Anniversary of paid membership requirement for posting classifieds....

[The BoidSmith]

Nothing can say that you haven't tried every name in the book.

Sorry meant No one! You also need to do something about users hitting the send button before reading what they type

Sometime later, you then adopted the "Pay to Moderate" program which only bolstered that perception.

This is a very good point but somehow incomplete. If it works there's no problem with soemone paying to moderate. That's not the root of the problem from my perspective. The problem is who you accept money from and allow to become a moderator. Posters in this site have been quite adamant about not sending money to well-known scammers so as to avoid keeping them on business. They have also stressed that they would never even sell to such a person. Now, without giving names I'm pretty sure you know which people should have never have had the power to moderate. The Dennis Hultman is the perfect example of what a moderator is all about...he moderates without instigation!

In all of the forums that I visit, there are always a handful of individuals that help to DRIVE the site. They initiate discussions, answer questions, and in general help to make the site successful. When you lose the participation of these key people (and I think that you have lost several), the site suffers.

Then again is not as much who you loose, but who you allow to stay as they concentrate by default. If in addition to that they are allowed to purchase the right to dictate how others should behave, well...

Regards

 

[WebSlave]

A view from the outside.

This comes as no surprise to me at all.
Let's look at the history of the site from the perspective of someone no so close to the action anymore.

Rich, you created a wonderful resource for the reptile community
You put in what I am sure were endless hours and loads of money to bring it to the people. After a year or two (I'm unsure of the actual time-line), many loyal supporters of the site made donations, contributed animals and services for auction, and in general tried to help you carry on your vision. Not long afterward, you were convinced by many to charge admission to further offset those expenses. As I recall, you initially resisted that move.

Not exactly accurate. At first I set up a Contributor system, which was strictly voluntary. This ran for about a year, when I became concerned about the lack of credibility in the BOI because or NUMEROUS false registrations, along with people blithely bypassing bans by just generating a new registration. Remember Bob Sloan? How much time and effort do you think I was willing to spend to be checking IP addresses trying to figure out if the current joker posting on the BOI was in fact Mr. Sloan in another guise? The ONLY method that appeared to be feasible was to close the BOI to posting to all but paying members. At that time, I set up a structure of paid memberships, which included a minimal $10 per year level. If there was any money to be made from this venture it was to help pay for my time and efforts to maintain such a system (no it wasn't perfect, and I STILL had to check memberships against PayPal payments) and perhaps even help repay the gobs of money I had already spent on this site. But some people apparently felt that I should continue donating my time, money, and efforts for free for all eternity, and got highly incensed by this program.

You were prepared to lose a percentage of the membership because of the change. but, you were finally convinced it was necessary to ensure the continued existance of the forum. As it worked out, I don't think that you lost as much as you thought you would.

Not accurate again. We lost quite a few people. Some who I felt were important members. The numbers of lost members continued to mount as the system ran it's course, so that was a contributing factor for my finally terminating it. Just as I am apparently seeing with the classifieds system, many people demand their services on the net to be free or they go elsewhere.

Mistakes have been made, but needed to be tried, regardless. If I remember correctly, a LOT of people suggested going with making a paid requirement for posting classifieds all along, and I resisted THAT suggestion feeling it was a mistake. A feeling that has not abated, even after trying it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long after, that for whatever reason, you became disillusioned and adopted the previously mentioned "absentee landlord" attitude.

You are tying unrelated events together. THIS change in attitude took place right around the time that I had several forum moderators bashing the hell out of me and other members on this site within a new startup forum. THAT is when I began thinking "What the HELL am I doing here trying to help people who think THIS of me?" So I did cop an attitude. Try to tell me YOU wouldn't have if you had been in my shoes.

I personally feel, that this irritated quite a few of the people who had given money or animals to support the site. I believe, that at that point, it appeared to them that this had become all about money for you.

