ex-webby

Hi All

Although I will never go down the blanket subscription route for scoobynet, over the last few months I've had a number of requests for such a service.

I am considering setting up a "Gold Member's" (or similar) forum which will only be accessible by the subscibing members. The subscription will cost something like £5 a month to pay for admin / bank charges, etc and help support scoobynet. If enough people subscribe, we might be able to add additional features, and will put the necessary time into providing additional gold member services like discounts, and a few other things I'm in negociations with companies about.

If you are one of the people that has been pushing for a subsciption service, this is your chance to make it happen by showing your interest here. If there is enough interest I will set the wheels in motion.

All the best

Simon

Spudgun GTR

i dont have a 'gold member', just a big 'un

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

£60 annually? I've heard of worse, so sign me up

Cheers,

Nick

DocJock

Count me in Simon

Anthony King

Webby,
I don't agree with this as we already have a subscription based organisation (SIDC). I'm also not sure what you gain from having a two tiered membership. If this involves special members only areas it surely goes against what Scoobynet is all about!

ex-webby

Hi All

I would like to state clearly that this would in NO WAY be a competitor to the SIDC. We will not (unless something dramatic changes) be running tracks days, etc, and this suggestion is only in response to the requests I have had from the members for scoobynet.

As with every other aspect of scoobynet, if the members want it, it will happen, otherwise it won't.

All the best

Simon

stephen emery

count me in 2

RB5SCOTT

I agree with Anthony

If enough people sign up and it goes ahead there will be a seperation, and if the gold members only choose to post in their forums it would leave the non-subscribing members with a lack-lustre scoobynet.

If people are pissed off with some of the stupid comments from various members of scoobynet then more should be done to get these people banned. Whats to say these people would'nt want to sign up to the subscription too, admitedly it would get rid of some of the children but Imatrukas would still sign up

I like scoobynet but i don't like it enough to pay for it

Scott

[Edited by RB5SCOTT - 3/3/2002 7:18:21 PM]

EvilBevel

Hi Simon,

A few thoughts ... I think it may be worth thinking a moment or two about what problem exactly such a forum would "solve"... but I'll try to keep this as short as possible

That paying forum could have a very negative effect on Scoobynet to be honest... one the one hand you might end up with a "gold clique" where the regulars meet & give advice, and on the other hand the free forums where new people are left wondering who knows a thing or two about the Subaru ... I'm not saying it WILL happen, but you might end up with a sort of "class" system.

Also ... if it is to stop some of the negative effects of what we are seeing today ... it's not because one pays xx quid that they will be one of "the good guys"... what I mean is that if someone pays money for this, it is not a guarantee that they will play nice. I could think of a few sad people (like me ) that would pay, and thus becoming *customers* instead of just members of a community. Now you try telling a customer he/she should back off ?

One of the strengths of this BBS (but not the only one) is the wealth of information available for all to read, and you need the people who share a wealth of information to keep the content "alive". If they were only to post in the closed forum, new people would not be able to benefit from that information.

As you said in the other thread ... the situation in most of the forums if not as bad as it seems ... I think the last post to be moved to the Muppet forum from Drivetrain was 2 months ago, and this was just some banter about someone being a guru etc (very innocent). Same goes for the other technical forums etc... I don't think it would be wise to break that formula. With the upcoming FAQ JF is working one, and if we can get search working again, the technical forums are nothing short of brilliant. Same goes for a lot of other forums where you hardly ever see any trouble, and even the muppet forum is pretty behaved & great fun most of the time, until some loudmouth starts to go off on a tangent there (they often come from General).

We already have a "closed" forum BTW, and that is chat. Often in there, you can talk about things you would not do on the BBS, go in a private room with a few people, or have a Private Message session.

Erm... I said I'd keep it short

If you really look at it, there are only a few people really trying to spoil things, and I personally think that you & the moderators should use the "hammer" on them with a bit more vigeour. I fully realize that's not easy, but it may work.

