47 replies to this topic

[Nick Iannamico]

... your vote is anonymous so please be honest. And believe me I don't want to charge anyone, information should flow freely, the medium on the other hand..

nothing is set in stone, but with the amount of people now using the boards the bandwidth costs are going to head through the roof... The next level of service to get the bandwidth we'd need is too expensive to justify keeping the boards open..

The only other option would be to go back to one of those completely ugly, text only boards.. like Buddy uses..

[John Jr]

If we were to pay for the use of the Forum, I would like to see restricted viewing. The luger forum is this way I think. I think an old sniper site I used was like this. You have to have a username and password for those and you didn't get to view it without giving them this. I think that the FAQ and Sticky posts should be available in part. The problem that I have would be people would view the forum to get the questions answered, use bandwith and never pay. Couple of more things to consider, I have unlimited bandwith usage with DSL, all the free pictures I want and so on. Also Dellhost might be able to provide a pretty cheap solution.

I pay to be on the Steel Guitar Forum (like $5 gets you a lifetime membership or something). You have to pay in cash and send your money off. Keeps the trash out.

Just some thoughts

Jr

[Nick Iannamico]

Guests are no longer allowed to view the boards, you must have a user name or you can't view anything... read your TOS policy for your DSL, probably says something along the lines of NO Webhosting.. the reason being is too many people do not know how to securely run them, case in point the code red virus..

[full auto 45]

Nick, if you get rid of the smilies and little things, would it help? Keep the avatars and get rid of the colors

[Nick Iannamico]

it would a tiny bit, the problem is just the volume of people viewing/using the boards..

[Walter63a]

Sir Mike, you don't like my colorful verbiage! Nick, I agree with Mike, if it will help! Regards, Walter

P.S. Actually, on second thought, I kind of like the smilies!

[Nick Iannamico]

I wouldn't do that advert. thing... I hate spam and ads myself so I wouldn't force it anyone.. There are just too many of you crazy old coots out there that own computers and Thompsons!

[Norm]

Nick,

As much as I like the board being "free", we all know that it really isn't. Someone has to pay for all that goes on behind the scenes.

I would pay for it. $30 a year doesn't sound bad at all to me. The knowledge obtained from the collective minds on the board is well worth it!

I agree with the spam issue, please KEEP IT OUT!

Just my $.02.

Norm

[deerslayer]

I'd rather make a donation when needed than have a membership fee. I kind of like the "pass the plate" idea. Would you care to share the costs that this board entails? How much money showed up when this came up last week?

$30 for a membership price per year is not unreasonable for the enjoyment I get out of the board.
Dan

[Bob]

How about "special members" with classes of membership?

I don't know what you have to do the get the secret handshake for stuff around here but;

Members can read-post and buy stuff from MGB-free
Sponser-$50.00 a year
Life-$500.00 one time payment
Patron-$1000.00 one time payment
Benefactor-$5000.00 one time payment

Or you can always sell stuff like, shirts, hats, pins, patches, pens, key chains with the MGB logo...and the always hot item...beef jerky.

Edited by Bob, 29 January 2004 - 09:36 AM.

[John Jr]

Nick,

I looked at Dellhost and what they offer. For $129 per month you can get 20GB of storage and 21GB per month transfer. This would allow picture posting again, etc...

That come to less than $1,600 per year. IF half the membership that is currently registered join to pay, this would be like 320 members. The cost per member would be $5 per year. If you doubled that to cover time spent working on the board it would be $10 per year. Cost would be even less if more people joined. In other words it might be a good idea to run the site like a co-op so to speak. Pick out a few people who can help run the site and take the load off your back some.

I also want to point out that if the cost appears to be too much for new members who just want to learn more about the Thompson, they might not join. When I first discovered the old Iconboard that we used to have, if it cost to join, I would have kept right on surfing elsewhere. I joined the old board 4 months after you guys started it. Since I was able to read, lurk, etc... I got interested enough to buy several of your Dad's books and with his help bought my Thompson.

Just thought I would throw this out there.

John Jr

[Ron A]

I can see a good reason to pay, however I think the colors and large type could be done away with - hard to read and no one really cares if you use large type and colors anyway. I just skip over this type of post as it offer little in most cases.

I think a $5.00 start up fee would be in line and go up from there if needed.

[colt21a]

well i already sent ina check to cover a third of it,so i guess i owe a few more buck's.however the pass the plate idea is nice for a guy who can't type,

i do open the wallet............and do buy breakfast's for nice people at gun show's.......

or pizza later on,but thats just me.............wink!!!
take care,ron /colt21a

[catnipman]

Charging $30.00 a year is a bit much, especially considering that the principal value of the board is all of the *free* information posted here by knowledgeable people. It seems strange to charge the many people here who freely give of their knowledge, time, and energy to others.

