Vote***financing Fauna***vote

[Tripple H Herps]

Rich might even think about using the site as a escrow for people that arent sure about the sellers,meaning the buyers could pay thier money to a escrow account run by Rich and upon delivery of the animals he would release the money to the seller,

-Good idea, however I wouldn’t go with that. I know Rich is a good guy. After all he does own this website But its not him I would be worried about. What is to stop a “sellers beware buyer” to use that system as a one way ticket to free animals. What I am trying to say is, if Jack little emailed you and inquired on your snake. So he sent the money to the escrow. You then immediately shipped the snake out to him. Upon its arrival, he declares it to be unhealthy, bad...or whatever else. Now you know that you sent out a perfect snake to him. However since he did not pay, he could always email Rich and tell him, his FAKE sob story. Rich can then give him a refund. I guess you can see it in two lights. It would be bad and good for both parties. It would be good for the sellers because they have someone else reviewing the matter, and bad because you never know who you are selling to. That is just my thought on it. If you look thru fauna, you can find allot of “sellers beware” types along with allot of scammer’s who will sell you anything just to make a quick dollar. I think if Rich banned the “bad guys” from selling ti would be much more beneficial.

Thanks, Jim
Just my two cents

 

[David Bellis]

I would think the best method of charging people would be one based on the amount of members using teh site. I have no clue how much bandwidth Fauna uses nor the amount of traffic to the site. As the price of membership increases, the amount of members will decrease. This, in my opinion, is terrible for the BOI. There will be people that won't post bad experiences just because they don't want to pay $35 (or whatever the fee is) to become a member. And the flipside is that good guy posts would probably never occur. After all, people only really take the time to post here when things go bad for them.

If it was $5 or $10 I would think basically everyone would pay to use the site. As I said earlier, I have no idea the amount of money spent maintaining Fauna so I don't know if fees this small would pay for the site. Perhaps you could have membership tiers of which people could sign up to. Light users that rarely psot and rarely browse pay a small fee. Heavier users could pay more. I don't know how much of a headache this would be for Rich to do but it may help.

I think (hope) the majority of people using this site would be willing to pay to keep it going.

 

[Monte]

like I said Rich . . .

. . . everybody has opinions.

You need to make the decision. Are you competing to be a competition to KS or are you willing to settle for a lot less but great value in just a BOI?

There has to be business models out there. Lots of other people are making money at this . . .

 

[kiote9]

How about Fauna periodically (say annually, for example) reminding the members that this site takes money to run and it would be appreciated if those who use it contribute by sending a donation to help cover the cost of running this site. It is much easier for me to part with my cash when I'm reminded that I am returning the favor.....they helped me so I help them. And the payment coud be sent by....maybe PayPal for convenience. Or money orders could be mailed to a P.O. Box or something. Just a suggestion. Might sound familiar to some of you, and it definitely works with me.

Would I pay to use this site? Yes. Would I have signed up in the first place if it was a pay site? NO! I was registered for over a year before I really understood what this place was all about. What really got me into reading here was reading posts on OTHER forums about the importance of the BOI!

 

[Lucille]

I have been reading and thinking about the posts each of you has written here, and looking at the votes. I appreciate the votes but would like to request more, a significant number of people looking are not voting and I do think y'all have opinions, and I would like to hear them...

 

[Mark and Aimee]

I vote that all the forums, including the Board of Inquiry, remain free to read and post in, but that members must pay to post ads in the classifieds.

Dead on.

 

[PAUL BOLLINGER]

My opinion

I think that the BOI NEEDS to remain free to the public. If you charge to utilize this tool then I think that people that have had misdealing, would tend to shy away from this media. There are other ways to generate revenue for this site.

1. Charge a 25$/Year fee to post in the classifieds section. Give those who pay this fee access to Members only Discussion areas. Anything other than being able to post to the BOI and Reading the classifieds would require this 25 Dollar yearly fee.

Another Idea would be to have "Search this Dealer" link in the Classified section that would allow the potential buyer to search easily the BOI and sellers history. This would make the BOI more user friendly and a stronger tool.

As far as fines being raised, well I don't think that is necessary. They seem to deter the lowlifes already.

The Escrow Idea would be a great Idea! I don't know what goes into that process, therefore I don't know if it's feasible.

 

[Bill_Leverton]

Let me start this off by first saying, I agree that we should help to deter the cost of running this site.But I was under the impression that when myself and others became contributing "Members" thats what we were doing .When I first got here, I hung out for a couple of months before giving up the cash for the coin.but in my opinion if you start charging for a member ship you might lose alot of people ......JMHO

 

[Lucille]

Bill, you do have a membership and I appreciate that you did that. This poll is about non members and just a way to scope out future possibilities, different ways to raise revenue; but your membership is active and appreciated.

 

[dwedeking]

When I first got here, I hung out for a couple of months before giving up the cash for the coin.but in my opinion if you start charging for a member ship you might lose alot of people

This is the part about charging for the BOI and other forums that I have a problem with. You don't find a site in the search engines or through a recommendation and put money into it unless your getting photos and movies It takes people a while in visiting this site to decide on whether it's worthy or not. Charging a fee across the board will lower the influx of new members. If that is OK with the powers to be that's fine. As an advertiser I like that the numbers are increasing and has a lot to do with my advertising dollar (above the fact that it supports the site).

