What would you do if the forum had a subscription fee (to post classifieds, etc)?

I don't think this site needs any encouragement to swap meat based recipes. Was it on this thread that people were hankering for blowies?

So, to conclude, I’d think twice before switching to a subscription-based format.

Oh, and the evidence from the first 900 respondees is to think thrice at least before daring to do anything.

Though I'm loving a lot of ideas, thoughts, thanks, angry from Nottingham, how'd do you get my email... type responses that have been hitting my inbox. I didn't realise that would happen, but it's given me lots to think about.

Oh, and the evidence from the first 900 respondees is to think thrice at least before daring to do anything.

Though I'm loving a lot of ideas, thoughts, thanks, angry from Nottingham, how'd do you get my email... type responses that have been hitting my inbox. I didn't realise that would happen, but it's given me lots to think about.

... thanks velocio for so thoroughly absorbing all that i had to say. Although i'm incarcerated at the moment, and many people here might be thinking: 'hang on a minute, you've no right to lecture us about the rights and wrongs of charging people to spout their minds when you've done wrong by society', what I will nonetheless say about charging people to spout their minds off is this: while it can't be nice for anyone to so selflessly have to use their own money to enable our own self-centred spoutings, it's equally unpalatable that that person should profit from our spoutings. While detained here at Her Majesty's pleasure, my spoutings have been seldom... my cell-mate 'Meester Bunse' (he gained this moniker while working at a community outreach facility in the Outer Hebredes for disabled and partially sighted young offenders when he used a bunsen burner that the project leader used to caramelise the tops of his homemade creme brulees to caramelise the face of a hefty paedophile) only lets me use his broadband connection if I pay him 60 Marlborough Lites, and so, as a result, ever since I've found it very hard to reconcile the need to receieve payment with the need to vent spleen. When I am released from this institution i intend to set up a free website for fixed geared wheelers and everyone except Meester Bunce will be invited.

@ squoocher - excellent!

Best post of the forum. Everer

while it can't be nice for anyone to so selflessly have to use their own money to enable our own self-centred spoutings, it's equally unpalatable that that person should profit from our spoutings.

Where I find this line of thought to be flawed:

1) The internet is free as in speech, but not free as in beer. Someone somewhere paid money for the material cost of making it all function, from servers, to software, to connections and bandwidth.

2) All of the intermediaries DO make money to the point of being able to pay wages... the hosting company, the telecommunication company, the makers of the various bits of software... in fact the only entity in the entire chain that doesn't receive a wage from the collective effort that produced the site is... me. That is, the person who brought all of these parts together and recognised a need in myself and the cycling community, who then invested the time and money and continues to do so, is also the person who has never earned a penny from the site.

3) Others on here DO make money because of the site. Numerous traders and individuals have done considerable business and made a decent amount of money from the site.

4) You recognise material costs, but not resource costs. Costs break down into those buckets, things and people. You're willing to accept that things cost, but somehow feel that people shouldn't. Yet the going rate on the open market for the skillset to run the site as I do starts at £50 per hour, that's the lower end.

And now, when I consider and open a consultation on the need to insulate the site from haphazard funding, extreme peaks and troughs, by creating a revenue stream that can even it all out... all the time with personal profit NOT being the motive I get to face unrealistic bullshit.

I fundamentally think that I do actually have the right to be able to draw a wage from something I create if that which I have created has an inherent value, especially when others and not I are indeed earning money because of it.

I may not be wanting to (doing just fine and not starving, thanks), but the right surely exists?

The view in opposition is more likely to make me want to make money than anything else. I really dislike having what I feel to be my rights denied by others, and I'm not the kind of person who will just accept being told that a right has vanished.

I've read hundreds of responses and am teetering towards NOT implementing a subscription model. However, if another motherfucker just dare try and present a serious argument to the view that I don't have a right to earn even a trivially small token amount from the forum... then really, you'll have guaranteed that I do.

I don't have any intention to cash in or sell out, but just fucking try and tell me that with the time, effort, skill and devotion that I've put in, that I don't have the right to. Just fucking try. You're so wrong.

Must spread reputation.

Keep up the good work.

if you don't want to pay you can start a blog that nobody reads or just send emails to yourself about cycling nonsense.

Well said Velocio, you have my (and i am sure most users) full support whatever you decide to do.

It is great that you have opened this up to debate but at the end of the day do what you need and/or feel is right too and i am sure most of us will stick by you.

VB you have alot of loyal friends and supporters.. you don't have to justify anything, stick with your original plan.. I work for a smaller and smaller wage it seems.. some people do not appreciate the commitment or effort it takes to make things happen. I am talking about the hours spent each day,week month, add it all up VB you will be shocked. No one in their right mind, if they cared about you and this forum, should let you struggle.. you are not re-writing law or rules here, but a concise and frankly honest effort called a business plan.. we should all see that your survival/sanity and keeping LFGSS alive means we all need to contribute a small fee.. fuck the ideology we live in the real world.. ain't nothing free where i come from.. keeping the spirit and free thinking alive is paramount, don't let the doomengers fuck it over and turn this into something it ain't or shouldn't be..

