Your input is requested!

[JSR]

JSR, don't think you can host a members forum for £30.00 per year - it costs that for a basic website.

I don't see why not. A basic 3GB of webspace from Easyspace costs £2.50 per month (£31.05 pa). Bung the free YaBB on there, and you're ready to go. If membership increases or bandwidth proves to be a problem, then it'd be time to look for a more capable package but it doesn't make sense to put the cart before the horse.

Regarding different membership levels:
1st level - Registering for free - allows access to forum/chit chat/printpress info, question/answer. No member profiles or pm's

2nd level - As above but with tutorials given by paid members + pm's

3rd level - As above but with file swapping, design help and member profiles.

If this was put into practice, I don't know that many people would go for paid-for membership anyway. Experienced members wouldn't need the tutorials, so they wouldn't pay for them - and it'd be a negative if those members who contributed would have to be paid. And the 3rd level wouldn't necessarily work because people would contact each other my email or off-site. I can't see any money being made like that.

Also, if members provide tutorials and one turns out to be wrong, causing a paid member to ruin his work and waste his stock, who's responsibility would it be?

All above now irrevalent as its going to be free to all.

I don't think that's what Justin said. He said he will seek other ways but that "membership may well be a must, we'll see". The more pros and cons that can be discussed, the better idea he'll have for the future.

[Justin]

That's right. I would very much like to keep it free, that was the initial aim. If I can run the forum with no financial input i will (an have thus far) but if we don't go the advertising route and costs start to increase we need to look at alternatives. I have a completely open mind at this stage and debating it here really helps.

Justin

[John G]

Hi JSR,
The levels suggested above do work - I'm a member of a sign based forum, along with Justin, that has this structure in place and it does work. It weeds out the serious from the members that only post once or twice and never post again. It is also a very informative site and has a large member base. Because it is a paid for forum it has some clout in the industry and suppliers take it more serious offering good incentives and trade discounts to paid members. I don't think this would happen, on an ongoing bases, if this site continued to be free.

Justin: I hope you are successful in running this as a free site, it's great to be here and its an excellent site.

Had a good morning debating this and also Newcastle United won which has also made my weekend.

Cheers John

[Justin]

Cheers John, good weekend all round for you! I'm no longer a member of the sign forum I'm afraid, I was booted off!

Justin

[John G]

didn't know that - but you have to admit, it does work.

[Justin]

Yes, the look and feel of the forum is great

[JSR]

Hi JSR,
The levels suggested above do work - I'm a member of a sign based forum, along with Justin, that has this structure in place and it does work. It weeds out the serious from the members that only post once or twice and never post again. It is also a very informative site and has a large member base. Because it is a paid for forum it has some clout in the industry and suppliers take it more serious offering good incentives and trade discounts to paid members. I don't think this would happen, on an ongoing bases, if this site continued to be free.

Justin: I hope you are successful in running this as a free site, it's great to be here and its an excellent site.

Had a good morning debating this and also Newcastle United won which has also made my weekend.

Cheers John

Can't argue with anecdotal evidence. Don't see it working here, myself, though... But I shan't have a coronary if I'm wrong.

[Justin]

I was a contributing member of the Sign forum for a few years but never paid to get the additional access. I thought about it as it may have been useful but maybe i'm just too mean! I do think it can put new members off but I got what I needed form the forum at the free level.

Justin

[JSR]

I was a contributing member of the Sign forum for a few years but never paid to get the additional access. I thought about it as it may have been useful but maybe i'm just too mean! I do think it can put new members off but I got what I needed form the forum at the free level.

Justin

There is the danger that no one would pay. And if a free member asks the question "what's the best way to press a mug?", will everyone be banned from saying anything except "you'll have to pay to access the tutorial"..?

And how soon before one person pays, gets the tutorials, then offers them for free elsewhere over the internet?

Yeah, I know, I'm pessimistically looking at the negatives... Glass half-empty, and all that....

[Stitch Up]

I'm a paid up member of UKSignbords and have been for a few years. You can't compare this forum to UKSB if that's the benchmark.

UKSB has 1000's of members and recently notched up 1,000,000 posts! Many of it's members make their living from signs. There's a quotes & sub-contracting section - I've made money from this easily covering the cost of membership. A couple of members have written books

DSF has been running for a few months and I believe there are not many more than 30 contributiong members. The vast majority doing dye-sub as a hobby or sideline.

The costs at present are minimal and will easily be met by a few donations.

The matters to be discussed now is where do you want this forum to go, do you want file hosting etc etc. Now is the time to shift to another hosting if it's considered necessary.

John