• Administrator
  •  
    Before your membership becomes valid, you will receive an email that must be answered.
    Please check your spam folder or this email.
     

Future of the forum

General discussion on any topic which doesn't have a natural home on any of the other boards.
User avatar
Cliff Evans
Posts: 1032
Joined: 29 Dec 2019, 15:13
Location: Bristol
Contact:

Future of the forum

Post by Cliff Evans »

I am seriously considering making the forum subscription based. There are 817 members of which 127 are donors. That is 127 people that have contributed to the upkeep of the site, that is 690 that get a "free ride" and access to all benefits. Subscription based will make it fairer for all and all subscribers will have full access. The subscription will be set at £5 per person per year. It will limit access to things such as downloads and certain topics to non subscribers. I would like opinions on this in the form of a vote that way it is anonymous.

This will not happen until January 2022

Please vote one way or the other above.
https://lasercutsailplanes.co.uk
https://patteaklegliders.co.uk
User avatar
mjcp
Posts: 183
Joined: 29 Jul 2015, 08:14
Location: A wind swept hill with no wind, in driving distance of Windsor, UK
Contact:

Re: Future of the forum

Post by mjcp »

Tricky one:

As a "new user" had there been a "pay to play" fee, I would not have paid - I would have no way of evaluating the value.

As an "experienced user", I probably would.


Alas, I doubt 800 odd members (not sure how many are active) would be enough to get meaningful advertising revenue of a target specific type - e.g. a vendor paying to advertise specifically on the site, regularly. Thus, "normal" advertising will be just annoying to the readership... those who don't just block the ads that is! And scatter gun ads won't give good returns, so the share of revenue will be low there too...

If you then require a pay to play fee too, the membership level is likely to reduce, so your "benefit" to advertisers reduces too. A catch 22.

Might require some back office work, but how about 1st year free, renewal (same email addy) is £5. You still restrict the plans access in the same way as now, but in a year the member has hopefully realised the benefit of the community by then and happily spends £5.
m̶j̶c̶p̶ Marc

Hanger -
Some (now) pristine models that are un-flown for a year.
Phil_Taylor

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Phil_Taylor »

Cliff Evans wrote: 10 May 2021, 09:03 I am seriously considering making the forum subscription based. There are 817 members of which 127 are donors. That is 127 people that have contributed to the upkeep of the site, that is 690 that get a "free ride" and access to all benefits. Subscription based will make it fairer for all and all subscribers will have full access. The subscription will be set at £5 per person per year. It will limit access to things such as downloads and certain topics to non subscribers. I would like opinions on this in the form of a vote that way it is anonymous.

This will not happen until January 2022

Please vote one way or the other above.
Sorry - dont understand what you mean? - its not clear from the above - especially the last bit.
Is it
a. Like now but only subscribers can access the most valuable bits e.g. downloads
b. The whole forum is subscription only. No pay = no see
c. Something else.

Phil.
User avatar
Cliff Evans
Posts: 1032
Joined: 29 Dec 2019, 15:13
Location: Bristol
Contact:

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Cliff Evans »

mjcp wrote: 10 May 2021, 15:16 Tricky one:

As a "new user" had there been a "pay to play" fee, I would not have paid - I would have no way of evaluating the value.

As an "experienced user", I probably would.


Alas, I doubt 800 odd members (not sure how many are active) would be enough to get meaningful advertising revenue of a target specific type - e.g. a vendor paying to advertise specifically on the site, regularly. Thus, "normal" advertising will be just annoying to the readership... those who don't just block the ads that is! And scatter gun ads won't give good returns, so the share of revenue will be low there too...

If you then require a pay to play fee too, the membership level is likely to reduce, so your "benefit" to advertisers reduces too. A catch 22.

Might require some back office work, but how about 1st year free, renewal (same email addy) is £5. You still restrict the plans access in the same way as now, but in a year the member has hopefully realised the benefit of the community by then and happily spends £5.
Marc, thanks for your comments, they are noted. Adverts are not the way forward for us as they would attract taxation which we do not want to get into whereas a £5 per year charge to cover the costs of running is I do not think too much to ask. I just want a fairer way of running this site without costing those that do use and value it too much. Now I know those of you that do contribute to it of your own choice but, it is not fair for the 127 to prop up 817 and rising. The other thing I was looking at was perhaps using anything collected over the cost of running the site to perhaps hire somewhere for an annual SSUK Aerotow.
I have looked at some members on here, there are many that have been members for a long time, 7/8 years or so that have never even answered a post! Something needs to change and all I am doing is testing the water to get some idea of how we can move on.
https://lasercutsailplanes.co.uk
https://patteaklegliders.co.uk
User avatar
Trevor
Posts: 161
Joined: 19 Jul 2016, 16:29
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Trevor »

