OT - PM forum/ premium membership?

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

If it ain't broke why try to fix it. Regards Tyrone.

 

[Greg White]

I just barley know how to turn my putor on, I have zero problems with the adds,
Sometimes I think more adds ,for perishables would be nice.
Gw

 

[coldformer]

i have been here since the begining i was one of the first 400 members but after a few computer crashes my join year is now 2002 so i dont think it is fair to need 1000 post to become a premium member.
also i dont mind the adds they have help Don keep this great board free

 

[traditional-tools]

Once I had the audacity of suggesting that if people found PM useful, they should consider donating to the site.

Holy crap, I had a few dog pile me telling me what an idiot I was and how much money this site generates due to the advertisers. I'm not sure how they know that, but they seemed to know more about the business of PM than I did, so I left it at that.

I don't know, I just felt it useful for myself for the information I've gotten out of it over the years, as well as some decent deals on tools and machines.

For me it had nothing to do with not having to view the ads, I don't know if I pay attention to them or not. How about if you become a member you get ads from the classified section ?

Cheers,
Alan

 

[xdmp22]

I belong to a few other forums...one, I pay 30 bucks a year and get a larger inbox and some picture storage....limited ads (only one box in center upper that changes every page change)

Also get a t-shirt or sticker each year I subscribe

I would gladly pay 25-30 dollars a year for just a larger inbox...PM has the smallest inbox I have experienced...but since its free, I cant complain

Milacron, thanks for the forum and all you do

 

[LFLondon]

Your post will result in a flood of know it alls with suggestions on how to avoid the ads for free. But what they won't tell you is yes you can do that it tend to effect other sites you visit in negative ways. Regardless, I'll be deleting those posts anyway as PM has gotten so large and expensive to run we have to have ads as long as it's all free. But your idea of premium membership is good and if we can keep the discussion to possible premium features other than just removing ads I'm all ears.

What kind of money would you be talking about for an annual fee? My interest in this is only to keep PM maintained and online for perpetuity. The ads really slow down the typical interactive session but if they keep the forums online so be it. Access to PM is a priority like having a refrigerator, toothbrush, car, electric power, cellphone, running water; i.e. indispensible. BTW PM posts show up in Google searches with great regularity. The message archives are super important. Yes, the ad blocker will interfere with access to other web-based resources.

Appreciative PM user

LFLondon

 

[Shaybuilder]

I think this is a great forum and the ads don't bother me. Ads are everywhere. I had to go to the DMV today to renew my drivers license and they give you a number which the next available clerk will call. In the meantime you have a seat in the waiting area only now it has a big screen TV hanging from the ceiling with one add after another. One of the ads is the phone number of the DMV's ad manager if you want to pay to have your business listed on the DMV's captive audience large screen TV.

 

[TDegenhart]

I practical problem I see is that this forum is read around the world. I know nothing of international commerce, of how people in different countries with different monetary structures pay for goods and services. Issue or non-issue?
Tom

 

[Big B]

I remember the good old days when cable TV was a brand new way of watching TV. WITHOUT COMMMERCIALS. Fast forward a few decades and now what do you get with cable or satellite TV? As many ads as free TV.

I am good with PM the way it is. Please don't change a thing.

Big B

 

[CalebWelte]

It would be neat to see the most liked comment everyday. Is that already somewhere I am not aware of?

 

[omrc7771]

Is the site not financially viable right now? I'm guessing the traffic is tremendous and that negotiating with advertisers would be pretty easy. Not sure how or why ads at the top and the side bother anyone. No offense, but there is an awful lot of valuable information given out here.......... for free.......by the members, to one another. I think anyone selling anything related to industry would give alot of priority to ad dollars spent with Don because of the traffic,many of whom are decision makers for how a company will spend their money.

 

[Tommy]

The ads don't bother me. I'd pay a reasonable subscription fee, but wonder how much of a hassle it might be to set up and administer the accounting?