I can't help other people's perspective or thinking processes. But I find it incredibly hypocritical to have people who are in this as a business finding fault with me to try to make some money off of this site, and bash me for it. Anyone who is breeding animals to sell is doing so for money, EVEN if it is to only make back some of their expenses. If they could make a profit, don't try telling me that they wouldn't. So I get shot down because of even the perception that I might try to make a profit off of this site.

Sometime later, you then adopted the "Pay to Moderate" program which only bolstered that perception. The problems with that program have already been presented in this thread, and I will not elaborate upon them further.

Yes, this is when you parted company here yourself, Mike. Feeling that I should have allowed ALL members to have the power to grant warning points. Something I still believe would have been an incredibly stupid error on my part.

And my selection for the upper level paid members was chosen because that was the criteria I felt best reflected the committment those members had for the welfare of this site. I felt that ANYONE would spend $25 to be able to play that game (for free was OUT of the question), whereas spending $100 or more would cause most people to give pause and reflect about losing that money if they played the game and lost. Which DID happen to at least one member.

So the paid membership level was chosen because of what it meant, not to try to get people to PAY to play, as you seem to think. Which was likely obvious to most other people because this moderation power was granted to those people already at those membership levels, and they did NOT have to pay additionally in order to be granted that power.

Sorry if this finer detail was not clear to you.

With all of this, it is no surprise to me that the traffic is down.
In all of the forums that I visit, there are always a handful of individuals that help to DRIVE the site. They initiate discussions, answer questions, and in general help to make the site successful. When you lose the participation of these key people (and I think that you have lost several), the site suffers.

This is especially true with a site that has been dependent upon them because the site owner, has chosen not to participate on a daily basis and drive the site himself.

Perhaps. Certainly mistakes were made, although not in the manner in which you believe and are stating here. In your eyes, these were money driven decisions, but my intent was to try things in order to make things better based on observed criteria made evident by existing committments from members.

I wish you luck with the resurrection, so to speak. This was once a great site, and has the potential to be that again. However, I think it is up to you to make it so. Charging people for the privilege of running it for you, while an ingenious business move on your part, is not going to carry the site in the direction in which you have indicated that you want it to go.

There's an old saying in business: If it's going to be, it's up to me.

Good luck, and I sincerely wish you well.

Perhaps. I only have so much time and effort to put into this. If it requires more than I can give, then that's the way the cookie crumbles. I guess it does irk me that some people think that I just haven't given enough of myself for this site. But I guess I'm still living, so that is obvious evidence that I haven't given ALL to it.....

 

[northstarboasandmore]

Well I know you guys dont know me, but may I offer some advice? I am a member on a few different reptile forums and I have seen a system that seems to work rather well. I really think you need a core of say 4 site administrators, which will act as boss per say when you cant be around Rich. Then add in another 5 or 6 mods. I know you may not like this but you should hand pick the Admins yourself. Pick people that you feel that will run the site in your best interest. Then those admins will vote in how ever many mods that you and the admins decide on. Then once you become a mod in good standing you will also be able to vote for new mods as a group. I know sounds all like a little perfect world but please run with me on this for a few more minutes. But once you get this core group of admins and mods and make sure they enforce the Terms of Service I honestly think things will turn around for you.
Also I think the swearing should be cut down on here.. I can about guarentee there are amny younger kids coming in here to research information about their new pet or for school...Is this what we really want our kids seeing? I just think cut down the swearing, personal attacks, and a few other things I really think this site can make a turn around. And IMHO if the personal attacks were cut back I would be a more active member here myself. Right now I have met maybe 2 people from this site, so I really dont have much for personal ties here...So I guess if you need a bad guy to edit posts with personal attacks and anything like that I can be your guy.
But this is all my personal and honest opinion. Take it as you may and run with it..

 

[ravensgait]

Aaron, the BOI is one thing but for the rest of the forums swearing isn't allowed. Seems people just have a hard time separating the BOI from the rest of Fauna and think that the same rules apply to both and nothing could be farther from the truth.. Randy

 

[Gary O]

Rich the do it for money thing.

