Subscriptions too dear

Mr. Presentable

Of course it's a terrible idea, but how about making a suggestion of your own while bashing mine The fact of the matter is that if you want to sell something you can't give it away for free (and yes, I understand it as a donation rather than a purchase, but the S & S forum is treated as a perk for subbed users), and call it what you will, there is a product here to be exploited for the good of the company/community.

Baz_

I have made many suggestions and luckily enough (when the search function is turned back one) you don't have to be a subscriber to search for them. See how handy it is alread?

You made a suggestion, I gave my opinion on your suggestion, but luckily enough for you my opinion means nada compared to say clouds, so I wouldn't get too hung up on what I think tbh.

Chong

Subscription is excellent because you the user gets some nice new features and boards get some much needed revenue to keep this great place ticking over.

I find the 3 months option to be my fave I have just topped my account for another 3 months.

ecksor

WhiteWashMan wrote:

i cant say i have ever come across that sort of attitude from anyone who is either an admin, or anyone who has been here for any amount of time.

Agreed, but some users have been known to pull the "you're not even a subscriber" card when in the middle of some debate or other about how boards is working.

Talliesin wrote:

I don't like the idea of turning off such useful functions for non-subs. Really once we start messing with what you can do if you're not a sub we start damaging boards. IMO that would be one stretch too far.

Agreed.

Boards does want to make money, but hobbling features isn't how we want to do it. The basic features that you have now as a registered user should always be available. Obviously right now we have to disable the search for practical reasons, but once we've upgraded that should be back.

ecksor

damien.m wrote:

Beruthiel and others: Apologies if my comment made it look like I was taking a swipe at the admins for removing search. I was not. I understand why that happened. That was a comment on spannerhead's (what an apt name) idea to remove it in order to make people subscribe.

No offence taken here, I happen to agree with the general sentiment and Regi posted words to that effect quite recently.

Hugh Hefner

Baz_ wrote:

Just thinking though how about making a donation fee of something smaller, and giving a smaller set of extras for the lesser fee. Say €10 a year for tagline and custom avatar, €20 a year for the above and email, €30 a year for above and access to all subscriber forums, €40 a year for the above + picturepost (or whatever its called), €50 a year for everything. And while on the subject, why not make boards webspace subscriber only?

With a bit of re-jigging as to what amount equals what extras I think this would be really good. It would make subscribing more versatile and attract people.

The problem would be that newer users might see it as more of a sales tool/pitch than just an effort do make donating more friendly. Meh, screw them. Lol.

The General

So what do you get access to when you subscribe? This is the first i have heard of these subscriptions! I would probably subscribe if boards wasn't as slow as a tractor driving down the m50

Beruthiel

the general
there is a thread in the Newbies/FAQ forum on how to suscribe

btw
animated sigs are against boards rules

GoneShootin

I would probably subscribe if boards wasn't as slow as a tractor driving down the m50

Would be a hell of a lot faster if people didn't have to load your crappy animated signatures....

gandalf

€50 too much!!!!!

So I guess HelterSkelter won't be buying anyone a pint at the next boards beers eh :rolleyes:

Hobbes

damien.m wrote:

wrote some stuff

Am I the only one who took that banner as a joke?

Btw, love how you think. Make the search option a subscriber only option. Pure genius.

WhiteWashMan

ecksor wrote:

Agreed, but some users have been known to pull the "you're not even a subscriber" card when in the middle of some debate or other about how boards is working.

.

well, i havent seen that, but if that is so, then im not sure why someone would say it.
being a subscriber doesnt give you access to boads.ie inner access as far as im aware (otherwise, im missing out on some fun!) but to add a few bits and pieces and to show our support towards something we believe in.

[Jackass]

Heh, it's weird, because I was just reading about this on SA.

The bottom line is that boards provides a great service, it's a great community, I think anybody who uses it frequently has a moral obligation to support it, and pay for it. It's like an un-written contract or something...

(Before you point out I have no subscription, I am aware of that! I am in the limbo phase of just left being a student, but havn't got a job yet....eating is a chore, so €50 is A LOT of money to me right now But I deffenatly will in the future.)

But I think boards has overshot the mark on this one. If we're talking about value for money, then they havn't, but if we're talking about realistic circumstaces, very few people are willing to pay €50 quid a year for a shiny star above their name and to read about sex, when they can get the milk for free. (does that even make sense?) The only people who would do that are the type of people you wouldn't want as a subscriber.

