Would You Pay to Subscribe to this Forum?

[REDRT]

I'd pay dearly for a completely new AGD electro marker, but not to just hang out here.

[kruger]

I also would be willing to just donate to the cause. As already stated, if you have a cover charge for the site, then, there would be no more casual users just floating by. I say no to the fee, and yes to donations. You might be suprised at the amount of money that gets donated. What do you have to loose, try the donation thing first. If it doesnt work out, then you can consider other options.

[warpfeedmod]

If it is an issue as far as cost for whoever is footing the bill now, I'd gladly absorb the cost out of my own pocket to take over the site if it means keeping AO running, as would plenty of my firends to keep it the way it is.

If it was pay for B/S/T, I'd take my stuff to pbnation sadly to say. If it was pay for everything, I'd never come back sadly to say. If it was pay for avatars/signatures, I wouldn't do that as I've gotten along this far without it.

Tom, shoot me a PM or email, I know someone in the hosting business that could cut you a deal. I know they've got several large sites and they don't have bandwidth limits, but I'm sure he'd want some numbers of what this site generates.

[REDRT]

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

More like their only advertisement. Many of us have been loyal AGD supporters for a long time already. We support them by buying from them and getting the next generation of maggers into mags and helping maggers maintaion and mod their markers. I mean AO is advertisement for the company. We are the fan based sales/tech staff and AO is our wage of sorts . Take what little we get from you away and make us pay! I'll drop my support period. Tell me more about that 07 borg.

[behemoth]

I would have.

would have.

Its just not the same AO. And i'm only here because it aint costin' me anything...

[BuyMyMag]

I don't browse these forums too often, but I do come here expecting a more mature discussion then those found on PBNation. I would pay a one time fee (Maybe $10), but I would opt out of paying monthly, yearly, etc.

[Lohman446]

What are our options? Understand I'm just brainstorming here and throwing out answers.

Turn off AO.

Make AO subsription based

Make AO supporting member.. supported

Knock out the unused or underused forums?

Remove the BST forum? I mean, are there not other places for this for our members?

[AGD]

Well the problem is we own our own server at Delaware.net and it hosts all our sites. Its not so easy to just dump AO off to another provider becasue I still have the expense of the server etc. As you all point out, and I certainly understand, paying money and forums don't mix.

It costs about 5-600 a month for the whole package and we get about 150 from Google. That means we would need about 450x12 months=5400.00 to cover everything. Roughly thats 540 subscribers for 10 bucks a year. If you watch the "who's online" numbers you will see that a huge majority of people are not members but "guests" and in effect lurkers.

So I am wrestling with this and might just sell the forum off to someone who can fund it and keep it free.

Thanks,

AGD

[StygShore]

the end is near

Sell it off to private individual ( read as super computer geek with 6 servers in his basement for "fun" )

there are so many free forums out there and places that allow unlimited bandwidtch, your costs seem relatively high for what this forum consists of.

I still vote for online raffle monthly for gear to pay the bills until you find a buyer.


Styg


i see this as the last stand for AGD, they can't afford the forums - the self admitted tech support and advertisement force for the company... does everyone see the writing on the wall? And where is that Howard French dude at anyhow? I haven't seen any marketing!!!!

[paintballfiend]

All this makes me sad that I wasn't around for the glory days of AO and the mag. It can't end, it just can't.

Anyway... I would pay for a one-time fee or give a donation when I can, but not pay a monthly/yearly fee.

[Lohman446]

Tom... without you, without AGD AO looses what it was to some of us. I can have ultra AO instead. How many people will walk away if it changes hands?

[Pneumagger]

honestly, if it changes hands to a another mag lover...I think that it may stay the same.

[trevorjk]

mandatory subscription... im gone. to many other free sites out there.

optional supporting member option? say 10$+ gets you the option, and you get an avatar or your sig back. id most definetly do it.

im sure you could also put a paypal donat icon some where that people can see, i know everyone once in a while i have a few bucks that just sits in my paypal account. as measily as that sounds, everybit helps

[st6212]

If all else fails, migrate AO to Australia and we'll host it on our servers here.

[Temo Vryce]

I remeber the days when AO was smaller and more personal. I was never arround before AGD purchased AO but I know that it was an improvement for the site. If it comes down to selling the site to someone else I do hope that you open it up to those that post here first as we are least likely to see any major changes that way.

Why not open up a PayPal account to take donations and see how much you can raise for a little while. Anything that you can raise will help to offset server bills and will help to postpone the selling off the site. Just add a disclaimer that this simply a test and the site may end up still changing hands. It couldn't hurt to atleast try could it? Additional funds that amassed could be used to purchase prizes for contests like the MoTM or the 67th poster in a special thread.