You started this site to help people. If you wanted to make a few bucks IMO you should have charged from the start. But you and I know that it would have never even got past 100 members. That is why it was free. Some feel that you started wanting to make money once it was built and the info was here.

I was one that felt this way. Once all the people put all the info on the BOI it went to charge to play. But lets face facts. The people are the one that put the info up. We both know this.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money off this site. Just be upfront about it and say hey I need to make money or the site is gone.(Which you have stated) It looks(not saying it is) you keep trying new ways to make a dollar but give a different reason for doing it other then say hey I need to make a dollar.

There is a lot of people that have put a lot of time into the BOI and Fauna. Maybe not as much as you but there is a lot of people. Not asking for a dime. There are a lot of people that have given lots of money also. 200+ may not be a lot to you me or Joe but to some it is a lot.

I am not saying that you are becuase I know you are not doing it. But sometimes it is like you are slapping some in the face.

There is nothing wrong with making money off a site. When you figure it out how too though can you let me in the secret? I found doing all the coding myself I save money but far from make money lol.

Can I ask some questions though? If you do not want to answer I understand.

Before everything went pay. Did you make more just off donations?

At what level of change did you bring in more money? Pay for BOI, Classifieds, or pay to be mod?

Forums are content. A forum with no content is nothing. But us as admins and owners can only control content a little. It is the member base that builds this content. Some feel charging for it after the members build it is a slap. I am more then happy to pay you to post classifieds. I think it is only right as I am USING your service to sell. If I post info or post on a forum to add to content it is a bit different. A classified ad is not content other then a google search bringing up old ads but I still will get hits to my site as I gain from the search too.

The reason charging for a forum will not work IMO is this. There are just to many FREE ones out there. the content can move at anytime. A member base moves to superduperforum.com and now they start posting all their content there. It will not take long for it to start getting hits from the search engines. the depth of posts are there. And BAM it is like nothing has changed but the color of the site.

That is why IMO forums are money pigs and not makers. Becuase there is always another one. All have the basics of pics, posting, PM and classifieds.

I knew when opening my site there was no way I would make a dime off a forum. and If I thought I could I would not have opened it. I feel things you can charge for though is as follows

Classifieds
More pic uploading space
Hosting (Another drain IMO)
Banner Ads

Hosting I know you and I could talk about it for ever. No matter what you price at you will have joe blow selling 10000GB of space and 10000GB of bandwidth for 1.99 a month lol.

You have to ask your self Rich.

Do you have the drive to run a forum any longer?

Do you love forums as you once did in the past?

Is the only way you would like this site up and feel you could give your time is to make money? (And just to be clear. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS AT ALL?)

I did not post this to fight. I just am posting about the paying to play parts and stuff. I felt at one time you were slapping some people in the face. I woke up and seen that this was not true. So please do not get upset about this post it was not posted to upset anyone. But to continue the talk.

 

[northstarboasandmore]

Aaron, the BOI is one thing but for the rest of the forums swearing isn't allowed. Seems people just have a hard time separating the BOI from the rest of Fauna and think that the same rules apply to both and nothing could be farther from the truth.. Randy

I am not trying to start anything, but just trying to offer advice. I guess you about need 3 strikes and your out rule. If you start enforcing these rules I honestly think people will start clicking and falling into place and cut the crap. I really honestly love the reptile world but the few bad eggs will wreck it as showing with the ban the US gov is reaserching into and will be bent on passing because of florida and the burms in the glades. To me the same thing applies to a forum.

The other reptile forums I belong to are pretty tough with enforceing their rules and you need to walk a straight line which is no problem with the members. As for one of the sites I belong to has already added 54 members this month. I see this site is a great place with tons of information hence why I joined it. But the few bad eggs that seem to attack people is what puts me off from posting here to much.

As for swearing and people trying to get around it....Thats just being ignorant. We all know what is truely acceptable. Pretty much as to go to the lengths of saying, would you hear that in a G rated movie? I know as what I am saying seems as to being to the point of policeing the site but after awhile things will cool off and people will fall in to place.

