What do you think is fair?

[Paul]

you will see martin donation from my email address...

[JSR]

If members would prefer total transparancy with costs I can do that. We used to have the graph showing current funds for each project, maybe this would be good to put back?

In the case of donations, putting up a chart with a total required together with "Donate" buttons beneath would be a good option. It might also be useful to put a note next to it saying "x out of 450 members have donated" so that everyone knows where the situation stands.

If everyone knows the target, what the donations are for, and how far there is to go, then it would probably help encourage donations.

Perhaps also, everyone who contributes to answer a question could have a line in their signature which goes something like - "Have you been helped today? You can help others - your donation of £5 will help to keep this forum running.", with a link to the donate page/button.

[Justin]

If everyone knows the target, what the donations are for, and how far there is to go, then it would probably help encourage donations.

This certainly always used to be the case. When I put the graph up and said we need x for hosting etc. we very quickly met the targets.

[John G]

Oh come on - this is a business, as soon as Justin realises this the better. Your saying that you don't want anything for doing all the background work, ground work, updating the forum and spending anywhere between 2 - 7 hours per day/week sorting this forum out for free - what happens when someone has a problem and wants value for money for their membership - who's accountable.

This has got to be ran as a profitable business - cannot see it surviving any other way.

[Paul]

This has got to be ran as a profitable business - cannot see it surviving any other way.

john. did you ever ben member of subli-nation forum???

[JSR]

Many people run forums without it being a business (I'm one of them).

Accountability is an important factor, though. If people pay their fiver and expect immediate and instant help/support, which they then don't get, they would rightly think that there should be someone to blame.

It would need to be clearly specified that the forum membership consists of volunteers who don't get paid for their time and that the membership fee is purely to pay for hosting costs.

If this isn't clearly stated then people would expect immediate and instant help/support and the only way to accomplish this would be to pay those who answer the questions - this, in turn, would increase the membership fee significantly. That situation would be untenable because no one would pay the high costs associated with paying people to answer questions.

[Paul]

but... I think £5 would be not for customer service. It would be for the forum content

[John G]

I don't think it should be volunteers - and no, I was never a member of the subli-nation forum. I run a business and don't expect others to give their time for free which is the reason for my post regarding "What kind of a business is your business".

The above thread showed that out of around 23 DSF members 9 were either hobby, beer money or charity ran. Well running a business would i want to give info to my competitors that don't pay tax, keep books or pay vat and can crucify me with their prices. It really opened my eyes and after seeing the results i'd be very wary about giving info so freely to non paying members. Times are pretty hard at the moment and the last thing i'd want is to be under cut by someone producing mugs, or printed t'shirts from their bedroom, that id's given free advice to!

[JSR]

It really opened my eyes and after seeing the results i'd be very wary about giving info so freely to non paying members. Times are pretty hard at the moment and the last thing i'd want is to be under cut by someone producing mugs, or printed t'shirts from their bedroom, that id's given free advice to!

I mentioned something like this early on in the discussion. My concern was that it's fine for newbies to pay because they're saving money by having the experts solve their problems. The experts have already been through it, wasted money and time, to find the answers.

While the newbies get value for money for their payment, the experts are being asked to pay money and then help their competition to undercut them - which doesn't really make a lot of sense for those who are answering the questions. By making everyone pay, there's the risk that the experts with the answers will go away, leaving all the newbies with plenty of questions but no answers.

That doesn't seem to be the way forward because we need to encourage experts to post here, not chase them away. There needs to be something to be gained for the experts as well as the uninitiated.

[Paul]

Times are pretty hard at the moment and the last thing i'd want is to be under cut by someone producing mugs, or printed t'shirts from their bedroom, that id's given free advice to!

I am not sure If I understnad this sentence corectly... Do you mean you wont help somone with they printing problems for free?? Only becouse they may offer cheaper goods then you?