Suggestion: Paid memberships

[idzone]

To Greg-J and the mods:

Waiting for 60 seconds to send pm's irritates me sometimes. Especially if you are a seller and there are lot of enquiries, it gets irritating.

So a suggestion:

Can we create some kind of system, where a member (after crossing say 100 posts) donates some $10 or something and becomes a trusted member at mspros.

After 100 posts and paid donation, the member can be trusted enough....

You could also increase the pm box size from 1000 to 2000 or something.

What does everyone think?

[DavidR]

When you upgrade/purchase to a sellers account that should come with it. Good suggestion, I have found the 60 limit on PM's a little annoying when replying to people with sales Qs.

[Connections]

yesh true ive seen this on other sites where u can pay extra and get bigger inbox space and all the other things you stated + more things like different coloured names and other junk people like to spend money on.

[idzone]

I don't think a buyer-seller account should be compulsory for this. I am not going to put 4-5 threads a month, but I still want lesser time than 60 secs.

I just thought that some privileges could be given to some members after some posts/ payment.

[kenzie]

Waiting for 60 seconds to send pm's irritates me sometimes. Especially if you are a seller and there are lot of enquiries, it gets irritating.

Yeah, that is irritating. I wouldn't mind paying $10 to get rid of that.

[DavidR]

Why not delete some messages? Do you really need all 500?

I wouldn't pay separately to get rid of the flood control.

[YabbaDoo]

I think the biggest problem Greg has is server resources.
He has limited absolutely everything on the site now.
I think maybe he needs to look into ways of earning profit from this Forum to make the experience better for everyone.
Why not put ads on the site? :S
But, still, I love this idea, they should do it for everything
"Pay $5 to activate the pager if you don't have 100 posts"
"Pay $5 to activate PMs or 100 posts"
So, it's free for regular users, but newbies have to say have 10 posts, and pay to activate all the features that have just been de-activated.
IMO, the current system is extremely unfair on the legit people who have just signed up and can't do anything here lol....This way would reduce spam and earn a bit of cash too :P

[Greg-J]

I'll visit this issue more closely later on in the day and post a response.

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

Personally I like the idea of members kicking in a few bucks to help pay for operating costs.

But the word "trust" should not be bandied about like that. On another forum that I frequent they have many "trusted" (yes, there is a cute little "trusted" logo next to their name) members who have made thousands of posts and who have paid thousands of dollars for "featured" status on the board. There are several of them who I would not take my eyes off of if they were within arm's reach of anything valuable.

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

As far as offering certain board features or priveleges in exchange for a fee, I don't think that would be necessary either. I think all the board owners would have to do is ask for members to kick in a few bucks once in a while - nobody would be "required" to do it - but whoever wants to can do so. I would, and I get the impression that certain others would.

[YabbaDoo]

lyzyrdgyzyrd, you don't seem to understand the reasons why Greg made the choices he did.
It wasn't about the money, it was coz people were joining up just to send out Spam PMs to everyone asking for some kind of link exchange and crap (basically trying to rip people off)
The method I described above would mean new members CAN if they REALLY, URGENTLY need to access features for a small fee, this would prevent spam as it proved effective in the marketplace. Yet it would not affect members who visit here regularly and have over a certain amount of posts for example!
It's a method of rewards + restrictions - Rewarding users for their loyalty and restricting those who have not yet "become loyal", kinda thing lol :)

[Greg-J]

My primary focus with this site is not to earn money on AdSense revenue or $10 subscriptions here and there as it's simply not worth the work I put into this site.

I'm not sure what YabbaDoo is referring to when saying I have limited absolutely everything now as the only thing I have changed is the the post count to PM someone, but for good reason. The instant messenger was only added to the site recently so any limits there are simply by way of introducing it to the site.


I think paying to get around 25 posts so you can PM is kind of silly. You can reply to PM's regardless of your post count.

The instant messaging restriction to 100 posts also has a lot to do with keeping the forums active. A lot of the conversation that goes on in the forums would be moved to private messaging making the forums less busy and eventually less used which I think everyone can agree is not a good thing. At 100 posts it becomes a privilege and those who make it that high are here to stay and here to continue posting.



The only way I would make the forum pay to play is if it got to a point where I needed to monetize it to continue furthering development of the community and its features in which case I would make the forum entirely subscription based. Not the best way to grow a community though eh?

I don't think having 25 posts in order to PM is a big deal and there are always enough active topics to get 25 posts in a short amount of time without spamming or bringing up old topics. The instant messenger is available to those people who have proven they are community contributors and I think that's fair.

The private message restriction has been moved from 60 seconds to 15 seconds though.

[idzone]

The private message restriction has been moved from 60 seconds to 15 seconds though.


Thanks. Greatly appreciated!