Rich, I am not trying to tell you how to run the site. But more of trying to give you ideas on how to make it more user friendly. If it becomes more user friendly, I think this site will take off once again!

 

[ravensgait]

Aaron there is a reason the rules on the BOI are more lax than you don't seem to get the difference between the BOI and the Forums here.. Randy

 

[northstarboasandmore]

I was talking more along the Forums myself. With the BOI I think there should be some rules so there isnt pages upon pages of crap that you have to read through to get to the point. With the good guys yes you will get pages upon pages saying how great they are. But with the bad guys it gets old reading personal attacks. There are really alot more tactful ways of going about it that will bring down the same heat on the person.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Aaron there is a reason the rules on the BOI are more lax than you don't seem to get the difference between the BOI and the Forums here.. Randy

Except that the reason in question has not worked that well. We failed to see the real Chris, Matt, etc. We posted until we were blue in the face with Harry, Noah/Bruce, digital reptiles, HCE, CRE, etc. You can do what we do as effectively without the name calling. Just post the proof. Which individuals have been caught? Small fries, those that posted wrong pictures and sent a sick snake. The sharks have endured until they were extinct by their own wrongdoing.

Stooping down to a level that is disgusting to most in the name of putting out of business an individual defeats the purpose of trying to make a site likeable to the general audience. One can look at the graphs and interpret in different ways. But I don't pay to post and I'm still around and there are probably many others in a similar condition. Paying is not scaring people away, paying to read X-rated content and be the subject of personal attacks probably has though.

Northstarboasandmore has a point. There was a teenager whose age was identified just by her own admission. She was very fortunate that Rich decided to ban her before the "hard core group" decided to go full steam ahead on her (it was starting already).

Best regards.

 

[WebSlave]

Rich the do it for money thing.

You started this site to help people. If you wanted to make a few bucks IMO you should have charged from the start. But you and I know that it would have never even got past 100 members. That is why it was free. Some feel that you started wanting to make money once it was built and the info was here.

I can't think of a single solitary website that started off charging members for anything that survived.

And no, it was not my intention with this site, but if anyone has a site out there of a similar nature to this who does not think that eventually they WOULD like it to become a money maker sometime in the future, I seriously doubt they are being honest about it. Everyone likes to think their efforts will be rewarded.

Honestly, I never even gave the thought of a paying site until my runin with James Thornton who offered to host this site (well it was HerpWantAds at the time), and handle all the advertising and split the revenue with me. Which never happened, of course, since he skilled out with whatever money had been made. But that was the first inkling I had that people WOULD be willing to pay even to advertise on a site. After Thornton skipped out, leaving me with a dead site, I then had to lease my own server and rebuild, which at that time pretty much opened my eyes to the issues of builiding expenses and the associated responsibility of keeping the site running.

I doubt most people have any inkling about the TOTAL stress that period put me through...

In any event, when my expenses and the total amount of time, effort and STRESS began building, I had to start looking at the toll it was taking on ME.

Another aspect of this site that few people seem to consider is that I face threats of lawsuits constantly. Where is the money supposed to come from to hire attorneys to defend myself? And what exactly am I paying to defend? Well, I am defending YOUR privilege to be able to post the truth on the BOI and not have somebody with more money then YOU threaten me with a lawsuit in order to remove YOUR words. Now ask yourself, why should this money (which could be significant) come ouf MY pocket that was earned from my reptile business? Tell me, WHY should I do that? This site needs to be earning enough money so that I can afford to protect YOUR rights, otherwise you have NO rights at all to post the information that the BOI was designed to display.

On a personal note, I am a big fan of Constitutional rights and such, so I am naturally inclined to just think this way. But as one of my attorneys once told me, if you cannot afford to take your case to court, you have NO rights in this country. Anyone can take what they want from you simply by suing you and forcing you into financial straits unless you give them what they want.

Don't EVER forget that.

