Im going to say something controversal

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Maybe..

I know the hosting costs for the forum I help with are quite expensive and we have no external advertising g to raise revenue.
The advert idea was put out to members and they rejected it as it is a pain when viewing the forum..

All money raised goes into maintenance and hosting fees..

It also stops people just signing up and using the forum as free advertising for cars/ spares or whatever..

The general consensus from all members being that the free technical advice has saved them much more than £10 annually so more than happy to contribute ..
 
I think this post will probably prick a number of members' consciences to make a donation.
I think it was Mr MM a few months ago suggested it would be a good idea to make a contribution and the response was very positive.
Compulsory fees would be a turn off for most I suspect but then I have absolutely no idea what sort of costs or peoples' time is required to run and maintain the forum.
 
Personally I would not meddle with what's not broke.

There's more downside from stemming the flow of new members, losing some existing. More admin to collect money, etc.

I give my time freely to moderate, have donated, but would be reluctant to pay a fee (for any forum).

Good to have the dialogue though to gauge views and opinions :thumbsup:
 
I never charge either for the xdrivers forum, costs me £20 a year for the domain name and I don't need to be paid for moderating it.
 
When I frequented ZRoadster.net on a regular basis I used to pay I think it was 10 quid a year to be a ZRegistered Member which went towards the upkeep of the site, it was a voluntary contribution which I was happoy to pay. Unfortunately a few years ago the site went down for a few weeks, I think due to hosting problems so members simply left and formed a new site with a different name which personally I found a great shame as the .net site is pretty much dead now compared to how it used to be.

I would be more than happy to pay a subscription of some kind but think a poll would be useful to gain opinions. Although I don't own a Z4 anymore I find this site by far one of the best for all sorts of info and soime giggles and the odd heated arguments :D Above all though for me recently with the personal problems I've been going through I've had some lovely PMs of support from peeps on here who don't know me personally but have still taken the time and trouble to message me and you can't put a price on support and kindness.

Tim.
 
I gain a lot of pleasure from meeting up with other members and setting up runs. Not certain I would feel the same if members had paid for that (in effect).
I also suspect it would deter some new members, who don't know what the forum offers, to even try it.
Better to do a trawl for donations from time to time; that way folk know the value of the site and members do fork out - look at the response to Marmite. . . .

:driving: :thumbsup:
 
TitanTim said:
When I frequented ZRoadster.net on a regular basis I used to pay I think it was 10 quid a year to be a ZRegistered Member which went towards the upkeep of the site, it was a voluntary contribution which I was happoy to pay. Unfortunately a few years ago the site went down for a few weeks, I think due to hosting problems so members simply left and formed a new site with a different name which personally I found a great shame as the .net site is pretty much dead now compared to how it used to be.

I would be more than happy to pay a subscription of some kind but think a poll would be useful to gain opinions. Although I don't own a Z4 anymore I find this site by far one of the best for all sorts of info and soime giggles and the odd heated arguments :D Above all though for me recently with the personal problems I've been going through I've had some lovely PMs of support from peeps on here who don't know me personally but have still taken the time and trouble to message me and you can't put a price on support and kindness.

Tim.
Click to expand...

Tim,
Only issue with polls is it is only of those members who frequent it enough and can be bothered to reply. You can't poll potential members either or casual visitors.

Bit like the 'of 95% who expressed an opinion preferred ...' cat surveys.
 
metal licker said:
If it aint broke :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:
Click to expand...

This. /\ /\ /\

I've been a member on several forums over the years, mostly motorcycle related ones, where this subject has reared it's head from time to time (hence my popcorn smiley in the second post - I wasn't actually being flippant). It happened more when forums were in their infancy and a few forum owners saw a way of possibly making a few quid, so decided to start charging for "membership". I cant think of any instance apart from one where where this happened and the forum survived - or if it did it lost a good percentage of it's members. The one in question is still going but the hardcore membership migrated to Facebook and the forum which was once a nice place to be was taken over by ... let's just say the more undesirable section of the motorcycling fraternity!

Personally, my take on it is that I have a real life outside of forums, so I'd never pay to to become a forum member just to enable me chat to friends I'd made on one. I can do that by e.mail. I rarely meet people I speak to on car or bike forums anyway as I don't like riding or driving in groups so I don't usually go on organised runs, I'll only ever ride with a few biker friends who I've ridden with for years.

I have however donated to forums where the costs of running them have escalated and the owners have asked for help in keeping things going (happened on a couple of photo forums not so long ago), but that's a whole different thing and the same would apply if we needed to put hands in pockets to sustain this forum, I like it here so would contribute to it's continuation. But, a regular membership fee - no, it's the kiss of death to introduce it to an already successful forum. If you join a forum where from day one you know there is a yearly fee, fair enough but introducing it after a considerable membership has built up, definitely a no no! :)
 
im glad this is keeping an adult like discussion....


i was thinking the small and i mean small fee, like a fiver a year would stop the people joining to sell issue which seems to bother lots of people.
 
That's a seperate issue and one that most forums have to endure. To be honest, I don't know what criteria is used here as regards selling stuff - as that's not why I registered - but other forums seem to have a minimum amount of posts, say 20 or so before you can advertise anything for sale to members, which seems to go some way to addressing the problem.
 
The thing is.....

Nobody would have to pay to join....It doesnt work like that.

You would just have to pay for privileges if you chose too.. :thumbsup:
 
Rx8 oc website has a fairly substantial fee (£25 iirc) for full forum access. Good number of discounts and merchandise included for the fee, and in the end it is about the same cost as the fuel to get an rx8 about 10 miles down the road. But I think as it's a niche car they just about get away with it whereas there's plenty bmw forums out there and I think many would just go elsewhere.
 
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