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OT - PM forum/ premium membership?

Shadon

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Location
Southern Calif US
I haven't seen any info on this, but was wondering if this forum had an option for a premium membership, for a small annual fee members would have ad free viewing, larger in box, fancy forum signature, etc.

I would gladly support this site just to eliminate some of the ads, or at least have a button to turn off some of the annoying ones. :)
 
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.
 
I love PM. I learn a LOT, perhaps also contribute a little. Fantastic resource and a great community.

I am a cheapskate, and not interesated in 12 steps or even one. Others may choose a more polite name, but I bet a lot here are , let us say, frugal, and would be less than enthusiastic about paying. Now, I know nobody suggested that basic membership should cease to be fee, but there is a tendency, after a fee-grade is established, and it proves to generate revenue, to slowly shrink or degrade the part of the site or service that is is still free.

I'd be sad to see PM on that slippery slope.
 
I remember when Don started this board, and have seen all the changes since the beginning, and am on here daily even if I don't post much. The ads honestly don't bother me at all. If it would be of some help to the board to start offering memberships then great, but I don't see what could be offered (since the ads stay, period) other than a t-shirt or something, which I suspect would be more trouble to Milicron than it's worth.

And agree with mt2- for God's sake don't allow fancy sigs! There are boards I visit out of necessity but loathe for their horrible sigs (animated gifs, 15 lines of nonsense, jesus).
 
I subscribe to some other forums (camping and outdoor), features include / members only forum section / nice inbox upgrade / members section with small amount of storage space for video clips and photo blog / in the RV - camping world we use a forum called "hookups", this is simply a place that you can always find good people to go camping with and meeting locations. This feature could be tailored for the machinist world, "tools for loan or rent" for tooling that is possibly expensive to buy, but are a one time use kind of thing.

To weed out some of the Jonny come lately's, or possible predators, you could limit premium membership to 1000 posts or more (example) , that way you know who you are "letting in", you want your premium members to feel safe and unworried about disclosing possible sensitive information.

Just some thoughts, I'm sure others will chime in.
 
I too don't mind the ads. If it allows people to have access to helpful information and helpful people without requiring financial transactions then I say let it roll.

As for premium features, maybe a more detailed profile that allows a small business owner to add photos of the machines they have and list their capabilities and services they offer. It would be like the ads but not plastered at the top/sides of the page. The user could have a link next to their name on posts that identified they have a business profile while normal users wouldn't.
 
Any idea what it would need to cost to offset the add revenue for a given "premium" member to go add free Milacron? Even a ruff number would help put things into context to some degree.

Whilst its great that this place, the techniques - technology shared is currently free its more than also fair that we pay at least enough to keep it going. After all im willing to bet that the average member has saved - earnt a fair bit more over the years apply techniques he's discovered here.
 
Another thought, a forum specific setting for members could include a default way to show (or hide) posts from 1day / 1 week / 1 month / beginning / .... I have often wished for this, to be able to "show" older for sale items and have my preference saved, instead of having to manually go back and choose "from the beginning"
 
The ads don't bother me at all, ads are everywhere in this country, I'm surprised they aren't on dollar bills yet.

Is it a problem for members with narrow bandwidth? Are people still using dial-up connections?
 
The ads are fine but I'd rather they weren't there and I would pay for ad free, or different options and so on. The thing I would be most likely to shell out some coin for is to keep this forum alive. The only concern I have about membership by money is we may lose some great contributors to this forum. Also people would be less likely to join up and share there knowledge.

My two cents worth.

By the wayy thanks for the wonderful forum.

Athack
 
The ads are fine but I'd rather they weren't there and I would pay for ad free, or different options and so on. The thing I would be most likely to shell out some coin for is to keep this forum alive. The only concern I have about membership by money is we may lose some great contributors to this forum. Also people would be less likely to join up and share there knowledge.

My two cents worth.

By the wayy thanks for the wonderful forum.

Athack

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

My suggestion:

• No additional features for paid users, just remove advertising.
• Opt-in - unless I specifically sign up for it I will see absolutely no difference to the site as is currently
• Fee should be minimal, reflecting the lost ad revenue and covering costs.

In this form there should be no reason for free members to resent the paid members, and no reason for them to leave.
 
If the site is really visited by 100 non-members for every 1 member (as mentioned in another thread), I imagine removing ads for premium members would have almost no noticeable effect on total ad revenue.

I'd be interested in a premium membership for a bigger PM storage quota, and larger thread attachments.

Actually, just fixing the attachment issue I've brought up a couple times in the past would be worth it. This "issue" is that the size limit for different types of attachments differs by file type; jpg and jpeg are ~100kB while everything else is something like 10kB. Why the disparity!? Sometimes a png or pdf is a MUCH better file format, such as any kind of graphic (vs photograph) such as a print. a 20kB png of a print or CAD screenshot would be larger and clearer than the same image saved as a 100kB jpg.

And bring back the file size limit info to the attachment page. It used to be listed right there so users could resize their files appropriately before uploading. Now it's gone, and I get so tired of someone adding pics to their thread, not knowing to resize appropriately first, and the forum's overly aggressive resizing function turns them into postage stamps, and the user has no idea why. That's another thing; why can't the resizing function be just a little more sophisticated, and resize to just under the limit instead of applying some drastic constant?
 
I'm in the keep-it-simple camp. Turning this into a social media experiment (FacingBook?) doesn't much set my heart a Twitter.

Still, expanding the size of the PM box for $20 or so a year would be convenient; though maybe not worth the effort of administering.

Also worry a bit about having these threads archived and available to folks 50 or so years from now, when Don will surely not have much interest. As an example, Bill's (Rivett) notes on the construction of his miniatures are something that should surely still be of interest fifty years from now. The dialog on WWII manufacturing, old iron, etc. might be a trove for some. Even the by-then quaint discussions on the evils of Chinese machines might eventually prove interesting. I'd be up for Wikipedia-like donations to assure both decent operation today and archiving for the future.
 
The only ads that bother me are ones that jump around, flicker or otherwise try to grab you by the nuts. That and ads that insist you watch them before getting to want you want, like on BooBtube. I NEVER watch a mandatory ad. I INSTANTLY leave the site...................Bob
 
Well, somehow the site has to pay to keep alive.
Ad's don't bother me.
Neither would an ante up a few bucks per year.

Gosh, could I elevate my level a few steps by sending money.
How else am I ever gonna get up there with Ox or Gordon?
Not sure I'm not as good as them , but if I could pay to get up the list.......:)
Some stupid extra "paying member" note on your posts?
Not sure where the software would easily let the man in charge put in a little text by your name.

How about a limit on number of posts in a given period without sending a few bucks to the guy giving us this area.
Not too sure about this idea, seems both good and bad.
Addicted to the site like me and you help pay for it.
Heck, I pay Pandora every year and don't think twice about it.

Running this site must be boatloads of fun and full of tradeoffs.
I'm thinking that I see the site owner does not need any of us.
Doing this because he likes it but the darn thing had better pay for itself???????
Bob
 








 
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