Yes, I am protected by law, but that does not stop a lawsuit. It only helps me to win it. I would STILL have to pay all the expenses associated with that lawsuit, regardless. Why do you think so many other BOI type sites have failed? Because once they recognized this legal and financial liability, and looked at how much money was actually coming IN from the site, they realized that one single lawsuit, which was very likely, could bankrupt them. So the risk was just too great, and they folded.

And I don't blame them one bit. It is only because I am extremely hard headed and can afford to fight that I would even consider standing my ground in such a case.

Yes, I CAN afford to fight a lawsuit, because I built up a war chest by taking money from my reptile business and setting it aside. But that needs to be replaced by the income from THIS site. THIS site needs to be self sustaining financially, because it just flat out is not FAIR that I have to use my money in that manner.

So, was this something I knew right off the bat when I started this site. Nope. But that doesn't change the reality of it when it DID become obvious.

If I had realized this from the start, WOULD I have created the BOI? Probably not. Actually, if I had known then what I now now, about a lot of things, I most certainly would never have started the BOI.

I was one that felt this way. Once all the people put all the info on the BOI it went to charge to play. But lets face facts. The people are the one that put the info up. We both know this.

Yep, and nearly every single person posting there creates a possibly financial and legal liability. A lot of people will say how invaluable the BOI is, but when it came time to pay $10 per year, that fee was too much for many of them. Regardless of every time there is someone suspected of being a false registration there are cries for "IP CHECK!", and people want me or one of the site mods to spend our time to research that member. That period of paid membership requirement was designed to prevent that sort of thing right from the beginning. The fact that it WAS rejected simply told me that credibility is not all that important to people on the BOI, so if that is the case, then it is no longer important to me as well. You can't have your cake and eat it to. Apparently, what people want is more than they are willing to pay for.

Yes, the information on the BOI is important. But what is MORE important is that there IS a place where that sort of information can be posted and NOT removed because of pressures from the opposing party in a conflict. That, my friend, is something that is very difficult to find. And quite honestly, if this site finally gives up the ghost, I can pretty much guarantee that you will never have that available again. How many other people are going to be quite willing to go to court and spend $50K or better to defend YOUR rights to post information about a bad guy? Quite honestly, if a serious lawsuit threat had taken place early on with this site, I would have folded it. I could not have afforded not to. So anyone starting up a similar site if this one were to go away better had have that amount of money set aside for that eventuality.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money off this site. Just be upfront about it and say hey I need to make money or the site is gone.(Which you have stated) It looks(not saying it is) you keep trying new ways to make a dollar but give a different reason for doing it other then say hey I need to make a dollar.

I believe I've stated my case above. But yes, I would LIKE to make money off of this site. AFTER I have been reimbursed for the money I have already spent along with the time and effort AND replaced that legal warchest that has been set aside from my reptile business. If anyone believes that this is unreasonable of me, then please feel free to do so. If you were in my shoes, and been through what I have been with this site, you would think exactly the same way.

There is a lot of people that have put a lot of time into the BOI and Fauna. Maybe not as much as you but there is a lot of people. Not asking for a dime. There are a lot of people that have given lots of money also. 200+ may not be a lot to you me or Joe but to some it is a lot.

No "maybe" about it, Gary. No one here has put in even a fraction of the time and effort I have on this site But whether they know it or not, yes, they are asking for a dime. They are asking me to keep this site here, whatever it costs ME. Tell me, what would the utility of the BOI be if it became known that all it would take to get a thread deleted would be to seriously threaten me with a lawsuit? To just file the papers and it is done. What is the cost to me to be in a position to prevent that from happening? Every single person who expects me to keep their words here is asking that of me.

I am not saying that you are becuase I know you are not doing it. But sometimes it is like you are slapping some in the face.

Now this does interest me. It appears that there is this expectation that people can slap at me happily all day long, yet I am not afforded the courtesy of being able to respond in like kind. Who wrote that law? Check whatever instances you can recall, and I am positive that you will see that any slap I may have given someone was well deserved as a response to their own slap. And I seriously doubt I will change that attitude. If someone doesn't want to get slapped, then refrain from slapping me. Really quite a simple concept to understand.