You have always been against paying membership, and I think opening a closed forum for "the good guys" may effectively force people to join that group because the other forums loose a bit of their weight ... you would then need to make subsections in the closed forum to channel the topics a bit ... and you might effectively end up with 2 BBS's, which is not what you want.

I think you need to look at other schemes, but I can't pretend I know which one would be best. But I'm sure you want a) only one community, b) information available for all to read, newbie or not and c) a way of shutting up people if they go too far.

What about ... free membership means you get to read all the posts (as it is now), and can post 10 (or another number) of topics yourself before you need to pay a small annual fee if you want to post more topics ? Sure, I can already see that being "worked around", but you can find ways to make it harder to just create new user ID's in seconds. Email addresses are not important in this scheme, as you can create hundreds of those in just a day.
Whatever we would come up with, it would take TIME to carefully think this one over.

I fully understand the feeling that things are going a bit overboard - especially in General, but I'm sure we can go a long way in correcting that before thinking about the "paying" route.

I somehow feel guilty now in the way that it was probably "da big thread" that stirred up the feelings again, and in a way that's a shame ... that thread was becoming a "Scoobynet classic" until it went off into namecalling after page 8 or 9. A bit of moderation (Michelle tried to do this) from the forum moderator might have calmed down things a bit, and we would all still be giggling about it instead of having a bad feeling about it...

I think you need:

a) one or two more moderators for General (it's the busiest place with the most potential for runaway posts)
b) search working again
c) your presence on here as you are a true diplomat most of the time
d) a firmer moderator hand when needed sometimes (i.e. *banning* ID's when people continue to go over the limit afther they got a warning)

I realize it's not nice to play cops, but in general I think you & the moderators take too much crap from time to time to be honest.

Anyway, I said I'd keep it short LOL, but I don't think the paying closed forum would be a good idea (but I'm happy to sponsor scoobynet, it's not about money this one as you probably know)

HTH,

Theo

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Theo, excellently worded, as always!.

There are valid points for and against this and I think that putting my calm head on, this place was indeed created for freedom of speech (within reason) and collective benefit. I hightly doubt that the moderators don't already have enough to do on here, but I do think that 'User Kicking' should be used employed occasionally.

Cheers,

Nick.

R19KET

Hmmm,

I suspect that some people want a "private" forum, to get away from the continual cr*p, that's infesting the bbs these days, and others will just like the idea of being a memeber of an elitest forum, further suggested by your "Gold members" forum.

Just how hard would it be to have a forum such as used by the moderators, and just allow passwords to those who have shown they are responsible.

Simon, I'd also wish that you'd stop making coments like "supporting Scoobynet" like it was a charity. It's not, and whilst it may be free to it's members, it's a COMMERCIAL venture, paid for by it's advertisers.

Half the problem that exists on Scoobynet is because it is COMMERCIAL. There is a conflict of interest between attracting lots of members, and therefore "hits" on the site, making it attractive to the advertisers, and on the other hand restricting the "type" of member, and there numbers.

Scoobynet is free, because having a blanket charge would drastically reduce the number of members, the number of "hits", and it's appeal to advertisers.

I'm not suggesting that Scoobynet is "raking it in", or even breaking even, it's none of my business. However, it BLATANTLY is a BUSINESS, and I suspect with longer term plans of most .COM owners.

Mark.




[Edited by R19KET - 3/3/2002 12:19:18 PM]

RB5SCOTT

So Nick, what side of the fence you on

Sparks

I'm pretty much a lurker. I read info and take it on board, there are alot of clever guys here who really know their stuff.

Imprezas are popular - thats why the board attracts so much attention, sadly some of it is undesirable (sp?).

Bear in mind that there is nothing to stop *anyone* paying the subscription charge and still coming into the forums. I think I'm right in saying that it wouldn't be any easier to ban them from the subscription only forums than it is to ban them from the bbs as it is. Please, do correct me if I am wrong.

I can see the reason for doing it, I'm just not sure its the answer, or at least not the whole solution.

That said, the "spirit of scoobynet" is still very much alive here. As others have mentioned a subscription based system may cause that to be lost on the "free" forums, alienating new comers to the scene.