As long as non-subscribers can read the postings, that should be enough for them to decide whether to join. In some ways I would prefer a £5 subscription to the present voluntary donation arrangement - at least I’d know I’ll get a reminder when It’s time to renew!
Pat Marsden
Posts: 121
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 06:29
Location: Lincolnshire, UK

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Pat Marsden »

As an existing donor I would be quite happy to see the forum run on a subscription basis. Prospective new members could be given a 30 day trial period FOC at which point they either paid the £5 or didnt get any further access. Lets face it though, £5 for all that the website offers? Its a no brainer to me.
Martin G
Posts: 82
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 13:27
Location: North Wiltshire

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Martin G »

I am in agreement with Trevor.
User avatar
BrianF
Posts: 111
Joined: 19 Mar 2018, 09:36
Location: Brisbane AU
Contact:

Re: Future of the forum

Post by BrianF »

Also with Trevor.
RCSB (Scale Builder) works that way, a non subscriber can still read through posts, has a posting limit, can learn, build interest and decide if that's what they want, but the resource side, like walkarounds, files, archived threads etc. are paid subscriber only.
That is value a Facebook page doesn't do well. FB is a format that competes with this type of forum for modeller's interest and time. "Forums" over here are now FB pages, I find them very frustrating to look through as it is about what just happened rather than what someone did over time, and that is a compelling reason for why I joined here. We need to attract newbies to this branch of the hobby and to this information format. I was a long time watcher here, with stops and starts, before this facet of aeromodelling became my prime interest.
In a way, someone just having a look around is still contributing to the hobby if that interest gets fostered by this forum and they build something, turn up at a field and start flying and eventually post those experiences here, which is the ultimate goal isn't it?

As to forum running costs, that does means a gap between someone finding the forum and getting them to fork out some money, some won't. (But some like me, could get to it later.) As my builder father used to say "not every quote ends up as a job". That is where the sweetener to commit can be the back-end resources and a reasonable fee to unlock that value is a fair call.
Der Himmel ist blau und die Luft ist gut!
www.seqsa.net
Phil_Taylor

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Phil_Taylor »

Excellent post from BrianF there
All the glider forums are much quieter now than they were 10 years ago - surely we should be encouraging membership - not looking to put people off by making it a paid subscription for membership.
The OP said:
There are 817 members of which 127 are donors. That is 127 people that have contributed to the upkeep of the site, that is 690 that get a "free ride" and access to all benefits.
Theres actually a lot more people than that on a "free ride". Take a look at who is online at any time - you will probably see two or three times as many guests as members. Is that a bad thing? - no - its not - as Brian has explained - its people who are looking in with a potential interest in scale gliders - and who may become more interested in this fascinating hobby as a result of the forum.
I would still like clarification of what we are actually voting on here - what is being proposed seems to be (but I'm not sure)
- membership becomes subscription only - for active participants
- the forum stays "open" for viewing to the whole world - as it is now - for all the free-ride guests

As Brian has said, and I hinted earlier - there is another way - that is to keep membership free as at present, but to have effectively a subscription "gold" membership which gives access to the most valuable parts e.g. plan downloads.
Hope all that makes sense?
Phil.
Mark Wilcockson
Posts: 23
Joined: 19 Mar 2015, 06:28

Re: Future of the forum

Post by Mark Wilcockson »

I'm going to be unpopular here as I am one of the people getting "free ride" long terms member. I browse occasionally and rarely comment but enjoy the builds and take notice of the good service section and tend to support those businesses with my purchases.

If forced would I pay a subscription even at the low level of £5 - no

Would I voluntary support if asked - probably yes

For one of my other hobbies I am a member of three forums. The first one the leading forum in the UK is free and was very active. I used the classified section and as a result of selling a few things decided to sponsor the forum £15 per year and a way of giving back and recognising the benefit. Sadly the moderators/owners decided to try to cash in on the membership and started charging to advertise in the classified section. Whilst this did not affect me as a sponsor I disagreed and have cancelled my membership going forward.

Much of the long established membership also agreed and voted with their feet, left and set up a new forum on much more friendly basis. I donated to the set up costs of the new forum and continue to do so. It's totally voluntary but I am happy to support as nobody is telling me what to do to get access.

The money is not the issue to me its the principle

Now I am not suggesting this will happen here but I do feel with a subscription based access you will get smaller and smaller number of members as time passes. This hobby needs to attract more members not do things to put people off.

My suggestion would to be open with the annual costs, I have no idea what they are and have an annual fund raise. Generating a surplus to fund an event is of no interest.

Mark
Post Reply