I suspect charging that much, or perhaps anything at all, would kill this forum, as it would no longer be open to the world, and would likely subesequently wither away from its insularity. I suppose Arthur and John Jr. could pay to come here and snipe at each other ad nauseum, but I wonder who would pay to listen.

Most likely, a yahoo community forum would be set up as a free alternative, and people would find their way there and resume the free exchange of information. I've seen that happen before with very small Internet communities who exit some site in mass because of some unsuitability or the other, and rejoin somewhere else.

Yahoo is certainly not as elegant or useful as this site, but it is open to the whole world and thereby does promote the free exchange of information, which is probably *the* great thing about the Internet, that is, unfettered information exchange by alll.

Personally, I don't mind advert sponsership, since I have every ad blocker known to mankind on my system. If advertisers are stupid enough to spend money on Internet ads, who am I to stop them. I don't read ads in the newspaper either, and I have a PVR to skip ads on TV as well. Though, I must admit that Google has developed a model for displaying ads that probably actually works, and that would be nice if that was possible here, i.e., sponsered ad links to relevant companies and services.

Bottom line, I suspect that mandatory charging to participate in this forum could kill it.

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

QUOTE

I suppose Arthur and John Jr. could pay to come here and snipe at each other ad nauseum, but I wonder who would pay to listen.

Catnip,
Considering your aversion to advertisments, (I guess you don't watch the CLEO awards either), I suppose I should be gratified that you even deign to read my "nauseating" posts. However, as you say, how can you quibble when there is no charge. If I knew I were playing to a paying audience, I'm sure I could enliven my material to meet the demands of such a discriminating raconteur as yourself.

By the way, your home town of Hygiene, Colorado sounds like the perfect place for the Kobe Bryant trial.

[John Jr]

Again, I think that a $5 or $10 per year fee would be about right. As I said before, it would help keep the trash out. I certainly would not mind paying my fair share of the actual cost to keep a good board like this one open. There is no doubt that another board will show up should we go fee based. I don't know what kind of board that one would turn out to be, but there will be people who don't want to pay for this one. I understand that fully. I really think that members would pay based on an actual cost basis without question.

On the other side of the coin, I would think that some would refer our board as, "That pay only Thompson board." It would be one of the few sites, gun related, that required members to pay. That might create a bit of a snobbish appearance. Also people will gravitate towards other people. If the board did "dry up" from lack of interest, the pay Thompson board would dry up too. This would be bad for the paying members.

Just trying to look at things from all sides of the issue.

Jr

[PK.]

I’m a technical guy and love this site because of the shared information and friends I have made here. It has been a pleasant place to be, more so in the past. I am worried because I see fewer posts about the workings and collecting of Thompsons and more unrelated personal stuff. I also notice that there are some older, previously respected members, who used to post frequently, that seem to have lost interest with this changing of the venue; this is a regrettable loss. I would encourage a more aggressive intervention by the moderators to help keep us on track- one persons heartburn shouldn’t be allowed to drag us all down.

Free is absolutely the best way to encourage everyone to participate, to bring new folks into the hobby and get them active in protecting their (and our) rights. Unfortunately, nothing is truly free.

I feel that anyone and everyone should be able to view the board without restriction. If sales of MGB products is not sufficient to sustain the board (I don’t think Frank had any idea it would become as big as it has), then a nominal contribution to cover costs could be either levied or solicited to gain posting privileges. If payment is required to view the information, it will die.

Thanks to Frank, Nick, Chris and all the members who have made this one of the best boards on the net; I hope we can rectify the challenges currently before us and continue to be so.

Respectfully submitted.

[Walter63a]

I totally agree with PK! If a fee is necessary, it should only apply to those who wish to post. This will benefit the board in two ways; It will keep the flow if information free and will, as John, Jr. suggests, eliminate the riff-raff (those not serious about the hobby of collecting and and enjoying TSMG's and full-auto). Best Regards to everyone, Walter

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

The people whose posts pertain to Thompson's are the ones providing the info, why would they be singled out for payment? There are those who benefit monetarily from advertising their services/parts on this board, and also find customers here. Should there be a separate fee for them? Compared to the boards on the gun sale sites, the only "riff raff" here are people talking about HK's.

[45wheelgun]

Here is a very cheap option.

http://www.ipowerweb.com


$6.95/month for 800MB storage, 40G Transfer, 400 Pop3 Email accounts and more. Support for CGI-BIN, Perl Support, MySQL, PHP support.

I use them for many retail websites that I have setup for friends. Free website transfer and setup. These guys are a class act.