An option to subscription might be something akin to an annual contribution drive, ala PBS, should it become necessary in order to keep PM viable.

I'm not keen on an arbitrary number of posts being a requirement for membership. I'm concerned such a policy might lead to a "quantity rather than quality" mentality in folks wishing to simply bump up their score and more quickly gain admission.

~TW~

 

[PeteM]

It would be neat to see the most liked comment everyday. Is that already somewhere I am not aware of?

Might take some tweaking. As it is, that might often be a partisan post in the Manufacturing forum, alternating from left to right on various days. Alternately, it might be off in some dearly appreciated but pretty esoteric (in the grand scheme of machining) part of the forum.

 

[bjorn toulouse]

I can say the last thing we need here are "fancy signatures". One of the most annoying things I see on other forums. Sometimes there are options to hide them.

I would gladly pay a nominal fee to insure "fancy signatures" don't happen on PM!


Rex

 

[jrmach]

Maybe some animated tools to club Trolls with.

 

[jeff10049]

Valid concerns. I despise advertising in all it's forms and would love an ad-free paid option.

I don't understand you must not be in business or do any business with anyone ever if you despise all advertising?

Or do you mean to say you despise advertising in all it's forms on pm? That I can understand.

If the former then you can't use a phone book or internet to find a business, better not look at a sign or listen to word of mouth, you could let the quality of a product speak for itself but it better not have the manufactures name on it.

I however don't mind the ad's and have even used them, I found a couple good vendors from the ad's and I make sure to let them know that PM is where I heard about them to help support the site.
I also use word of mouth advertising for my own business my customers are my best advertisers and I'm not about to ask them to stop advertising for me.

As for a site membership I think ad free for those who want it would be cool, A custom home page with all the threads your following would be cool, I'll start reading something and then a week later think I wonder what happened. And sometimes I can't find the thread again.

edit: Yes I agree no fancy sig lines.

Jeff

 

[jCandlish]

In order for a premium site to work PM would have to move beyond the discussion forum format to more of a complete CMS publishing system with a hierarchy of contributors, editors and publishers. Then rich indexed content could be created. That is a LOT of work, so some kind of sales clearing platform would be necessary to pay for it. Even MORE work.

But sure, with 2 or 3 full time employees, a couple hundred contributors, a dozen editors and a handful of publishers you could create content like this:

Bei DABAG finden Sie das grösste Online-Portal des Fachhandels, DABAG

or this:

Swissmechanic - Sitemap

Who is willing to pay for that?

 

[SteveF]

Add me to those who don't mind the ads and really, really, really don't want to see signature boxes. There are a couple of forums that I no longer visit because I got tired of visually digging through a page covered with junk trying to find the two lines the person had posted. Especially bad when large photos are allowed. This format is great the way it is with nice simple displays of information.

One more thought, another site I used to regularly visit got bought by a large business and they decided to bombard "guests" with ads. Well, don't know about anyone else but when I come onto this forum I only log in when I am going to make a post, otherwise my browsing and reading is done as a not-logged-in "guest".

Steve

 

[Boris]

As a long term user of PM (that makes me sound like a druggie.. PM .... yeah man I do it too ) I'm fine with the way things are

As yes I have clicked on ads and had a look at stuff when its an ad aimed at the sort of thing I'm interested in and not the MMS ad to the left of my screen right now either.


Only objection the subscription model is what happens when some forum members demand a section of the forum to be put behind a paywall?
And it will happen

Boris

And how do non-US members pay too ?

 

[ciladog]

The ads don't bother me and understandable, a good source of revenue for the site. Some ads from Victory Secret might be nice to see from time to time. Right now as I write this there is an ad for chocolate. Boring!

What bothers me more than ads are those bubble pop-ups that keep appearing as I move my curser down the index of new posts.

I don't think setting up some sort of class system of members is a good idea. Either everyone pays or nobody pays.