May You Live In Interesting Times (Discussion).

Thanx 4 The Fish

UNfortunately once people start paying for a service (and before anyone starts at me I heart blah blah etc this prod...) bannings, etc will have to be fully justified and explained and there would have to be a review procedure for same. And possibly if the user does not agree, could demand that their €X be refunded.

As for the naming of the email a/cs, there has been some discussion about this already on the hack-attack board and giving people whatever name they ask for could be troublesome as I could request, assuming that it was not gone, that I have amp@boards.ie or koneko@boards.ie as my mail address.

koneko

Dibs on koneko@boards.ie!

Seriously though, I see where T4TF is coming from. It's probably best/easiest to only get your username, that way there will be no confusion, or mess.

DeVore, my offer of cake still stands. I have tupperware, stamps and a jiffy bag. And cake.

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Vexorg

Hiya Keeks

Also it would be no harm to exactlly define how boards interacts with the business world. This whole alliance or friendships begin struck up with various companies (Kmoplott, Hosting365, UTV etc) is a little unnerving. I don't know the whole story about it (nor do I want to). But if don't know then the rest of the business community certainly doesn't. And to me, that could mean lost revenue through potential advertisers, or certain companied trying to "blackball" us.

All of the people you have mentioned above are simply advertisers, the may have a banner, button or forum or some other mix of methods to get their name accross, but non of them have exclusive rights to advertise, we have had eircom, UTVip and BT all advertising similar products. There is no secret alliance that the business community should not know about, in fact quite the opposite, we will gladly take paid advertising from anyone (within reason - eg no racist - porn - incitment to hatred etc etc.. and just as important, does not alienate the boards users/members...)

What is interesting tho' is the fact you felt a unnerved by it and some business may also feel like wise... can you tell us why, any advertisers we have taken on have been discussed (im pretty sure all of them were announced in advance), most recently the komplett forum discussion .... which had overwhelming support from those who posted.

Anyone else feel similarly?


Vex.

amp

Originally posted by PiE
Well I'd pay to see that for sure.

It can be arranged if you like. How much are you willing to pay? Is there anyone in particular you'd like me to touch on the knee? Do you have a credit card or access to a credit card? Have you had an AIDS test?

PHB

Well there are a couple of things I would suggest.

You could make it possible to

• Change your custom title that is locked for 3 months €5
  
• Lock your custom Title €10
  
• Change somebody elses custom title €10
  
• Buy an a/c which gives you a custom title for 3 months, email, personal avater, webspace €20
  
• Increased webspace €10 [ Or some sort of usage system ]
  
• Hosting for websites and stuff €?? [ Couldnt tell ya a price ]
  
• Reintroduce a spell check which I miss so much
  
• Also you could have an agreement that you accept when you take up an a/c to accept the admins ban and to forfeit your right to get your money back, as SA have
  
• Maybe remerge all the forums Make Games on big forums with about 6 moderators I personally don't like the way everything is spilt up
  
• I don't know how the law works on this sorta stuff or how people feel about it so you can edit this post if you want, but maybe a boards.ie DC Hub
  

Dustaz

Originally posted by PHB
but maybe a boards.ie DC Hub

Nothing to see here, move along please.

There is defintly not one in existance.

Snaga

Originally posted by PHB

• Change your custom title that is locked for 3 months €5
  
• Lock your custom Title €10
  
• Change somebody elses custom title €10
  
• Buy an a/c which gives you a custom title for 3 months, email, personal avater, webspace €20

Any editing of other peoples tags is a _BAD_ idea. always has been always will be. Sure itd make money but it would piss a helluva lot of people off.

Just say no!

seamus

Originally posted by Snaga
Sure itd make money but it would piss a helluva lot of people off.

I fail to see your argument

What's a DC hub anyway? Something to do with filesharing?

Snaga

Simple, it leaves it wide open for abuse.

Why should I pay money to anyone to stop someone else slandering me via my own tag line??

Charge for value added services like changing your own tagline for example(once its moderated) or boards.ie email addresses and other goodies.

Thanx 4 The Fish

PHB had some good ideas but the amounts of money being asked for is a bit excessive IMHO. Personally think it could be a yearly fee, or maybe a higher but much better value for money "Lifetime" Tm fee

At what stage would Boards have to start paying tax on moneys coming in ?

Would there be protection on the amount that the fee could go up ?

DeVore

Remember the idea is not to squeeze every last penny we can get from users. Its to make boards selfsufficent and fund its growth. Hence we want to have offers that make people think "cool, Boards is one big happy family!" and have control over it OURSELVES rather then lining the pockets of some board of directors.

