Paid memberships

[hedgehog]

It seems to me that a possible solution to the most recent problem of unwanted prank(s) or even worse, attacks on the members, would be for EOL to charge a yearly membership fee of $xx.00.

I'm thinking maybe $25 and EOL would generate the password.

I think this would discourage someone to prank other members when it would it cost $25 and then they would have to wait a couple of weeks for the check to clear. Who knows, maybe after a waiting period for the pranksters to post, they lose interest and their $25.

Over the years, most of us have gathered information that have helped us in this career. We pay to subscribe to other endeavors (OOIDA), newspapers, CB radios, Satellite, etc., etc. This is just one more tool that is tax-deductible to have in our arsenal.

In the early 1990s a friend and myself started up a website and forum that shared all the helpful hints of the earlyMS Dos versions. (Very slow running 300 baud). After a couple of years we ran into this same problem. We then charged a maintenance fee, and the losers must have found some other poor soul to torture.

This is something EOL will have to decide. I appreciate the fact that EOL has many advertisers that rely on lots of hits to the website. Perhaps the number of hits may decrease, as would be advertising revenues. Don't know, just saying.

Anyways just my thoughts.

Tom

 

[greg334]

Wow! someone read my post.

Look here is the thing, I am sort of an admin (I volunteer my time) on two other forums (Forums that are not about this stuff) and one is an open forum and one is a subscription or paid membership forum. The difference is night and day and it is very hard to explain this other then there is something lost in the paid membership forum, it seems to be missing spontaneity and when you come down to it is like a big get together where all the people think alike and it gets really really boring very quickly (maybe one of the reasons I have an easy time there).

OK so EO has had a rash of members who were banned or are trolls, every site has them, for that matter every blog has some people who span the site (except those not open for comments and then those are not really blogs).

 

[highway star]

Hmmm... I was in favor of the paid membership, but now you have me rethinking it, Greg. The enjoyment I get from EO would be worth a couple of bucks. But, I wonder if someone with an ax to grind would be put off by 25 or 50 bucks?

 

[LDB]

OK, set up an EO/OOIDA alliance with a $25 annual EO membership fee for EO that also gets the user an OOIDA membership. You have to give name/address/etc to OOIDA and while I definitely believe it's possible one or two of our trashiest troublemakers would pay for multiple memberships at least the added OOIDA numbers would be beneficial.

 

[piper1]

Even a paid membership for $1 that you need to use a credit card to pay for, that way there is something with real identity that EO could use to prevent multiple screen names from the same person. Does software like that exist?

 

[xiggi]

I think the way advertising pays for the owners time creating and maintaining this site having a paid forum woulld not be in their best intrest. Also even though you have to deal with the childish behaviour of some a paid forum would at the same time keep away many valuble current and future members. I would guess the good of a free forum far outways the bad.

 

[aileron]

I like piper1's idea. $1 with a credit card would be doable. But $25, I would think many members here wouldn't pay that, me included.

 

[greg334]

Actually Highway, they do. And here is the headache for Lawrence.

Say I've got a site, it is called expeditersoffline.com and it is a great place for information for newbies, great community and so on.

As suggested I start charging a fee to allow people to enter into the forum. Two things will happen, the growth of th forum is slowed down by 80% and the advertisers are now looking else where, maybe my competition which is growing expeditersoverhere.com.

Even though I am offering a lot on my front page for free, it is the indexing of the posts in the forum that is actually bringing my visitors (note to Lawrence, have you ever looked at inbound traffic) and once that guy/gal clicks on that link in Google, goes to the site and then finds that he/she has a great answer to help millions of people out, getting to a 'signup' screen with a cost will most likely turn him/her off.

Now that is one issue, it is hard to manage a good site with all kinds of issues like conversions and click throughs and what nots but the second and bigger headache is what is called charge backs. So I made the plunge, got my site converted to a paid membership site with all kinds of KWEL (sp?) things like fade outs and scrolling banners but then I have a bunch of members who seemed to have cropped up, paid and then trashed other members.

So I deal with them as I would do any other member in the past, I ban them. Simple but then they call their credit card company up and say "I didn't approve that charge" boom I have a charge back and I eat the processing cost of that transaction. this adds up, I have 140 charge backs a month (not uncommon) and at .30 a transaction, plus 3 to 5% of the amount - 1.42 for a $25 a year subscription or $200 a month in charge backs. Not withstanding is the time to go through the accounts and check to see who it is, and what they did. I couldn't go to them and tell them no, I have a contract with the vendor and they can cut me off if I don't follow it.

