Would You Pay to Subscribe to this Forum?

[Chronobreak]

can ipay for more pm room?

i guess the flashy things arent enough to sustain AO by themselves.

whynot an anyonmous donation at the lest?
We could see how that goes? few bucks here, few bucks there, few cents there it adds up. and would undoubtedly help, and no asm or elitest member feelings.

pbn is also thinking of adding a buyer verification to help curb fraud, and charge a minor fee for that service, thats also something to consider i guess.


sry, and when you say subscribe do you mean pay for pbtalk, or the entire forum? or just be registered?

if you mean pay to visit the forum then , yes but only a small fee $5-$10, no offence i love the community and all but i cant really justify more than $10 to come and caht with other p-ballers, when other just as good forums are free.

i also wonder what brought this back up? tom getting tired of fotting the bill

[punkncat]

I have enjoyed AO quite a bit. I have really enjoyed trading here over the past few years. The brotherhood of old was a wonderful thing to be a part of, even though I came in late......

I have to be honest though. If I had to pay to be a member, and this forum continues its atrophy and decay I would not. I'd hate to lose my feedback and long time standing, but its not worth paying for (on its current track).

[Pneumagger]

4 ideas

1) I think that a small yearly supporter thing would be nice and as an arward for the support, say avatars, sigs, search priveliges, one time unban, etc. Avatars and Signatures would pretty much be a requirement to attract someone to a Pay forum IMO. Although I could live without 'em :) Even though I would support AO.

2) Also, I think it wouldn't be a horrible Idea to have a BST fee for the thread starter, that way people could browse the BST and post inquiries and such.
However, this may be marginally effective at best, as users would put small BST links in their signature, or wait till they have a huge lot to sell in ther BST.

3) Have a monthly limit as to how many BST posts one can have. Of course annual supporting members get many more posts

4)Possibly have a contest, whoever donates the most money to AO each year gets to be a Moderator with the announcement being at the end of the year.

-------------------------------------
Mr. Kaye, in all honesty, what sort of annual support would be required from the current active visiting users to keep AO afloat? What does it break down to per person - Are we talking like $5 or $30 per person annually. I also agree, a forum fee would stiffle the growth of this forum and possibly kill it. The usuals would hang around, but some would not see the utility to continue on or join the forums alltogether.

The bad part of this whole situation is the fact that these are corrective measures taken to keep AO afloat. They ultimately make the forum less appealing to new memberships and don't solve the problem, they simply postpone it. What about next year, and the next?

[Pneumagger]

uh oh, this Thread's already eating up too much bandwith!

(everyone type really small! Save space. Recycle. Read in the dark)

[StygShore]

decay

Yearly if its low enough maybe - This forum has maybe 10 active threads a day, and most postings are lucky to go 2 pages.

Most members ( guessing 80% ) would leave and go to PBN or one of the other free forums.

What is the overall cost of running a forum?

I think a raffle or auction each month would probably be the best idea.


Styg

[doc_Zox]

i would pay $125 dollars to subscribe to this forum

if it came with an AGD Six-Pack

[geekwarrior]

i think the idea someone mentioned of just donations would be enough....i mean I have at least $2.14 in my paypal I would be willing to donate right now.....


seriously, that might be the best idea, I'm sure between all of us we could come up with a fair amount


edit: uh oh, my next post is my 1000th....better make it a good one

[11 Bravo]

This is probably AGD's best advertisement. Just think of it as a business expense.

I suggest the paypal donation thing that most of the other forums use.

[SlartyBartFast]

Absolutely not.

If AO is going to charge, the forum needs to offer something that is an added value in comparison to other forums.

I hate to be a doom sayer, but if AO is cash strapped, we have to ask a few painful questions. For example: what does AO provide that no-one else does?

Charging everyone for use is a no-go. It doesn't cost anything to participate in other forums, so AO might keep a few die-hard members, loose a lot of current members, and stop growing. It'll be the death of AO for certain.

Charging for B/S/T MIGHT work. But NOT if in the current form that is simply discussion threads. You can sell your gear for free on other sites in the same manner. AO will just lose the majority of listings to those other forums. But, I said MIGHT work. I'd perhaps discuss my ideas for collaboration with AGD privately. None of the ideas is earth shattering. But the B/S/T would have to become a useful tool, not just a disorganised list.

Collaboration with another established forum might be an option. WARPIG, PBN, or another Forum with an AO moderated group. While I prefer the look and feel of AO (not to mention the mebers), it seems silly duplicating services for free at an unsustainable loss while others are providing the same and getting by (seemingly).

Collaboration might mean AO becoming a part of the other forum, or AO adopting some of the other forums content and promoting the same advertisers for a percentage of the revenue. WARPIG and PBN obviously spend more time marketing the site than anyone on AO does. (Lack of marketing seems a recurring AGD problem, no?)

[eNder159]

i would pay to have Signatures and Avatarsback...as well as being a supporting member

[CrimsonGhost]

Absolutely not.

If AO is going to charge, the forum needs to offer something that is an added value in comparison to other forums.

I hate to be a doom sayer, but if AO is cash strapped, we have to ask a few painful questions. For example: what does AO provide that no-one else does?

Charging everyone for use is a no-go. It doesn't cost anything to participate in other forums, so AO might keep a few die-hard members, loose a lot of current members, and stop growing. It'll be the death of AO for certain.

Charging for B/S/T MIGHT work. But NOT if in the current form that is simply discussion threads. You can sell your gear for free on other sites in the same manner. AO will just lose the majority of listings to those other forums. But, I said MIGHT work. I'd perhaps discuss my ideas for collaboration with AGD privately. None of the ideas is earth shattering. But the B/S/T would have to become a useful tool, not just a disorganised list.

Collaboration with another established forum might be an option. WARPIG, PBN, or another Forum with an AO moderated group. While I prefer the look and feel of AO (not to mention the mebers), it seems silly duplicating services for free at an unsustainable loss while others are providing the same and getting by (seemingly).

Collaboration might mean AO becoming a part of the other forum, or AO adopting some of the other forums content and promoting the same advertisers for a percentage of the revenue. WARPIG and PBN obviously spend more time marketing the site than anyone on AO does. (Lack of marketing seems a recurring AGD problem, no?)

Enough said.

[psychowarden]

I think that a monthly raffle would seem the most logical. I enter benifit raffles all the time...even if I dont like any of the prizes. But I usually donate a few bucks to help out.

[bunny5]

Tom,

I have a couple questions regarding this whole topic.

-How much would it be in the ballpark of having AO pay for itself?

-Would you be willing to allow an outside company pay for a forum of their own? (similar to the angel forum)

-What would happen to signatures?

-Do you like the idea of making members pay?

__________________________________________________ ___________________

I think that Donation is the way to go. Donating doesn't block users posting on your forums and it still allows a way of getting funds to AO.


Or we could charge A-TACH-ONE a bazillion dollars to post on AO. We all know he can afford it

[edweird]

Tk you know my thoughts on this, and the examples I sent you months ago.

Id consider a nominal annual fee to have "supporting member" optional tag with BST access and Avatar/Sig pic use.

the more draw you have for it the lower the cost per supporting member will be.

[back2integrity]

I would donate, I love AO.

I would become an optional supporting member whether you added anything or not, I love AO.

I would leave if any support became mandatory, because AO would soon cease to be the AO I love if that happened.