Paid subscription plan?

Honestly if this goes Pay-per view how many vendors would be willing to have to pay to defend themselves thus making most arguements one sided and defeating the entire purpose of the BOI.

As to paying for rights to view the forums or classifieds there is plenty of free sites to go visit and the list grows daily.

Paying for things would IMO be just like KS which i would hope doesnt happen here.

Was that appropriate for a moderator to post out in public? Now I am in the position where I will look biased if I don't assess you warning points for that post.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ghlight=points

Third post down.

People get angry. It happens.

People post while angry. It also happens.

People get warning points for discourtesy towards another member... Happens.

Come to think of it, I believe I once got points for telling Evan Stahl that he was acting (and the acting part was bolded even) like an ass. Here Rich just flat out told Glenn that he WAS one. Let's see some of that famous even handed application of the rules and punishments... 'cause I *like* Fauna and would defend Rich and the site against just about any slight which could be conceived of- and if some of those people who don't like Fauna see this thread... and don't see some warning points... the stink they raise will be tremendous. Credibility will be lost. Civilizations will crumble. Empires brought low and so forth.

Originally Posted by Seamus Haley

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ghlight=points

Third post down.

People get angry. It happens.

People post while angry. It also happens.

People get warning points for discourtesy towards another member... Happens.

Come to think of it, I believe I once got points for telling Evan Stahl that he was acting (and the acting part was bolded even) like an ass. Here Rich just flat out told Glenn that he WAS one. Let's see some of that famous even handed application of the rules and punishments... 'cause I *like* Fauna and would defend Rich and the site against just about any slight which could be conceived of- and if some of those people who don't like Fauna see this thread... and don't see some warning points... the stink they raise will be tremendous. Credibility will be lost. Civilizations will crumble. Empires brought low and so forth.

Oh well......

I certainly do not have the answer.

Here is a bit of my experience though:

Another forum that I frequent has over 100,000 members with over 500 actively browsing the forums at any given time. There are over 230,000 active topics and heaven knows how many that have been archived. Yeah for them right?

A couple of years ago, the powers that be over there decided to offer subscriptions at around $20 per year. For their $$$, the subscribers (I was one) had access to 2 reserved servers with MUCH more bandwidth, a greater number of private messages (1000 vs. 100), and other features to be named later. The features to be named later never materialized and eventually the subscription service was allowed to die and be replaced by Google ad spots.

Rich , you obviously have a good deal of technical knowledge. Would it be possible to to create a subscribers only forum that allowed uploading pictures and allowed for more bandwidth while throttling the folks that like the free ride and preventing them from uploading pictures?

Another thought that occurs to me, when users link to images on their own sites, does it reflect in your bandwidth usage at all? If not, disallow non-subscribers from uploading images to your server conserving your bandwidth. I like the pretty pictures, but I am not here for pictures. I am here for knowledge. I have my own site for pictures.

What about Google ads? Any possible income there? Google likes to put them in the oddest places on a page, but they are a considerable source of income.

This mindless, incoherent babble was an attempt at throwing some ideas your way.

I think I will go back to bed now. Pneumonia sucks!

I agree with a few of the posters that if the BOI became a pay to play forum it would lose alot of activity and become half of what it is intended to be. With the level of actual "effect" the BOI does not have on an individuals business as it stands, with the addition of charging to allow someone to defend themselves it would drop even farther down on its attempted effectiveness.. Atleast that is how I see it. Boils down to the fact that its your site to do as you see fit.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I should care less about the effectiveness of the BOI and more about the entertainment value. After all, nearly every bad guy on the way out says the same thing, that nobody takes the BOI seriously anyway. So I might as well go with the flow. Heck, $10 is about what a half decent DVD would cost, yet that money would get you one heck of a lot more entertainment value in a year's time.

So what if half of the people dropped out? 8,000 paying viewers is better then 16,000 non paying ones any day. It could actually SAVE me a lot of money by keeping me from have to move to some really high powered servers in the near future.

Besides, I get lots of emails from clowns who think they are really slick because they can figure out how to make false IDs and come back on here after they have been suspended and booted out. I will be crying about that all of the way to the bank if they were willing to pay that $10 to try to pluck at my nerves.

No, the more I think about it the more I think that $10 a head would be a good way to separate the men from the boys here. And I could not care less where the boys go afterwards. Just leave the cream of the crop here and the rest can go wherever else they want to. If people want credibility, well then, OK, but are you willing to PAY to have it here?

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I should care less about the effectiveness of the BOI and more about the entertainment value. After all, nearly every bad guy on the way out says the same thing, that nobody takes the BOI seriously anyway. So I might as well go with the flow. Heck, $10 is about what a half decent DVD would cost, yet that money would get you one heck of a lot more entertainment value in a year's time.

I am not saying that everyone doesn't take it seriously, but can you say that it actually does eliminate the bad guys? Gubitz is still quite successful (atleast gives the appearance) even though he has many many very negative threads let alone posts on the BOI.. And even someone you hoped to ruin is having great success with their business that the BOI "swore to ruin" as I said it tries to be effective and is to a degree, but over all it is nowhere near as effective as those that claim it is wishes it to be.

Originally Posted by Randy T.

And even someone you hoped to ruin is having great success with their business that the BOI "swore to ruin" as I said it tries to be effective and is to a degree, but over all it is nowhere near as effective as those that claim it is wishes it to be.

Oh? Who was it that the BOI "swore to ruin"? And who exactly is this personification of the BOI that did this swearing? Does that "you" you use mean me personally? Begging your pardon, but I have NEVER hoped to "ruin" anyone at all. So just who is it you are talking about here?

As far as the effectiveness of the BOI, heck, I don't care either way. People can use it however they please. If it works for them, then fine. If they just get a bunch of laughs from the entertainment value, then that is fine with me as well. It's really up to them, not me.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Besides, I get lots of emails from clowns who think they are really slick because they can figure out how to make false IDs and come back on here after they have been suspended and booted out. I will be crying about that all of the way to the bank if they were willing to pay that $10 to try to pluck at my nerves.

No, the more I think about it the more I think that $10 a head would be a good way to separate the men from the boys here. And I could not care less where the boys go afterwards. Just leave the cream of the crop here and the rest can go wherever else they want to. If people want credibility, well then, OK, but are you willing to PAY to have it here?

I agree Rich. $10 isn't going to break anyone, but may retard the retards from returning under new names.

Just an opinion and I doubt it carries much weight but from an advertiser's point of view:

8,000 paying viewers is better then 16,000 non paying ones any day.

16,000 people seeing my ads vs 8,000 people seeing my ads is quite a difference.

Just another factor to throw into the choice between evils.

Personally, I think the issue with people logging in under new names is a minor issue when the big picture is looked at. These people that are at the forefront of everyone's thoughts for that week are soon gone. Does anyone remember Adam Block? Only the group that's been around for a while and just as a foot note.