Final poll on the membership fee program

[leaftail]

And to be honest, I may just walk away from this for a couple of days, as some people have suggested.

No reason why you shouldn't take a vacation, WebSlave, if your ass is feeling a bit laminated lately

 

[Bill_Leverton]

Oppps wasnt done We will be here when you get back I'll to watch the snow fall for a couple of days

 

[Ophis]

Ive been where you are (Sort of) Webslave. I started a business from scratch and got it running pretty well. I was making some good jing but I just couldn't deal with the headaches. I was having these thoughts at the same time as I was working on doubling operations. One day I just snapped and said WFT was I thinking!!! and sold it all. The vacation deal is a perfect example. There you are on vacation (with your cell phone of course, because your a control freak and have problems delegating responsibility and your THE ANSWER MAN.) trying to enjoy yourself while thinking of the huge pile of built up crap waiting for you when you get back. Then when you get back, WHAM!!! there it is!

 

[reptilebreeder]

I have told people that I would face lawsuits in order to keep their right to post what they want on this site. And people will tell me they will leave if I charge a "piss ant" fee of $10? Quite frankly, YOU don't deserve to USE my site or take anything of value from it. Matter of fact, I have just this moment decided that I AM going to implement this plan. If for no other reason then to give you 19 people the incentive you need to leave. So there. Get your butts off of my site. I am not going to check to see who you are, and I am not going to force you off. All I am doing is saying I am calling your hand with the cards I have on the table.

Bravo!
I was one of those who wondered about the "philosophy" of charging a fee, and what affect would it have on the impartiality/philosophy of the BOI, but even though I had reservations, I was always ready to pay a membership fee if one was implemented.
But for those who just whine that this place has been free so it should stay free, or that your "rights" are being taken away, or you just don't feel the $10 is worth it to you I think WS, has called it just about right.

 

[Sasheena]

I'm all for it. Felt too poor to contribute, then one day said HECK WITH IT and pulled out the stops and spent the money. Didn't even ask hubby if we could afford it. Figured he just went and bought some silly DVD's and spent big buck$, so why not.... and once I contributed... I realized... jeeze, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Times will be up and down, so will the money factor, (hubby and I ARE teachers after all)... but this place is worth it.

I believe that with the BOI visible to all, it will continue to be the important resource it has always been... in actual fact, I believe it will be better.

I believe that Rich has put a great deal of thought into the matter, he has done everything he can, now he's going to see if the BOI will sink or swim... is it good enough to truly support itself, or will it be a failure at "real life". Only way to know is to shove it out the nest and see if it flies.

 

[Milwaukee Reptiles]

I too was too poor to contribute... then realized that I spent $75 on a new aquarium, so as soon as I sold the entire clutch of bearded dragons I gave fauna an even $75.

I'm glad rich is taking a quick break from all this drama. And quite frankly, he deserves it! He's been operating this site, spending countless hours and likely thousands of dollars because he likes the industry. Not only has his fun project become work, but it costs him a lot of money to hear people complain about all the hard work he puts in.

Rich, ENJOY YOUR VACATION!!!!! I hope the changes you bring about make the entire thing a little less stressful.

 

[Milwaukee Reptiles]

PS. Screw anyone who blames you or tries to yell at you or says anything negative about you or your decision. They can go elsewhere, and I don't want to be talking to those types of people anyway.

 

[WebSlave]

Heck, it's really not a vacation. It's basically a drive to anywhere but here, and we may stop over for the night before turning around and coming back home. I'm not even sure where we are headed except that it is "south". Well, southeast and THEN south. The Gulf of Mexico is due south of us.

But I'm so bushed that I will probably sleep any time I am not driving...

 

[Classic Dum's]

One suggestion I got, is there anyway you can impliment a system where it is pay to read or post but someone with a free acount could do a search to see if there is info there about a person they are trying to do biz with? I would tend to think that would get new people interested to pay the $10 bucks.

As far as the rest trust your instincts you have a better idea of traffic patterns and what not on this site then any of us. I know one week I dont have to log in to read the BOI and the next I do. 10$ is by no means going to break anyones bank, personally I would tend to think anyone who will set up an acount, not thats its really a big chore but does take a few minutes, would also be willing to pony up the $10. Anyone who will set up an acount is willing to have their name on the list of people who were here today etc I would think will pay.

In all honesty I think people will whine but will all pay up in the end get over it and come back. How many other sites have implimented new rules, changed formats etc etc everyone protested, boycotted, yelled and screamed like it was the end of the world. 30 days later everyone forgets and they are all back in the same forum, doing the same things like nothing every happened. I think it will be the same here, some traffic may slow for a while but in time everyone will get over it and come back.

The other thing Rich doesnt owe any of us anything, period!

 

[Classic Dum's]

Oh and what the heck does this mean?

I am Dyslexic of Borg. Your ass will be laminated.

 

[RhacoCiliatus]

I think you should charge a fee for this site, but just for people who post classifieds. If you think about it, these are the people making money off the site. Also, if you charge people for posting on the BOI, you may stop some people from posting, thus increasing other herper's chances of being bamboozled .

Peace

Ciro A. Spina

 

[nextworld3]

Hey Webslave,

I almost never post on the BOI, but i do check it a least once a day more for the fun of reading it. I use the classifieds sometimes, when i have a bunch of extra inventory. I really do like this site and see nothing wrong with charging for it. I pay over $200 a year on KS for classifieds. So i guess 2 cents a day isnt going to hurt me even if i post only once a month ($10 yr).