Then I have the trolls, the nice Internet people who everyone is trying to figure out how to get rid of. They come on my site at three a month, of course they sign up and pay but they too do the charge back thing after the damage is done. They don't have to justify it to the credit card companies, these guys just react even if there is a pattern. They go to my site, get 15 posts and them slam everyone for this or that. Even if I have an issue with it legally, what they have is called plausible deniablity and it is my burden to get them back, if I can.

Every one of these things actually happened and there are steps to prevent most of them, reducing the charge backs and so on but the thing you can't do is bring back advertisers.

By the way Piper yes there is.

 

[chefdennis]

I like Leo's idea...tie a membership with the OOIDA, you are then getting the benefit of the 2 groups and membership can then be monitord on several levels, and paying with a credit card is a good idea so that real time contact info has to be available...but...the merchant fee would requirer a membership fee to be more then $1...I think the idea of membership in both groups is a great idea, and to show that, i'll offer to do as i do with the 2A group i belong to...once a month EO can do a drawing from those that want to provide ALL needed contact info...I'll then pay for that drawn names membership.....

There have been several good ideas tossed out here, combining a few of them goes along way to monitoring and controlling mulitple user names, trolls, and just plain trouble makers....as to allowing newbies access for a while, there can be a "open" public forum like the mail forum we have now, then access to the rest of the board becomes by membership only....that method is used by several boards i go to, both free borads and pay boards, but the admin gets to decide who gets "inside"...membership has its advantages...

 

[miguy1957]

Why get so up in arms over a fly by poster?? Just think of them a pest, Ignore them and dont respond to their BS and let the Mods ban delete or do what they need to do.. The more press they get the more they will try to get to you.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Why get so up in arms over a fly by poster?? Just think of them a pest, Ignore them and dont respond to their BS and let the Mods ban delete or do what they need to do.. The more press they get the more they will try to get to you.

Yes..there is an "ignore" feature in the usercp that makes these fly bys/pests disappear....

By responding they are getting what they set out to do.

 

[LDB]

Hopefully people would take into account they are getting an OOIDA membership that's worth the amount of the fee. A nominal amount would be another way to do it although I'd think $3-5 to cover the expenses of processing it. It would only have to be a one time thing to get a username activated and as long as the user didn't cancel it would be active. If they wanted to they could also do free usernames at trade shows where people show their identification at the time of setting it up. There's got to be a way to at least reduce if not eliminate the problem.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Hopefully people would take into account they are getting an OOIDA membership that's worth the amount of the fee. A nominal amount would be another way to do it although I'd think $3-5 to cover the expenses of processing it. It would only have to be a one time thing to get a username activated and as long as the user didn't cancel it would be active. If they wanted to they could also do free usernames at trade shows where people show their identification at the time of setting it up. There's got to be a way to at least reduce if not eliminate the problem.

I don't think I'd pay for a membership...and I sure won't support a lobby group organization OOIDA.
Special interest groups/lobbies is going against the grain..

 

[greg334]

OMG I feel like I'm at a Detroit City Council meeting discussing having a fee to get access to Belle Isle.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Hopefully people would take into account they are getting an OOIDA membership that's worth the amount of the fee. A nominal amount would be another way to do it although I'd think $3-5 to cover the expenses of processing it. It would only have to be a one time thing to get a username activated and as long as the user didn't cancel it would be active. If they wanted to they could also do free usernames at trade shows where people show their identification at the time of setting it up. There's got to be a way to at least reduce if not eliminate the problem.

Eliminate by ignoring it!! hit the "Ignore" feature till the Mods or Admin can deal with it...

Maybe we should punish those that encourage this behavior by responding and suspend them as well???

 

[Darmstadter]

I don't think I'd pay for a membership...and I sure won't support a lobby group organization OOIDA.
Special interest groups/lobbies is going against the grain..

Eliminate by ignoring it!! hit the "Ignore" feature till the Mods or Admin can deal with it.



Right on OVM!

 

[witness23]

Eliminate by ignoring it!! hit the "Ignore" feature till the Mods or Admin can deal with it...

Maybe we should punish those that encourage this behavior by responding and suspend them as well???

Amen brother!!

 

[Oilerman1957]

I would think that charging a fee for here would just chase away one of the most valuable assets that come here and that would be the new poster and the ones who are needing info to get started. just my opinion though

 

[Desperado]

what about those of us that don't agree with everything oida stands for and have drooped our membership because of

 

[hedgehog]

My original idea never involved a credit card. I'm talking personal checks, money orders, cash, etc.

I think shoe-horning EOL into OOIDA is a horrible idea. If you think OOIDA is an organization you want to join, then do it.

You get what you pay for.

Tom