My 2p worth.

chrisp

This is a tough one Si. I can see both sides, if you did go down this route then I would definitely subscribe and I think it msybe very useful. You can keep the riff-raff out and cancel subscriptions off troublemakers . The problem will be that people paying for gold forums will spend most of their time in there, obviously.

I may be wrong but this could lead to the dilution of knowledge on the rest of the board.


On the other hand if this will keep scoobynet bank balance healthy then I am all for that as well. Maybe a scoobynet Gold card and stickers .

GM

I think I'd probably pay the £5 - at least for a while - but I think Theo's comments are very valid and I would share his concerns about a possible "split".

G

Scott J Davies

YES YES YES YES

I'll even moderate it for you.

As its the subscription area a small fee will be charged for my services every month of course

Sbradley

I understand the reasoning behind this suggestion, but personally I'm not in favour. I think one of the things that makes Scoobynet what it is is the fact that it is all totally accessible. Personally, I see a tiered system as being counter productive unless you set it up in the same sort of way as Friends Reunited in that you can read anything, you can register and you can receive posts through the system free of charge, but you can't send anything unless you subscribe. Maybe the same would work here - read what you like for free but if you want to add you pearls of wisdom then it will cost.

Doing it that way would still leave the wealth of information on the site open for anyone to see, and a newbie would be able to decide for him/her self whether it was worth the few quid a year it would cost to ask a specific question/make a comment or whether someone had already done it adnd the answer is right there for the reading.

I think that makes sense...

Ian Cook

Not in favour of a subscription service ! Would lead to all sorts of complications !

You DO need more moderators, maybe get rid of moderators on single forums, and make 2 or 3 moderators for each forum, sharing the workload of several forums between them, you need a moderator on General that actually reads the bbs everyday not once every so often !

Andy W

Would I pay a subscription for scooynet?........Yes.

Do I think it is in the best interests of scoobynet and the scoobynet community? .... Probably not.

IMHO of course.

Andy Hey 1000 posts!!

EvilBevel

Hi Mark,

>>Just how hard would it be to have a forum such as used by the moderators, and just allow passwords to those who have shown they are responsible.

Wouldn't that have the same effect ... it would be a sad day for this BBS if people like yourself would only post in such a forum (not meant as sucking up, I mean that).

>>Simon, I'd also wish that you'd stop making coments like "supporting Scoobynet" like it was a charity. It's not, and whilst it may be free to it's members, it's a COMMERCIAL venture, paid for by it's advertisers.

Hmmm... I understand what you are saying, but I think it can be easily disproven by the fact that other - non commercial - BBS's show the same symptoms. In other words, it's what happens when you attract a lot of people who can freely post, which is great in 90 % of the cases & a pain in the other 10 %.

I personally have never felt that the "content" of this BBS was "manipulated" because of commercial interests. And maybe I'm naive, but even if Simon was just "in it for the money" (which I think is not the case at all), some people do value the community idea. Yeah, it may sound a bit corny, but I really do think that a lot of people get the odd giggle, good bit of advice, friendship etc out of this BBS, so, even though being a cynic, I do think there is indeed something as a community on here (with all it's good & bad points, like in real life).

I do agree with you however that the bigger the BBS becomes, the more difficult it gets to keep it "flowing".

>>Scoobynet is free, because having a blanket charge would drastically reduce the number of members

I always wondered if that would be correct ? Mind you, I always tended to be on the side of paying membership, because you would not be ast risk of being called "sold out". If something has a value, people are prepared to pay for it. I'm sure there would be less members, but I'm also sure it would still be more than 3000 to 4000, provided you keep READING free (you need to attract people before you can charge them).

Now even with "less" members, you would have the occasional *********. Paying 5 quid doesn't make one intelligent, do you agree ? Maybe easier to monitor - hence my suggestion for having a few more moderators (or as IC suggested, giving more moderators the right to moderate General).

