already ended my subscription to this thread, so it is doubtful that I will post herein again on this issue. I hope that is to your and Rich Z's liking - to have shut up anyone like me who is in opposition to the fee for use issue (especially as it would pertain to the BOI), as opposed to leaving it as a fee for advertising and contribution thing.

I do regret that it came to this but, I was not the one to call someone else, who was dicussing this iissue, an ass.


Sincerly and with best regards,
Glenn B