I really wish I knew who these people were, that think Velocio should work near enough 7 days a week, and several hours a day, for more than 2 years without any real payment?

Its so incredibly selfish, thinking that YOU, yes YOU C*NT, should benefit from this forum, and all that it gives you, but one guy, our administrator, sacrifice his arse just for you.

There may be many different ways to fund this forum, but to object to Velocio getting a little something back for years' of sacrifice, makes me just a little bit angry.

Anyway, VB knows I have at least one helpful idea. Lets hope though, as a group we can get something sorted.

+1 on the last few responses, it's VB's site, he can do what he wants, he doesn't have to listen to our opinions, but he does, whatever he decides i'm sure will be the best thing to do, and i'm sure the majority here will agree with what he has to say.

Paying £3 a year really isn't anything at all and I would quite happily pay it.

EDIT: I have since actually checked my email just now and actually partaken in the survey and I don't mind spending the suggest £9 maximum, considering velocio spends a considerable amount of time improving the forum, administering it etc this hardly pays for the effort he puts in.

i just voted other so now i will specify like ive been told to lol
£1 a month £12 a year i think is a fair price and is nothing really to most but adding up £12 per person should cover costs and give velocio a little wager
if it does go a head how would people pay and how would you make sure people pay? notice to pay and if they dont cough up the there blocked/cancelled account (problem i can think of is just make a new account, so it will be down to peoples honesty)
i would need to pay in person or something as i dont use credit cards

i would need to pay in person or something as i dont use credit cards

Would this involve 3am and Southend?

what

I would pay £3 a year just to read squoocher's ramblings....

what

My memory's obviously better than your's. ;-)

i have a shit memory
can you inform me please
im embarrassed, what have i said or done

ahem

Quote:

i did a ride to southend last night
and done the 25 miles in 2 1/2 hours

left at midnight

No mention of cash tho'....

Oh, and you were wearing a grey hoodie and blue jeans. Your mobile was in your front left pocket and you left the front door key under the smaller of the 3 flower pots. Do you want me to go on?

oh
that
i forgot all about that lol
the fun of not thinking, wait till i do a trip down to cornwall and back lol

You guys make me sound like a hard-up saint. The truth is so far from that.

Isn't it a gorgeous day out there? I'm off to study soon, but hope you all have some good rides. It's perfect out there.

Where I find this line of thought to be flawed...

don't break his balls VB, majoritively he offers experience, albeit a somewhat unusual one. Of course your argument is correct, but just seems odd that squoocher should be singled out when his tragi-comic* discourse does give some insight as to why he might suggest to think twice...

*description not intended to trivialise your life, squoocher

As someone who predominantly uses the forum for selling i'd quite happily pay the subs but would also welcome the idea of an additional trader fee as someone pointed out its unfair for someone whos selling a £8 seat post once a year to pay the same as someone who is powerselling and making a substantial amount via the for sale & classifieds.

For those who have started to open their eyes to VB's potential profit making from all of this ( a few pages back), i would say that is the least of his reasons. I pm'd VB about trying to advertise on the forum legitimately a few months back and the main reason for decline at the time was to ensure that the community spirit was maintained and so as not to upset the regular forum members even if it meant as i have now read (3 days late) at his personal cost, a decision which although baffling got my maximum respect.

In our current economic climate its crazy for VB to carry the costs when people such as myself have stated that i would be happy to contribute and pay to have the right to sell without feeling guilty or having people post up snide remarks or alternatively to sell me an advertising banner.

I would suggest that although the £3 subscription is good, and more than reasonable perhaps it would make sense to put a maximum amount of sellers posts on for that £3 eg 2 posts per month, those who post above the annual allowance have a higher fee and maybe those like me who would happily pay a trade fee have a avatar sized distinguishable trade avatar with perhaps a link opportunity underneath their forum name. , therefore a unobtrusive form of advertising but also would distinguish between an occasional seller to a trader and in that way forum members are
aware of who they are buying from.

One of the points i read about the subscription fee was of the posibility of putting off potential members, i have to agree with this, hence why i feel it should be £3 for the classified sections so that the rest of the forum can be enjoyed for free by those who are new and just happen to stumble across it.

Alternatively perhaps having a GUEST sub category like many other forums with restrictions on posting and viewing so say they can only post between 9-5 on the guest forums and no other. That way they get a taster and decide on whether to subscribe as opposed to being met with a demand for money straight away without knowing what benefit will be derived from it.

Just my two pennies worth, which probably doesnt make much sense but hey not much does after an afternoon on the beverage!!!

I've just written out a massive essay on people who only sell on this forum, but decided ICBA to post it. Basically, people who use this forum only to sell should have to pay a eBay type fee on every sale.

And then they'll just sell on ebay.