The discussion about whether commercial is always the same as "non-content, give the masses what they want" is a long & difficult one, and disproven time & time again by magazines where there is a strict separation between the editors & the commercial side of things. It can be a commercial interest to have quality postings & a focussed number of people. But as I said, this discussion would take things too far.

Theo

stuart12

In short, I agree with Theo. I dont think that subscription based forum is a good idea.
Just a thought, it could be classed as discrimination against people who could't afford the £60

Stuart

Neil Smalley

I agree with Theo(EB)

I've not got time to write it all down, so Theo's response is sage advice IMHO

There are more troublesome muppets now, but a charging based 'gold' level of forum would create more problems than it solved.

The muppet forum used to be place to sling all the cr*p, it's now more a joke/sillyness forum. Either cr*p gets deleted right away, and everyone is made to read guidelines for posting or it's moved to another new forum especially for cr*p

WREXY

I'm also with Theo on this one.

Wrexy.

catflap

im with theo as well

There will alwais be cr*p on scooby net, most of t can be simply gnored, if its that offensive, moderators, remove the thread.

A suscription could kill us, its so goo dbecause we have so many people speaking their minds, and 99% of the time it works.

Dont loose what we have for the 1% of retards

cryptwalk

I think it would be the undoing of scoobynet. Just more moderators and more harsh moderation is needed IMHO.

It has been invaded by undesirables recently, mentioning no names but this could be delt with like the rs bbs does. Works for them.

Great~taste~Bloke

gold membership imho would be the begining of the end a fragmented bbs with the people with the real advice not attending on the general forum. Moderation is required and perhaps a black mark by known offenders on warning and banning repeat offenders?
Matthew

SCOSaltire

No No No

i have read today and can see some people are fed up
i read less articles than b4... in general.. but read lots more in other Forums... e.g. drivetrain, scotland.
5 quid wont solve it.
i would not pay the 5 quid.
and would be peeved at not getting into the info in the gold forum...
same as i would not pay for that school mates site.

think of another way to tackle this... i take it its related to the slaggin off, winding up, and racism stuff.

P1Fanatic

Hmm I could afford £60 per year but I think thats a little steep for a lot of people and wouild make others think twice about forking out. I think the lancer register is gonna start charging £25 pa for post writing priveleges - I think thats a lot more reasonable.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Scott, What I meant by my second comment was that after the mild red haze had lifted from making my first choice, I agreed that it would be ashame if we went down that route. This used to be a completely friendly place, but more recently, wind-up merchants/complete and utter fruitloops have been jumping on and doing there best to completely and utterly do our heads in.
I am a nice, relatively level-headed bloke 99% of the time, but sometimes things are said on here, be it to me or a friend, which I deem to be completely unnacceptable. That's when I lose my rag,when complete strangers feel that they have the right to talk to us in such a detrimental manner. Tact, manners and a good grasp of the english language(as in being able to argue something without resorting to a sprinkling of profanities and cussing of people and members of their family etc...) all help to all help to alleviate these possible situations cropping up, IMO.
That and of course NOT SHOUTING EVERYTHING THAT YOU TYPE!

Just crack down on abusers a bit more, that's all that is needed, methinks.

Thanks,

Nick.

R19KET

Theo,

I just realised, that it may have sounded like "I" wanted a seperate forum, I don't care either way.

Personally, I find the the vast majority of threads are not even worth opening, so I don't bother. It seems that "some" members only concern, is how many "posts" they can make, regardless of the PATHETIC, IRRELEVANT content. That's fine too, but I just wish that people would use the right forum !!!!

Any bbs/forum will attract the type of people it caters for, just like newspapers !! The quality of the content is based on the nature of it's reader/contributers !!!!!!!!!!

The ONLY way you will improve the bbs, is to have more moderators. One moderator for General, is a joke, let alone Stef seems to have less time to spend monitoring the forum.

Then you have to make sure that the forums are used correctly, and not cluttered up with CR*P.

Lastly, let's be honest, if Scoobynet shut down tomorrow, people would just go elsewhere. They really don't care where they go, so long as they have somewhere to post, find out info, have a few laughs, and meet like minded people.....

Mark.