My real question is WHY ARE YOU EVEN ASKING US? It is your site, and if it is a finacial burden then CHARGE FOR IT! All you will do is weed out the better advertisers (less scammers, they dont like paying for things) and people in general. People think they can abuse something as long as they lose nothing. When people have to start paying, they want to make sure they are getting some good in return and will be more helpful trying to keep it on the up and up.

You may lose some memebers but i think you will keep the better ones (who wants the ones who are just a drain on you anways), and a lot more of us who sell higher end animals might start posting on the classifieds a lot more, if serious members start coming here.

Its your choice and your site! So just implement the $10 already so i dont have to keep reading all the pages about the fee lol. Oh by the way id pay it no problem, its much more fun then a magazine sub.

Jon Dvoretz

P.S. please excuse all spelling im great in math, but cant spell at all lol.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Voters: 32. You have already voted on this poll

Regards.

 

[Neverending]

The second option is the only one i see working out,imho.

...and everything Jon said in his post above.

 

[WebSlave]

To be honest, I am still getting "high centered" on the point of offering the free "Participant Membership" for 500 posts. I'm not sure that is in everyone's (including mine) best interests or not. I am positive that there are several people on this site with more then 500 posts who are not really who they say they are. So even with the long term involvement with this site, is it fair that I allow them to continue with that deception?

An alternative would be to exclude the post counts that anyone has already made on the BOI, which would cut MANY people's logged post counts dramatically. I guess my reasoning behind this is that the main reason I would be offering the post count as an alternative to paying the membership fee is because people posting that many messages here would definitely (in my opinion) be "participants", and contributing their fair share by taking part within the discussion forums. Quite frankly, participation ONLY within the BOI is not what I am looking for to make the grade.

Or maybe I should just chuck that idea completely and make things simpler for me rather then worrying about how to make this more fair for everyone.....

 

[Neverending]

I myself would have paid the $10 fee @ 50 posts.
So i think you are still shortchanging yourself.
(Keep in mind how much free viewing i would have already done with only 50 posts as well).

I say.. if we have over 50 posts,bill us all $10 via e-mail.
I'm serious,the boi is far to valuable a resource to risk losing.
Just direct them all to this thread in the billing e-mails.
They will pay it now,or they will pay it later when they have a need to...

 

[WebSlave]

I myself would have paid the $10 fee @ 50 posts.
So i think you are still shortchanging yourself.
(Keep in mind how much free viewing i would have already done with only 50 posts as well).

I say.. if we have over 50 posts,bill us all $10 via e-mail.
I'm serious,the boi is far to valuable a resource to risk losing.
Just direct them all to this thread in the billing e-mails.
They will pay it now,or they will pay it later when they have a need to...

Well, either I am misinterpretting what you have wrote, or you have misinterpretted what I have written..

What I am proposing is that ANYONE wanting to post on the BOI, classifieds, and a few other forums, will have to pay the $10 membership fee. My suggestion that I am still mulling over is to WAIVE this fee for everyone who already has posted 500 posts on this site, indicating that they are already a long-standing member here. In other words, if you already have 500 posts on this site, you will automatically become a "Participating Member" which will grant you rights to post in the above listed forums without paying that $10 per year membership fee. Or, at anytime in the future, when someone does exceed that 500 limit, they too will automatically be upgraded to the Participant membership level.

Does this help make it a bit easier to understand?

 

[tai_pan1]

I can't believe

that I read my way through this whole thread! I'm exhausted and my mind is now numb! Rich, do it! The complainers will go or they won't, either way it doesn't matter.

Mike

 

[tandy4000]

What I am proposing is that ANYONE wanting to post on the BOI, classifieds, and a few other forums, will have to pay the $10 membership fee. My suggestion that I am still mulling over is to WAIVE this fee for everyone who already has posted 500 posts on this site, indicating that they are already a long-standing member here. In other words, if you already have 500 posts on this site, you will automatically become a "Participating Member" which will grant you rights to post in the above listed forums without paying that $10 per year membership fee. Or, at anytime in the future, when someone does exceed that 500 limit, they too will automatically be upgraded to the Participant membership level.

I like how that sounds, but you should find a way so that you dont have some guy doing 500 posts on his first day just to get around that fee.

I'm also thinking maybe a small charge per classified and everrything else free(like, less than a dollar a post on a classified)

 

[WebSlave]

I like how that sounds, but you should find a way so that you dont have some guy doing 500 posts on his first day just to get around that fee.

I'm also thinking maybe a small charge per classified and everrything else free(like, less than a dollar a post on a classified)

Yeah, that is a concern as well. Although it would be tough for someone to post that many times in a short period of time, it never ceases to amaze me what people will do to save $10.

As for the charge per classified, no, that would be difficult to impose in the current format. However it would not be that tough at all if more people go over to the new classifieds section I set up. Perhaps one alternative I should consider is to restrict the free classified ads to ONLY the new classifieds section in order to give people more incentive to moving over in that direction. That would be rather easy to implement.

However, bear in mind that with PayPal's fee structure, for a $1 transaction, I only get 67 cents. So if I went much lower then $1, PayPal would be getting more out of this then I would.

In any event, I will likely begin the process tonight and through tomorrow (Sunday) for this. So if you find that you can't do some things that you used to be able to do, that may very well mean that you need to consider becoming a paid member here.