Wouldnt it be cool if we made enough money in a 3 months period that all the mods could have a night on the piss paid for?
Or that a Boards Beer Bash could be funded by our collective communal weight?

These things havent been tried before in the industry. Its all about profit margins and exit strategies. Wouldnt it be cool to do something DIFFERENT for a change? something truely remarkable?

Maybe I'm a dreamer but there are more important things then mere money in the world....

DeV.

Dustaz

Originally posted by DeVore

Wouldnt it be cool if we made enough money in a 3 months period that all the mods could have a night on the piss paid for?

As much as it would pain me to turn down a free gargle, if the money would be better spent on boards somehow then Id prefer to see that. Im pretty sure that most of the mods here feel that they are users who happen to mod a board, rather than being just mods.

[smithers]
just having boards is the actual reward
[/smithers]

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Keeks

Originally posted by Vexorg
we will gladly take paid advertising from anyone (within reason - eg no racist - porn - incitment to hatred etc etc.. and just as important, does not alienate the boards users/members...)

What is interesting tho' is the fact you felt a unnerved by it and some business may also feel like wise...

What I'm afraid off is that somewhere down the line is that we might actually have to be 'nice' to the advertisers. Its happened with some many other sites b4. I know hell will freeze over first b4 boards.ie sells-out but it is no harm to copper-fasten the idea in the 'soon to written' charter. I'd just like to see a set of defined rules for what the business community can and can't do, in relation to the boards.

I think it is something to think about as boards.ie profile increases. As you've mentioned, Eircom, esat, utv etc have all placed adverts here. And more will come sniffing. If ye have a set of rules for them to follow it might cause less headaches inthe future.

kaimera

Maybe in the *sponsorship pack* you could make more outta the Boards t-shirts n such...like names n taglines printed on sleeves n such if they wanted.

Maybe discounted prices for paid members?

What better way to advertise Boards.ie as ""one big happy family!" to the rest of the country than have it's 10K+ members walking round with it printed on their back?

Keeks

Originally posted by DeVore
Wouldnt it be cool if we made enough money in a 3 months period that all the mods could have a night on the piss paid for?

I'd just be happy with an e-mail addy

have it's 10K+ members

Is that with or without all the bubbles accouts

DeVore

Originally posted by Keeks
What I'm afraid off is that somewhere down the line is that we might actually have to be 'nice' to the advertisers. Its happened with some many other sites b4. I know hell will freeze over first b4 boards.ie sells-out but it is no harm to copper-fasten the idea in the 'soon to written' charter. I'd just like to see a set of defined rules for what the business community can and can't do, in relation to the boards.

I think it is something to think about as boards.ie profile increases. As you've mentioned, Eircom, esat, utv etc have all placed adverts here. And more will come sniffing. If ye have a set of rules for them to follow it might cause less headaches inthe future.

We've also had people offer us cash money for ads is they can tag riders to it that we "recommend" their product or refer nicely to them. We gave them some advice on precreation and travel.

Eircom was our single biggest ever sponsor in terms of advertising and well.. I'll let you judge

We dont need to sell our soul and frankly, these people cant afford mine.

DeV.

dahamsta

We gave them some advice on precreation and travel.

And circuitous travelling circular dough-based confectionaries too I'll wager.

adam

lordsippa

Don't charge. Donations should be kept voluntary, but should (of course) be rewarded.

A lot of boards users are young and not earning sums. Hell, I should know cause I fit into that category. I think that by charging for everything you'd just be cutting yourselves off from a HUUGE userbase and... well... pissing a lot of existing users off.

That said, I would pay (somehow), but if the idea of a "buy what you want" service came into play i'd stop paying damn quickly.

I'm tired, so maybe I'm not getting my point across clearly but... if boards.ie starts to actively look for money from people (fundraising events like beer bashes don't count) it'll lose a lot of people and a lot of soul.

But yeah... I'll try to get some money to ya Dev through the grapevine. Cash'll do? <It'll definitely have to wait till after christmas too>

DeVore

Originally posted by lordsippa
Don't charge. Donations should be kept voluntary, but should (of course) be rewarded.

A lot of boards users are young and not earning sums. Hell, I should know cause I fit into that category. I think that by charging for everything you'd just be cutting yourselves off from a HUUGE userbase and... well... pissing a lot of existing users off.

wooooooaah!
Noones talking about charging for Boards.ie

What we were talking about is *possibly* charging for additional services. Access to Boards.ie will always be free imho.

DeV.

Lafortezza

Would this possibly lead to a slightly two-tiered system of Boards users?
Those who pay for the additional extras, would most likely pay for alot of the extras, especially if they are reasonably priced as the plan would be.