Look at something awful .... Origionaly lowtax made a $10 lifetime subscription, and not to raise money, it was becasue of one guy who spammed the forum repeatedly...he was insane and completely random...he would register as Triangle man, and, for no apparent reason, post pictures of triangles in every thread, and 8-ball man...and I'll let you figure out what he did with that...but he did this in the space of a month, and set up literally hundreds of accounts....so they banned his username, he'd change it, and re-register, they banned his email, he'd change it and re-register, they'd ban his I.P., he'd re-register by proxy....so they thought, he wouldn't pay $10 every time for 1 quick joke and get banned and lose his money...

So that is why S.A. is probably the biggest general interests forum in the world....because most muppets don't have credit cards...and most people won't pay to spam. And since it's a small manageable amount ($10) and it's for life, every user will pay up...plus it improves the quality of the forum hugely also, no offense to the guy, but you wouldn't get these shrimp charecters.

If anything, a small one time fee will raise infinatly more money for boards, because imagine you had 3 quaters of your current members paying €10, or one tenth of your current subscribers paying €50 .... plus the forum would get better ...

My 2c .... you'll never get enough people to pay a sum as large as €50 for no appart reason, and do it every year, and for something they can get for free in a million other places...

But a once off payment of €10, most people would do it to keep availing of the boards service perminantly, and it's not a massive amount of money to most people...but all adds up for you.....

rsynnott

DubGuy wrote:

The bottom line is that boards provides a great service, it's a great community, I think anybody who uses it frequently has a moral obligation to support it, and pay for it. It's like an un-written contract or something...

Nonsense; the ads do that. Sure, you're being nice when you subscribe, but moral obligation? Don't think so.

DubGuy wrote:

So that is why S.A. is probably the biggest general interests forum in the world....because most muppets don't have credit cards...and most people won't pay to spam. And since it's a small manageable amount ($10) and it's for life, every user will pay up...plus it improves the quality of the forum hugely also, no offense to the guy, but you wouldn't get these shrimp charecters.

He's a LONG, LONG way from being the most annoying user...

[Jackass]

You tip taxi drivers, waitresses, porters and countless other people for services you're alredy paying for...but are unwilling to pay for something you use frequently, that someone else is paying money to provide to you, and has spent countless hours working on it for you....I think there is a moral obligation there, yes :rolleyes:

And shrimps not really the point (sorry if he's reading), I just mean spammers and people who drag treads into immature insults and general BS , instead of everybody being able to just have a laugh.... I think it's made the mods far to heavy handed in some circumstances, but I can't blame them, for all the crap that is spewed around this place...sometimes it's difficult to distinguish a muppet comment from a sarcastic one.

[edit] And also, the ads could do that....but how many adds have you seen on boards in the last year?
The odd inocuois banner above a thread and that's it. If they wanted, they could have 6 popups between logging in and reading your first post...but that's not what the site is about, and it would just become another commercial hell hole, and lose all sense of community, people would leave...and the whole thing would gradually implode.[/edit]

GoneShootin

DubGuy wrote:

You tip taxi drivers, waitresses, porters and countless other people for services you're alredy paying for

I dont!

But while your point is a good one DubGuy, I cant see it working for boards.ie as there just isnt the traffice to warrent it, nor the global reputation. I'd love to know what the user numbers were like before and after the introduction of the registration fee.

Extreme idea - if you get banned from a forum you must pay a fiver to regain access. Just pray for fair minded mods and ones that don't ban folk for just anything. Could encourage mods to be careful when banning people aswell perhaps.

gandalf

GoneShootin wrote:

.....
Extreme idea - if you get banned from a forum you must pay a fiver to regain access. Just pray for fair minded mods and ones that don't ban folk for just anything. Could encourage mods to be careful when banning people aswell perhaps.

I like this and they could put the mods on commission, lets say 20%... a nice little earner on the politics forum

rsynnott

GoneShootin wrote:

Extreme idea - if you get banned from a forum you must pay a fiver to regain access. Just pray for fair minded mods and ones that don't ban folk for just anything. Could encourage mods to be careful when banning people aswell perhaps.

Argh! No! "Oh, look, I'm an idiot troll with more money than sense! I come back and back and back!" It's bad enough when a few manage it by changing names".

And I think that most mods (at least on the forums I view) are extremely reasonable at the moment. You will note it's generally the irritating and/or disruptive people banned.

WhiteWashMan

DubGuy wrote:

Heh, it's weird, because I was just reading about this on SA.

The bottom line is that boards provides a great service, it's a great community, I think anybody who uses it frequently has a moral obligation to support it, and pay for it. It's like an un-written contract or something...

(Before you point out I have no subscription, I am aware of that! I am in the limbo phase of just left being a student, but havn't got a job yet....eating is a chore, so €50 is A LOT of money to me right now But I deffenatly will in the future.)