There is nothing wrong with making money off a site. When you figure it out how too though can you let me in the secret? I found doing all the coding myself I save money but far from make money lol.

Still working on trying to figure that out. If the overhead could be reduced to zero, it would be easier. And you certainly can't factor in your own time at a reasonable hourly wage.

Can I ask some questions though? If you do not want to answer I understand.

Before everything went pay. Did you make more just off donations?

I have no idea. Honestly, I don't count pennies like that and try to figure out such things. I am working on my taxes right now and might be able to figure out how much was made on this site for 2007, but even then it's not all that easy. Right now, FaunaClassifieds is on it's own server because of the DDoS attack a while ago. Because of a bunch of reasons, I am now leasing four separate servers. So it's tough figuring out exactly what expenses go where. FaunaAds handles all the banner ads, but also covers ALL my sites, and the program really doesn't have a reporting capability at all.

So some of this kinds of questions just cannot be answered accurately, if at all.

At what level of change did you bring in more money? Pay for BOI, Classifieds, or pay to be mod?

Again, I just don't know. I'm just not the kind of guy who spends a lot of time trying to figure out mundane details like that. The memberships, remembering what I can, were higher during the first year it was implemented, but that was probably because of the $10 level. So there may be more $25 memberships now, which means the $ figure is higher. Which, of course, is likely from the paid membership requirement for posting classifieds.

Which brings up a point, some have overlooked. The whole point of this thread was that I am asking if the paid membership requirement for the classifieds was such a good idea. The REASON I would ask that is because I am considering dropping it if it is actually a detriment to the health of this site. Does anyone know what that means? It means I am willing to cut that income if it is best for this site.

Forums are content. A forum with no content is nothing. But us as admins and owners can only control content a little. It is the member base that builds this content. Some feel charging for it after the members build it is a slap. I am more then happy to pay you to post classifieds. I think it is only right as I am USING your service to sell. If I post info or post on a forum to add to content it is a bit different. A classified ad is not content other then a google search bringing up old ads but I still will get hits to my site as I gain from the search too.

This only has relevance in relation to the BOI. The discussion forums were never pay to play. I believe I have mentioned my reasons several times about why the BOI was pay to play. But I will add that the BOI also causes the most headaches and requires the most attention on this site, by far. And to this day I still believe that in order to gain credibility, SOME method needs to be implemented that will control the false registrations there. Of course, that may be a moot point if I decide to just drop the requirement of identified ownership of the posts made there. This has been running through my mind lately.

The reason charging for a forum will not work IMO is this. There are just to many FREE ones out there. the content can move at anytime. A member base moves to superduperforum.com and now they start posting all their content there. It will not take long for it to start getting hits from the search engines. the depth of posts are there. And BAM it is like nothing has changed but the color of the site.

Again, this only has relevance in relation to a BOI forum. And anyone running such a thing is going to run into the same problems. Credibility and liability will become their BIGGEST concerns if they get anywhere with a forum of that type. It is inevitable.

That is why IMO forums are money pigs and not makers. Becuase there is always another one. All have the basics of pics, posting, PM and classifieds.

I knew when opening my site there was no way I would make a dime off a forum. and If I thought I could I would not have opened it. I feel things you can charge for though is as follows

Classifieds
More pic uploading space
Hosting (Another drain IMO)
Banner Ads

Hosting I know you and I could talk about it for ever. No matter what you price at you will have joe blow selling 10000GB of space and 10000GB of bandwidth for 1.99 a month lol.

No comments necessary here.

You have to ask your self Rich.

Do you have the drive to run a forum any longer?

Not for free, I don't. This site will either pay for itself and then some or I have better things to do with my time. And besides, this is not the only forum I run. This is not the only thing I do. But by far, this is the biggest pain in the ass of them all.

Do you love forums as you once did in the past?

