Listen I donated this time, and a few times gone bye but; I'll be damned if I will pay a fee to use a forum. If this is initiated I guess I will have lost my current and past donations, but I surely would not pay a user/poster fee. Paying will have little to do to get someone to clean up a post. Anyone can pay and still write doodoo! The thing to do is to get people to write within certain limits, and if they do not stay within the limits, then can them. Now you are saying if this happens, hey look Al paid and he is still writing poopoo, it will be ok because someone has paid to write it. Is that integrity? Because believe me that is exactly what it will appear to be to people who view the new paid for BOI, with the same old caca coming out of its backside.
As for putting myself into anyone else's shoes, no I don't have to do that because I did not choose the walk the road Rich is walking, Rich chose that road for himself. However I can attempt to look at it from his point of view and I have done that, and I see him losing money and maybe even this site if he starts charging to use even one forum. Rich has to ultimately deal with it, but in doing so he has to remember that his site depends upon its users to prosper. That is a fact that I, you nor Rich can change.
As for me leaving if he starts charging, maybe I will be of the minority when I drop out. I will certainly make haste for the door, so to speak, if and when it happens. My guess would be that others will drop out too. You don't seem to grasp the fact that one of the main draws here is the BOI and that does not mean simply reading the BOI but also posting on it. Has it become addictive enough to they who currently post as to get them to pay for the privilege of posting in the future. Start charging and I guess we will see, but my guess now is that the BOI will be forever detracted away from, in a irretrievable way, when it loses free posting. Furthermore, saying that the same rules will apply once a fee is charged, is rather lamentable. So the fee gets charged, people pay it, and now do the same exact things they did before because the same rules with the same enforcement are in place. OK, so if enough people have paid, you have accomplished one thing, getting more money to pay for this site, but tell me how that improves the integrity of anything except the bottom line?
One last thing. I am not privy as to how much money has been raised by asking for donations for this site; however do you think that donations will keep flowing once you start charging for use of the site. I did not donate all that much, only $25 this time and have made three prior donations too. Now someone is saying lets charge $10 or $15 a year as a BOI access fee. My guess is that others donated lots more than me, but that if they have to pay to use the site, they may feel wonder, and have a hard time answering, why they should donate anything further to it. I have been on plenty of other sites and never donated a dime to them, this is the only one, to which I have belonged, that has ever solicited funds from its members. How do they survive? How do they manage to maintain the integrity of their forums without charging a fee for forum use?
Of course maybe the whole problem is the BOI itself. Its mission is sort of an oxymoron of commercialism. How can one expect to attract advertisers without getting down on his/her knees and kissing ass? It is pretty darned near impossible in today's world of weak to lacking moral business practices. I won't go there any deeper, because I like the idea of the BOI myself, but I imagine that for business, it must take away a lot of the green. No wonder the competitors who are truly geared toward large scale commercialism keep such things off of their sites.
As it stands now, my position is out there. I have said my piece, no more from me, I don't think I could make my point of view any plainer than I have already - charging a fee for using the BOI would be absolutely intolerable, even if only to me! On that principle I will stand.
Best regards,
Glenn B