While those without the cash to pay, or those who don't use Boards enough to make it worth their while, would be left with the plain Boards.ie without any bells and whistles.

If there was another thread like this in the future after payment for additional services was in use where the Admin/Owners wanted feedback on the future of Boards, would the paying customers have more of a voice then those who didn't pay?

All I'm saying is that once the new ideas are implemented, money can become an important factor and would those people paying for additional services have/deserve/be given a bit more of a say than those who don't pay for the services, as obviously Boards can go from strength to strength with more paying customers.

L.

DeVore

well before we get into anything to do with money we are all going to have a BIG put-our-heads-together discussion on it to think it through. Its not like we're in any rush right now, though we have though about doing something for xmas.

There are some things that we all agree.

1. All boards, with the *possible* exception of Admin will remain open to everyone, forever. Boards.ie is about the boards and that should never change. The only reason I've made a possible exception of Admin is that there might be some element of voting/veto in the charter I write and Admin would be used for that. Also, I'm kinda of the opinion that if you arent prepared to support a website you really dont shouldnt have much say in how it develops.... I'm stilling thinking about that one though.

2. Payment will be for additional services, we've got to decide what and for how much but I think we'll all agree that its going to be a good deal as we dont have big costs to cover.

DeV.

p

Sorry if this has been brought up already.

Maybe it's just me but I think boards.ie's future should be in NNTP, and the website should be a webbased front-end to NNTP.

The main reason for this is that NNTP was devised specifically for Message boards and it's much more fleixble etc...

Think to the web in 10 years time. Would you prefer that for every message board you liked you'd have to log on to a different website with a different username & password etc... Or would it be better to simply launch a news reader & get a faster more customized service.

If boards did this then you'd save a load of bandwidth when people moved to NNTP so boards would require less bandwidth and less money to run.

For boards specific things such as avatars etc... you could simply put custom headers in the postings.

Also, if you really wanted to look to teh future perhaps you could simply keep it webbased but have a java/javascript(will be possible eventually)/flash custom boards nntp client on the website. Again moving things to the client, where they should be.

Macromedia currently run something like this:
http://webforums.macromedia.com/flash/
done by an program called FuseTalk


- Kevin

DeVore

As a usenet junkie of nearly 15 years now I have to say I disagree. Usenet is broken in several key ways.

1. Moderatorship is non-existant.

2. ALL content is distributed to ALL servers. Thats just plain dumb. We cant *afford* to hold all of Usenets traffic on Boards simply because there is WAY too much of it.

3. Censorship. The upstream ISP's decide what to propogate. I grew less interested in Usenet and more interested in something like Boards when they started to block political groups and abortion-information groups at source.

4. Non-community-oriented. There is very little community elements in Usenet. While there are some areas that are (ie the voting for the creation of new fora) a lot of it is decided by the ISPs and what not as described above. I dont like the way that works.

5. IE stuff just sucks (with the noted exception of ie.comp) and since noone owns it noone really gives a toss about improving it imho. There isnt really a feeling of IE Usenet community, certainly not as strong as it is here. So I would contend that you dont have as strong a local community on Usenet.

6. Spam. And lots of it. One thing I like about boards is the vigilance to stop spam dead in its tracks. Unfortunately ever since those two lawyers in the states showed that you could spam Usenet and get away with it, everyones been doing it and its awash with spam.

Just my 0.2 Euro.

DeV.

p

Originally posted by DeVore
As a usenet junkie of nearly 15 years now I have to say I disagree. Usenet is broken in several key ways.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting boards become part of usenet, merely that the NNTP prototol is used alone on a boards server.

e.g. you connect to news.boards.ie and and just get the boards.blah

I think that addresses most, if not all of the concerns you voiced.

- Kevin

Dustaz

well, apart from the fat noone likes nntp

Celt

Originally posted by Dustaz
well, apart from the fat noone likes nntp

Really?

drjolt

Originally posted by DeVore
As a usenet junkie of nearly 15 years now I have to say I disagree. Usenet is broken in several key ways.

I believe p is talking about using usenet transport technology instead of mysql as the backend for vbulletin. The advantage would be that people could use an ordinary newsreader to access the posts.

regi

There seem to be a few attempts at putting an nntp-interface onto the vbulletin database.

http://hades.gothic.at/~aoe/vbnntp/ is one and http://www.stupendous.net/vnntpd/ is another. I'll have a look into them, if there's enough demand

ecksor

That would make a lot more sense for us than altering the backend. I might use an nntp client for reading boards if we put in the option, but the lack of threading would be a pain ...