Love? I don't see how anyone can apply a term like THAT to a forum. I have NEVER "loved" any forum. And I would be highly suspect of anyone else who claimed that they do. What's to "love"?

Is the only way you would like this site up and feel you could give your time is to make money? (And just to be clear. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS AT ALL?)

I believe I have already addressed this. This site HAS to operate in the black. I am no longer interested in digging into my other funds to keep it alive.

I did not post this to fight. I just am posting about the paying to play parts and stuff. I felt at one time you were slapping some people in the face. I woke up and seen that this was not true. So please do not get upset about this post it was not posted to upset anyone. But to continue the talk.

No, I'm not upset. If people cannot accept the facts of life, then that is their problem. I have stated before that I can see the writing on the wall concerning the physical requirements of running my reptile business, and it is a simple fact of the matter that unless this site is self supporting, and hopefully enough so that it makes some profit, that when my reptile business has to end because of health reasons (which fortunately is not an issue quite yet), then so will this site. If I cannot afford to fight a lawsuit, then I will not be able to afford to keep this site, specifically the BOI, around.

Shoot, I'm not going to proofread all this junk. I may read it later and edit as necessary. Put too much time into this as it is.

 

[KJUN]

Rich:

I understand the site needing to stand on its own (at least) via income from users - whether it is paid advertisements, classifieds charges, or user-driven. Anyone that argues with that isn't living in the real world IMO. I had never really given deep thought to the valid lawsuit points you made. I'm glad you explained them so well. Thank you.

I also understand both sides about charging for posting classifieds. I see nothing wrong with it, but it did cause a decrease in the number of new posts/threads that interested me. I hit the site mainly to see the classifieds, and then I'd look around and read a little. When the pay-for-classifieds change occurred, fewer classifieds seemed to get posted, so there was less to remind me to hit the site and browse around. I was never a big poster here, of course, but I bet a lot of other people behaved the same way. i'm not saying it is right or wrong - just that it IS.

Concerning the payment to post on the BOI, do you think a compromise would be plausible: Instead of an annual fee, what about a lower fee for a longer period. This wouldn't help bring in income, but it might not reduce the number of people willing to post on the BOI by much......maybe $10 for 3 years or something? This would partially address the inability to prove a person is who they claim to be without (hopefully without running many people off), but would do practically NOTHING to help out the site financially. I do believe the pay-requirement that used to be in place wasn't the best option possible. I don't pretend to know a better one, though.

Finally, your other forum is much more successful. Would it be less of a headache if you moved much of this forum over there making cornsnakes more diverse (MAY be a bad thing, right???)? That'd leave this site pretty much the BOI with a couple of more generalized forums (the ones with the most traffic), and the classifieds. Make the classifieds pay or free, have advertisement buttons, or whatever it takes to make the site more attractive (potentially) and less of a headache and financial drain on you. The last two are, obviously, very important!

I've been VERY pleased with the cornsnakes.com classifieds system. This year, I plan to purchase an account HERE, too, as soon as babies start popping out. Of course, that assumes this site is still offering classifieds....lol.

Thanks, Rich!
KJ

 

[Gary O]

Thanks for the post Rich.

Best I could say is remove the few to post ads and find out man. If it boosts true traffic then we know it was that.

Overhead went up big putting Fauna on it's own server. I did not know it was a stand alone site now. So that is even more money out the door.

That sucks................. And DoS attacks suck. People need to find better things to do.

 

[akaangela]

I think this was mentioned before but maybe you could say first 5 classifieds free and then you have to pay? I have no idea how hard that would be to track but it would give the occasional poster the "FREE" and the people who sell a lot have to pay. Just a suggestion.

 

[WebSlave]

I think this was mentioned before but maybe you could say first 5 classifieds free and then you have to pay? I have no idea how hard that would be to track but it would give the occasional poster the "FREE" and the people who sell a lot have to pay. Just a suggestion.