 

[tarantulakeeper]

Why I paid $25...

is for the same reason I contribute to my local FM radio station for hosting NPR...I come to this site often and I wanted to contribute. I didn't pay though, until I'd been lurking for about four months. I doubt I would have paid up front. Having access to the BOI for free helped me research who to send my money to, and who to avoid. As a long time keeper of tarantulas and having done many transactions via the internet I know how nervous one can get sending money to someone on trust. Believe me, there are scammers out there selling arachnids. I am a hobbiest, having increased my snakes from 2 to seven, and being able to access the BOI for free has been a benefit. If it keeps just one person from being taken by a crook, I think it should remain free.
It might be too difficult to do, but ebay got started with the seller being charged a small fee when an item sold. Maybe the classifieds could work that way, nothing to list an item, but a percentage given to fauna based on the sale price. Maybe fauna needs a 'pledge week', like a telethon. lol John

 

[kiote9]

How about Fauna periodically (say annually, for example) reminding the members that this site takes money to run and it would be appreciated if those who use it contribute by sending a donation to help cover the cost of running this site.

I should clarify......by members I mean folks who are registered. I didn't understand the contributor coin until this thread. See, the BOI even helps itself!!!!! I must confess, it took me a minute or two to figure out exactly HOW to contribute. All you have to do is click on someone elses coin! Or find the bloody link to go to that page.....where ever it is.

Maybe if it was easier to contribute more people would voluntarily cough up a few bucks to keep Fauna strong.

Shelly Pauley

 

[John316]

I voted to increase the fines.
Since it seems that a large number of the threads now degenerate into pissing matches, off subject posting, flaming, etc. I would think that Rich could easily fund this site by upping the ante so to speak.
Lowering the amount of warning points required before a fine is imposed would make Fauna a much more useful resource and have the added benefit of generating the much needed funds. Let's face it, many people take advantage of the generous amounts of warning points by sniping at every given opportunity.
At the very least the above suggestions would help weed out those who tend to lead the pack when a feeding frenzy breaks out.

 

[Lucille]

DAGNABIT!

We have over 16,000 members. 70 people have voted so far.
PLEASE:

Email your Fauna friends and tell them to vote.
Promise your friends you will bake cookies if they vote
Tell your significant other that it will be a very lonely evening if they DON'T vote lol


COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WANT 10%, or 1,600 members, to vote this poll. PLEASE HELP ME!!

 

[romad119]

add different levels

How about making the contributer coin be linked to differing levels? Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum as examples. Maybe in increments of $10 starting at $15? Also if you go with paid classifieds have the fee tied into the level the person is. Gold for example would be charged less then the silver and so on.

 

[craig kade]

I feel this site is very important, however I think the "casual" user would not pay even 10 bucks to join to check on somebody. Yes I know it is money well spent, but newbies may not know that at first. If someone gets ripped off I don't want them to have to pay to get on the BOI and talk about it. I also don't want to make people pay to view my ads or post positives about me. In my humble opinion the advertisers(including classified users) should kick in some money. I know I personally will try to buy from people with contributor buttons next to their names. I understand their are expenses to running this site, but it seems lately there has been a big push on raising money. Did costs just go up considerably?? I also voted to raise fines, I think at least dbl would be fair, I know we all lose our tempers(I have points myself), but the habitual offenders deserve to pay for their privileges. JMHO. Craig

 

[WebSlave]

First off, I need to get rid of a misconception that this thread may give people. There NEVER has been any intention of making a blanket admission fee to this entire site. Please see THIS thread where I originally brought this up for discussion in another forum: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57039

The admission fee was intended to be a minimal "credibility hurtle" to people posting on the BOI, classifieds, and probably several other forums or categories as well. Everything else would be completely free to any registered member without charge.

As for the comments about raising the fines, HAH! Look at the list of people who have been fined and have just ignore that. Many have come back again under false names, and certainly many are here even now that way.

Tell me, what are the biggest complaints most people have about the BOI? Think about them. If you were going to take a step about trying to resolve those problems (if you can't think of them, think harder....), what would YOU do? This is the only way I can think of that has even a fighting chance of working. And that was the major impetus behind my coming up with this proposal in the first place. The secondary consideration that I am just about bone tired of putting up with all of this for free certainly plays into it, but I have absolutely NO illusions that enough people would be willing to pay enough for the services offered here that I will retire a wealthy man. Maybe a happy meal once a month will be more like it.....

Anyway, just needed to straighten a few things out before they got blown out of proportion. I'm basically staying away from this site as much as possible and doing other things with my time to get away from here. So if some emails and messages go unanswered for a spell, that's the explanation.

 

[Lucille]

I am sure that Rich will be looking in on this poll from time to time and I would ask everyone to participate.
I will be happy to answer any questions by IM, that I can, about polls and such.

 

[screamdreams]

My thoughts...

Alot of interesting points brought up here but I think the BOI and all forums should remain free, BUT...there should most definently be a charge for all classifieds. etc. $36.50 a year sounds fair...10 cents a day...I think we could all adjust to that pretty easily. The same goes for banner ads, forum sponsors, etc...charge for all of it. Keep the fines in place.

Webslave - is it possible to "ban" an IP address??? Would that help cut down people registering under an new name in lieu of paying any fines??? I'm sure you've considered any and all alternatives but I was just curious as to any options thay might be available to you that would help eliminate that problem...

 

[Melle]

I vote that all the forums, including the Board of Inquiry, remain free to read and post in, but that members must pay to post ads in the classifieds.

Agreed.