But I think boards has overshot the mark on this one. If we're talking about value for money, then they havn't, but if we're talking about realistic circumstaces, very few people are willing to pay €50 quid a year for a shiny star above their name and to read about sex, when they can get the milk for free. (does that even make sense?) The only people who would do that are the type of people you wouldn't want as a subscriber.

Look at something awful .... Origionaly lowtax made a $10 lifetime subscription, and not to raise money, it was becasue of one guy who spammed the forum repeatedly...he was insane and completely random...he would register as Triangle man, and, for no apparent reason, post pictures of triangles in every thread, and 8-ball man...and I'll let you figure out what he did with that...but he did this in the space of a month, and set up literally hundreds of accounts....so they banned his username, he'd change it, and re-register, they banned his email, he'd change it and re-register, they'd ban his I.P., he'd re-register by proxy....so they thought, he wouldn't pay $10 every time for 1 quick joke and get banned and lose his money...

So that is why S.A. is probably the biggest general interests forum in the world....because most muppets don't have credit cards...and most people won't pay to spam. And since it's a small manageable amount ($10) and it's for life, every user will pay up...plus it improves the quality of the forum hugely also, no offense to the guy, but you wouldn't get these shrimp charecters.

If anything, a small one time fee will raise infinatly more money for boards, because imagine you had 3 quaters of your current members paying €10, or one tenth of your current subscribers paying €50 .... plus the forum would get better ...

My 2c .... you'll never get enough people to pay a sum as large as €50 for no appart reason, and do it every year, and for something they can get for free in a million other places...

But a once off payment of €10, most people would do it to keep availing of the boards service perminantly, and it's not a massive amount of money to most people...but all adds up for you.....

2 things though.

1) its free to post here

2) the people that pay for it, are not just casual posters. the vast majority are people who have invested a lot of their time and themselves in boards.ie. there are very few people who have subscribed simply to gain access to the sex and sexuality forum. and if they have, they should demand their money back tbh.

[Jackass]

I know, but i'm suggesting everyone has to pay a one time fee of €10 to set-up an account, but it remains free to read. I'm making the point that, as it stands, there isn't much of a product being offerd for the paid subscribers compared to what you get for free, and €50 on a continuos basis is a lot o money for that.
All current subscribes probably did it to make a donation, not to buy a product.

Make boards.ie the product, but at an extremely reasonable price, to achieve the following objectives:
1/ The quality of posts.
2/ Irradicate spam.
3/ A much improved income for the admin for running costs.
4/ The relaxation of moding standards.
5/ An economicly more sustainable site.

It could probably be phased in...make AHs, personall issues, and some other popular forums postable only by subscribes to the €10 plan, and gradually phase it in to all the forums, whilst also having a €10 one time fee for all new accounts set up with immediate effect.

Also, I think it's important you can still read everything, unlike the way it is with sex and sexuality, because it draws the potential client in, and if they want to get involved, will shell out the €10, and are far more likely to do that, then shell out €50 every year for far less.

It also makes it more attractive to advertisers imo, not that boards needs much help with demand for that i'm sure.

[edit] I'm sure if you took a poll and asked everybody if they would pay a tenner tomorrow to still be able to post on boards, and to make sure it stays around, almost everybody would....but very few people are buying into the current system...i'm not trying to criticise, as an excellent job has been done with the site...im just offering constructice criticisim because I think the current subscription format is highley flawed, has little incentive to the regular user, and is very one sided to the user and not the site. I understand the admins desire to keep it new user friendly, and maintain the community, but I think if anything, what i'm suggesting would improve that.

It's just my opinion, and I'm just trying to be helpful.
[/edit]

GoneShootin

rsynnott wrote:

Argh! No! "Oh, look, I'm an idiot troll with more money than sense! I come back and back and back!" It's bad enough when a few manage it by changing names

So what? Let em rejoin. Its money it boards coffers for stupidity. On rejoin they would have to supply a valid paypal (or similar) email address, not just a random "imtehwinlol@yahoo.com".

ianmc38

Oh my god, a fiver a month too expensive. Man you're gonna be getting three ghosts visiting you this Christmas. Sheesh.

D

With all this talk about turning boards into a "product" well I never saw boards like that. While ecksor said "Boards does want to make money" I don't think that is the admins primary motive. I always saw boards as a group of lads who just wanted a place to chat, or said to each other "Wouldn't it be cool if we had our own forum, you know where we could post pr0n and stuff?" It's kinda like a house, you invite your mates round and some of them crash for a few days. Nobody expects to be paid but you buy them a beer or some bog-roll to express your thanks.

damien

GoneShootin wrote:

So what? Let em rejoin. Its money it boards coffers for stupidity. On rejoin they would have to supply a valid paypal (or similar) email address, not just a random "imtehwinlol@yahoo.com".