It would require custom programming. Since this software is due for an upgrade, it couldn't happen now, anyway. Every modification to this site is a recurring expense for as long as this site exists. Because every time an upgrade comes due, those mods have to be reprogrammed all over again, since the main program code has normally changed so much that the old code cannot be simply reused. So I try to be very circumspect about custom mods these days.

Plus, what would prevent someone from simply registering a new account whenever they reached that 5 ad limit?

 

[WebSlave]

Concerning the payment to post on the BOI, do you think a compromise would be plausible: Instead of an annual fee, what about a lower fee for a longer period. This wouldn't help bring in income, but it might not reduce the number of people willing to post on the BOI by much......maybe $10 for 3 years or something? This would partially address the inability to prove a person is who they claim to be without (hopefully without running many people off), but would do practically NOTHING to help out the site financially. I do believe the pay-requirement that used to be in place wasn't the best option possible. I don't pretend to know a better one, though.

Yes, I had considered this possibility, and actually right before I dropped the paid requirement, I extended the duration of the paid participant membership to 10 years. But too little, too late, I guess.

Plus the argument I often heard was that someone wanted to post only a single post, and didn't want to pay $10 in order to do that. So that $10 being for 1 year or 100 years would not have mattered to them.

Finally, your other forum is much more successful. Would it be less of a headache if you moved much of this forum over there making cornsnakes more diverse (MAY be a bad thing, right???)? That'd leave this site pretty much the BOI with a couple of more generalized forums (the ones with the most traffic), and the classifieds. Make the classifieds pay or free, have advertisement buttons, or whatever it takes to make the site more attractive (potentially) and less of a headache and financial drain on you. The last two are, obviously, very important!

Yes, I have been toying around with that idea. CornSnakes.com has far surpassed this site with posts while only having a third of the membership. The general chit-chat forum there is the most popular, so I have considered just expanding that into more segregated forums.

So what's stopping me? The usual resistance many people have against change of any kind. I expect a portion of people there would resent this change, and I'm just not up to yet another hassle and headache.

Know what I mean?

I've been VERY pleased with the cornsnakes.com classifieds system. This year, I plan to purchase an account HERE, too, as soon as babies start popping out. Of course, that assumes this site is still offering classifieds....lol.

Thanks, Rich!
KJ

This site will always be offering classifieds. The only question at this point may be whether it will require a paid membership or not.

The wrinkle with considering the change is what do I do about the currently paid memberships? If I have to consider facing 200 people asking for full or partial refunds, then that workload to shoulder plus the hit to the pocketbook would create quite the headache, and quite probably change my mind on the spot.

So just trying it to see what happens isn't as easy as one would think....

 

[hhmoore]

While I understand that the occasional poster/advertiser might not get it, the Contributor level membership offers plenty of other perks (I still think that should be perqs, but nobody listens to me) that would still be there if you drop the requirement to post ads. Of course, many people will insist that the ONLY reason they paid was to advertise, and the other things mean nothing to them.

 

[Gary O]

The only reason I have paid is to post classified ads. I think Rich will even back me on that lol.

 

[hhmoore]

See what I mean, lol

 

[Gary O]

The wrinkle with considering the change is what do I do about the currently paid memberships? If I have to consider facing 200 people asking for full or partial refunds, then that workload to shoulder plus the hit to the pocketbook would create quite the headache, and quite probably change my mind on the spot.

So just trying it to see what happens isn't as easy as one would think....

I will go on record as saying no refund will be needed here either way you go. When my year is up you will be recieving 25 bucks from me again no matter what.

I sent the 25 bucks to use your classifieds. It has paid for itself. so no worries

 

[Gary O]

See what I mean, lol

I just do not use much of the bells and whistles. Shoot I do not even use them smilies lol. I do not need pic storage and I do not need more PM space. I do not need to be able to give warnings. I do not need to go into the Hell forum. I do not need to see IPs(they are way overrated)

But I will pay to use classifieds. If it did not go well I would not renew my membership but I think I did fairly well. I think the clasifieds could get more traffic here but it still is better then 95% of other classifeds IMO.