Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Changes coming to Pond Boss....

A) What are your opinions of paying a nominal annual fee to be a member of the forum?

I am not a fan of mandatory fee sites. Over the years I have belonged to a multitude of forums. From professional CPA type forums to car club forums. Some of them were smaller forums, some of them were huge forums. None of them required a mandatory fee. Several of them had a suggested donation. I completely understand the need to reduce forum costs and the desire to convert forum users to magazine subscribers and customers of supporting vendors � that makes good business sense. But IMHO if you require people to pay to view a forum you will drive away existing members and you will discourage new members.

One of the forums I use to belong to is a huge car club forum (I don�t belong anymore because I sold the car). This forum started out as a moderate sized forum and has grown to enormous proportions (over 100,000 members, over 9 million posts, averaging 25,000 posts per week). I started with the forum just at the time the site started growing exponentially (merely co-incidental, I had nothing to do with this growth). The �owners� of the forum could not keep up the cost of forum software and hardware upgrades � the forum slowed way down and began to frequently crash � the forum reached a crisis point. Several members, myself included, suggested a voluntary contribution system. Members were free to donate any amount over $10 that they wanted to. If you donated $10 or more per year the message �bronze supporter� appeared below your name. If you contributed $50 or more per year you were designated �silver supporter� and finally for $75 or more per year the designation was �gold supporter.� This system worked extremely well. The site received so much support that they were able to completely upgrade both the forum hardware and software. It became a sense of pride to become a supporting member. Much like the �I subscribe� message that appear here in signature lines.

It is my opinion, and of course this is just an opinion, if you require people to pay to belong to a site, you will significantly reduce the traffic to this site. If you ask for a voluntary donation to pay for the site I think you would be pleasantly surprised at how many of us would step forward and offer a donation.

B) Would you rather have a copy of the magazine in the mail, or an e-magazine?

I subscribe to both e-publications and to print publications. Personally I really like the magazine. I can read it when not in front of my computer. I work on my computer all day long. At the end of the day I don�t want to stare at the monitor(s) any longer. I�ve had enough of computer monitors for one day. A magazine I can read anywhere, anytime.

C) If you got the e-magazine, would you stop subscribing to the printed copy?

No.

D) How to you feel about having a free membership that has limited access to content? This may be a "read only" version of the forum. It may mean being able to access some articles, podcasts, videos, but having to pay for selected e-information.

IMHO limited access will mean limited forum growth. If you require people to pay to post then it is my opinion that many potential members will simply choose not to post. IMHO you will lose the potential member before you even know they are there.

E) Then, a "small" membership fee that has access to all the content, some of which is 'pay as you go', such as some of the e-information? This includes all privileges of the forum, including posting.
EE)Or, a "gold" membership, where you can have access to all the website, along with a "members only" forum where you get specific advice to specific problems from the top pros in the industry? This membership also includes a subscription to the magazine.
F) Finally, how much is this stuff worth? What should someone pay for a "medium" membership and what would you expect to receive. And, same question for the "gold" membership.

These last three (E, EE and F) are all related. Everyone�s idea of what a �small fee� is will probably vary, possibly even significantly. It is my opinion that if you require potential members to pay a fee prior to posting then you will significantly reduce the number of new members this site receives.

As far as a �gold membership� my answer is �it all depends.� How much would it cost and what benefits would be received.

Other issues:

Posting photos:
I have hosted a car website in the past. I paid for it personally. I did not have a forum attached so I cannot discuss any forum related issues � I simply do not have first hand experience or knowledge in this area. On my site I hosted all of the photos of cars, people, events, etc. Hosting photos is very expensive and editing photos is very time consuming. Digital cameras these days take photos that are massive in file size. In order to reduce the cost of storage, I had a submission requirement as to photo dimensions and file size. About half of the photo submissions complied with the requirement, the other half did not and I personally had to edit the photos. This took a ton of time and effort. With the growth of the site�s popularity I received more and more photos. I kept having to purchase more and more file storage. It got costly in a hurry.
I recommend against this site hosting photos. I will get expensive � fast. IMHO posting photos to this site is not that difficult. Like anything else it is a process to be learned but once learned it is fairly easy. Photobucket (the service I use) is free, so are several others. The archives describe in detail how to post a photo but if any member has a problem please feel free to ask again.

Searching:
I don�t use the forum's search button any more. To me is was frustrating and once I was taught the google site search function I began to exclusively use that. I don�t remember who taught me that tip but it was a member here and I find it an invaluable tool.

Thread hijacking:
Guilty as charged. I�m probably one of the largest culprits of this. I apologize if I have offended or angered anyone by hijacking their thread. I�ve said it before and I�ll say it again � If I ever make a post to your thread that you want removed please PM me. I will delete it. I won�t haggle with you, I won�t argue with you, I�ll delete it plain and simple.

I have heard over and over again that one of the primary reasons that people like this forum is the family atmosphere. A sense of belonging. IMHO part of that environment is humor. If this forum becomes a purely technical forum (you should read some of my tax forums, they make even me want to poke my eyes out) then, I believe, you will lose many people here. Members here post about births and deaths in their family, illnesses, good times and bad times. Could the forum survive without these posts? Of course it could. Would the forum retain a family feeling? I think not. People here care about other members and have come to know other members on a personal level � this doesn�t happen much with other forums or at least in other forums that I have belonged to.

I don�t have the education or experience to post much of anything meaningful to this forum. Several years ago I took it upon myself to be a member of the welcoming committee. I didn�t see that happening much. Someone would post a question and the question would be answered. On only very rare occasions would someone actually receive a welcome to the forum greeting. It felt too impersonal to me. So myself and several others began welcoming new members to the site. Sort of way of extending a friendly handshake and saying �Hi, I�m glad you�re here.�

Welcoming new members and providing some comic relief is all I have to offer to this forum. I humbly apologize to anyone that I have offended via a thread hijack.

In conclusion (good lord will this post ever end?):
Personally I believe that there are much better ways to make this site more profitable to the owners and vendors than to require potential members to pay prior to posting. I can honestly state that if I had been required to pay prior to a first post then I would never have posted. However if after posting I found I liked the site then I would make a voluntary contribution � I have done exactly that in other forums in the past.

As far as how to make the forum usage convert to profitable venture, I am certainly not an expert in these matters and so I shall defer to others in the mechanics of how that should occur to someone that is such an expert.

One suggestion that I have to offer is to put together packages of articles on a given subject matter and to sell these packages in a digital format. For example perhaps a package of 10 Pond Boss magazine articles on how to raise bluegill would sell for $10 and would be available in the �Pond Boss Store� tab.

I personally do not take any offense to a supporting vendor that uses this site to sell goods or services. To me this makes perfect sense. Us pond owners have a need, we post a question, a vendor provides a solution. Everyone wins. I certainly am not offended by any such interaction.

It has been my distinct honor to be a member of this forum. I consider many of you a personal friend. I have been supported by this forum�s membership in times of family tragedy and in times of joy. This has never happened to me in any other forum to which I have belonged. Regardless of what changes are made to this forum I sincerely hope that we are able to preserve the family environment that has been created here.