That doesn't get rid of trolls. Instead of a zero or almost zero tolerance for bull, now it is zero tolerance for poor trolls whereas the stupid rich ones can come back to piss off more people again and again. Sense that does not make.

GoneShootin

damien.m wrote:

Sense that does not make.

But money it surely does!

CuLT

DubGuy wrote:

I know, but i'm suggesting everyone has to pay a one time fee of €10 to set-up an account, but it remains free to read.

I see where you're coming from but the obvious problem (that I see) with this is that it could be cutting off the nose to spite the face; I would not have paid to join up to boards.ie when I signed up. I'd have simply found another bulletin board, and you'd all be deprived of my fantastic charm and wit.

I'd say it's the same for a lot of other users. The rake of Junior and Leaving Cert age students who simply wouldn't have the ability to sign up via credit card would be quite large, and we could end up with a stagnant community.
Maybe, at some point, there'll be a more "everyone-friendly" method of "subscribing" to boards.ie, I think the 3v card is a step in the right direction, and could end up being integrated into the national conscience within a few years; but not yet.

Capt'n Midnight

If someone is unwaged or having serious financial trouble then every penny counts. But for average person using a computer €50 is a lot less than they spend on games / hardware / software / ink refills every year. Hey if things are that bad sell the PC and use the free internet in your local Library.

And it's not as if you can't see most things with a subs.

Maybe have two levels of subs and those on the second level get access to the forums that don't exist [/conspiracy]

DeVore

D wrote:

With all this talk about turning boards into a "product" well I never saw boards like that. While ecksor said "Boards does want to make money" I don't think that is the admins primary motive. I always saw boards as a group of lads who just wanted a place to chat, or said to each other "Wouldn't it be cool if we had our own forum, you know where we could post pr0n and stuff?" It's kinda like a house, you invite your mates round and some of them crash for a few days. Nobody expects to be paid but you buy them a beer or some bog-roll to express your thanks.

This needs to be linked in ever welcome mail we send.

I'm not algeric to money. I've always said I'd love to do nothing except muck about with Boards for the rest of my life. On the other hand, we've made some promises down through the years. Or at least I have and I'll speak only for me now: I am more interested in seeing where this goes then harnessing it for money. I hate the idea of removing features to try and force people to subscribe.

I like this idea though, its kinda Marxist but hey, put me up in front of the Supreme Court: From those according to their means, for those according to their needs.

IE: those that can pay a sub, we appreciate it, if you cant... I think we can get by on those who can.

DeV.

ps: the price point was decided on because it was about the price of a pint a month. Seriously!

Baz_

DeVore wrote:

I think we can get by on those who can.

What makes you think that?

Like I said above, I paid because boards.ie has become such a big part of my online life. If I had been forced to pay at the start, I'm pretty sure that for me boards.ie would not even be an afterthought for me (I've been reading some Douglas Adams recently, and ever since I can't really be certain of anything, even that I read any Douglas Adams at all).

If there is no new blood, even though we can all admit that some of the new blood needs to **** off and die, then you go down the road to stagnation and repetition. The problem being people are predictable, and less willing to change as they grow older, so they just keep spouting the same **** over and over, and without new people coming in with their crazy new ideas we would all become very ignorant of that fact and very comfortable in our great comfy castle in the sky, those that weren't bored away that is.

I think the name subscription should be dropped, donation should be adopted, and like all donation systems it should stay voluntary forever.

I think that people who donate even as little as €10 should be given a little perk to say thank you, as I suggested earlier.

In summary: new blood = good (in general), stagnation = bad, subscription = wrong concept to be getting across.

CuLT

Baz_ wrote:

What makes you think that?

Like I said above, I paid because boards.ie has become such a big part of my online life. If I had been forced to pay at the start, I'm pretty sure that for me boards.ie would not even be an afterthought for me (I've been reading some Douglas Adams recently, and ever since I can't really be certain of anything, even that I read any Douglas Adams at all).

If there is no new blood, even though we can all admit that some of the new blood needs to **** off and die, then you go down the road to stagnation and repetition. The problem being people are predictable, and less willing to change as they grow older, so they just keep spouting the same **** over and over, and without new people coming in with their crazy new ideas we would all become very ignorant of that fact and very comfortable in our great comfy castle in the sky, those that weren't bored away that is.

I think the name subscription should be dropped, donation should be adopted, and like all donation systems it should stay voluntary forever.

I think that people who donate even as little as €10 should be given a little perk to say thank you, as I suggested earlier.

In summary: new blood = good (in general), stagnation = bad, subscription = wrong concept to be getting across.

I think you misread his post; I'm pretty sure DeV means that boards.ie can financially get by with the money from subscribers, not get by with only the participation of subscribers in the forums.