Paid subscription plan?

Just received this email this morning:

From: "FaunaClassifieds Forums Forums" <webmaster@faunaclassifieds.com>
To: <webslave@faunaclassifieds.com>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: Reported post from FaunaClassifieds Forums


> XXXXXXXX ( mailto:XXXX@XXXXXX.com ) has reported this post:
>
> Ive had no problems w/ Daniel Haney
> http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...361#post220361
>
> This is part of this thread:
> DHSERPS - DANIEL \ DAN HANEY - haney0831@msn.com (USE CAUTION)
> http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...threadid=60057
>
> This is the reason that the user gave:
> I thought self promotion was against the rules. Its clear that he used a 2nd user ID to try and talk up his own business.
>
> This message has been sent to all moderators of this forum, or all administrators if there are no moderators.
>
> Please respond to this post as applicable.

Well, fancy that!

Personally I am inclined to really not give a rip about that situation. If you all want the BOI to be freely accessible, that that is fine. But this is the sort of thing that you are going to have to accept as well. I am trying to prevent this sort of thing with a minimal "credibility fee" for the BOI and some people are fighting me over it. So who will have to clean up the mess afterwards for situations like this? And for *free* no less, wasting both my time and the time my moderators put into this?

You can't have your cake and eat it to. So here is the cake, people. You decide what you want to do with it.

I am moving this to the BOI, since it does apply quite a bit to what will happen to that forum. Plus I want to get MUCH more feedback then this is actually getting before I make a decision.

I think maybe given the nature of the BOI, it may be a little hard to demand a subscription fee. Although, we have no problem with a subscription fee (as we certainly donate much more than $35 a year), I just can't see someone not being able to address an issue reguarding them on the BOI because they aren't a subscriber.

As much of a headache as it is, I think the fines are the way to go. It makes it very plain to all of us here what type of person would circumvent those fines and ultimately, isn't that what the BOI is for?

Yes, there does seem to be alot of riffraff that comes and goes and that is just something we have to deal with.

Wendy, I disagree. This is not a publickly owned entity. It's private and as such Rich can charge to come here and defend yourself too.

Chances are good guys will either already be members and therefore have the ability to both read and post or, being good guys, will have no need to post other than to say thank you. I few standard thankyous, made available to anyone on this site at no charge will allow a non-member good guy to say thanks at no cost.

If there are bad guy threads then the people those bad guy threads are about have to decide if it's worth the 10.00 defend yourself in this thread fee, or the 35.00 yearly fee or the 125.00 lifetime membership fee. IF that person figures this site and its readers carry enough weight that our opinions matter, they'll pay up. If they don't that's no ones fault but theirs.

This site is not a priveledge. It's publickly accessable but privately owned and operated and can limit who has access to what and where at its whim.

I think the fee would be another filter. This place could use some filtering.

for everyone that uses your site period!!! I pay over $130/year for the other site and I wouldn't have a problem paying to be a member here as well. In the past I've voluntarily sent in donations now and then just to help out but think a $25/year fee would be a good starting point. You are providing a valuable service to all and as the saying goes "there are no free lunches."

I am very new to this site and I manage a group of web designers/programmers and also do web hosting. A fee is a great idea. It would help you make the site a better place with more features. This is a very informative site which helped me out of a scam.

One thing I would hate to see is the BOI become part of a fee site. Think about it, someone looking for a pet that has no intentions of ever buying again would have to pay to see if the person they are buying from is good or bad. I think the BOI is way to useful to charge a fee.

As far as the duplicate responses maybe you enlist a few volunteers to combine posts as each one may have a little use ful information. I would be happy to volunteer my time, no problem.

For the last few weeks I have really enjoyed this site and would to see stay as busy as it is now.

You have done an incredible job and you should reap some kind of reward from it.

I would gladly pay $25 or $35 a year to help Rich keep this site going strong. I think for this type of information/entertainment it is well worth 6 to 9 pennies a day.
Rich, I told you a few years ago I don't know how you handle all this, but I'm really glad you do, thanks.

I believe that the BOI would become irrelevant pretty quickly if subscription fees were required in order to post. It would become a relatively small group of BOI regulars talking to themselves.

If somebody just got screwed out of a lot of money and then he comes here to find out he has to pay another $35 to warn others, I think he might just say "let them figure it out themselves".

If somebody is accused of something in a BOI thread, it doesn't seem right that they would have to pay a subscription fee to defend their name. I know that this is a private site and Rich can do whatever he wishes with it...I just believe it would be website suicide.

I would support fees for posting classified ads or increased penalty fines.

I would pay for using the classifieds and such, the rest of the site could be free imo, but maybe paying for ads would cut down on people scamming. Also a way to have a limited number of days an ad can be up would cut down on all those old ads taking up the classifieds. So that way people don't make mistakes and reply to older ads where something has already been sold.

One way to fix the people sneaking in under different names after being banned would be to start charging a one-time setup fee for new accounts, but allow all the accounts already established to continue being free users in the basic category with reasonable privileges on most parts of the board. Basic users might not be able to do certain things like send private messages or upload photos, but they could read and post. For a deluxe account with extra privileges, users could choose to pay more.

In order to maintain a wide enough advertising base to be able to charge for it, I think it's important for a completely free membership category to continue existing, perhaps a read-only category where people could view the BOI but not post on it. Ad revenue can "carry" a site both ways - you get money to pay for hosting, and the advertisers get a guaranteed ad base because the free user traffic is so high.

I'm not sure there is a single solution to this problem that is both fair to the site owner and effective on a practical level, but a "tiered membership" structure might just do it. A grandfather clause that allows current members a free basic membership would also keep from annoying the folks who have made voluntary contributions already and who may feel that it is unfair for them to first be asked to donate and then be told to pay.